A nut of a devil

Last time, on Quentin's Blog:

For easy reference, and simply because it's cool, I shall refer to myself from lower secondary as "the Devil"...
*snip*
Hmm... hold on... all that has nothing to do with me becoming an ass now does it? Maybe a little. For that was part of what led to the somewhat anti-social state Quentin reached when he was freaking transferred for failing.

What did I fail? How badly? Why? The following are the Devil's overall marks and grades at the end of Sec 2 at River Valley High School:

ENGLISH LANGUAGE
63/B4
HIGHER CHINESE
39/F9 (bloody horrible...)
ENGLISH LITERATURE
29/F9
HISTORY
28/F9
GEOGRAPHY
58/C5
CIVICS & MORAL EDUCATION
-/B (rather surprising considering my reputation there)
ARTS AND CRAFTS
49/D7
PHYSICAL EDUCATION
-/B
MUSIC
-/C
MATHEMATICS
60/B4
COMPUTER APPRECIATION (what the hell, I don't remember this)
-/C
SCIENCE
62/B4
HOME ECONOMICS
34/F9
TECHNICAL
46/D7

Total : 468.0/1000
Percentage : 46.8/100
Conduct : FAIR (Worst conduct they can give. May very well mean we've dreamt of you burning in Hell several times, and we liked it.)
Results : Failed
Promotion Status : TRANSFERRED TO SEC 3 EXPRESS

Some of the Devil's teachers and the Devil himself may have you believe the terrible results was largely due to irresponsible behaviour and lack of study. I think back and suspect that the Devil must simply not be that good at studying in the first place, and was additionally affected by all that shit he was facing.

After the end of Sec 2 I had to transfer school which I didn't feel much like doing. I was telling my mother that if I couldn't get into a school willing to put me in a decent class that I might as well end my studies. I didn't like this schooling business anyway.

Subsequently I ended up in Shuqun Secondary School, where they seemed more than happy to take me into their best Express class even though I fared horribly in Sec 2. After all, I did pwn all of their students in the PSLE didn't I? Surely this kid can't be that bad.

On my first day at Shuqun, some guy asked whether he can call me Kacang, which ended up being what I was called about a third of the time there. Regretfully, whatever potential the school saw in me did not surface. I got through Sec 3 and Sec 4 without exceptional results, generally just having good enough results to make it seem like Kacang can do well without caring.

I didn't get a CCA because I simply wasn't in the mood to do much after I was transferred from RV, I was just there to get my secondary education over with. After being transferred I also found myself unable to face many of my old friends. Certainly they were nice people, but Quentin is a proud person who simply cannot take a failure like this and be able to face his friends. Because of my mood then I became quite a bit of an ass - more vulgar, "friendless".

I am very glad that is generally in the past now.

Been some time hasn't it?

So it just came to me recently that this blogging thing that I do is actually also a time-waster like so many other things that I do. How so? Because now that I have lots of free time and nothing to do, I actually blog less. Strange how I'm using something that actually requires some thinking as a time-waster.

Anyway, today I was thinking back to a time before I was as much of an ass as I am now (not that I'm that much of an ass actually). A time when I actually might order drinks for my friends when I go to the drink store myself. A time when I actually called people "friends". A time when I spoke less vulgar. (A time when I was less boastful? Nah...) The change started during my lower secondary school days.

For easy reference, and simply because it's cool, I shall refer to myself from lower secondary as "the Devil" (the other Devil shall be referred to with his other names, or simply "that evil guy/thing/demon"). I didn't have a nickname in my lower secondary school days, not that I can recall anyway, but there was this once a teacher of mine said something along these lines: "This Quentin ah... He looks like an angel but he's the Devil". Of course this would imply a certain degree of awesome in my young ego but then I was quite a screwed up individual at the time.

Main point is, from the Devil's perspective, he wasn't trying to be a bad student or anything. All he was was just bloody lazy, and afraid, and what have you. Shit happened. Detention. Calling up by teachers at night. Scolding (read: shouting). Escaping of detention (WTF was the Devil thinking?). Sitting/standing in front of the assembly. "Counselling" sessions (weren't pleasant). And other stuff.

Certainly the Devil did not intend for all that to happen - even though he was definitely largely responsible - and he was rather confounded by how a big deal could be made of it, and so am I. Of course in retrospect I can almost see how I may look like a total dick of a student to my teachers - I can almost see.

Hmm... hold on... all that has nothing to do with me becoming an ass now does it? Maybe a little. For that was part of what led to the somewhat anti-social state Quentin reached when he was freaking transferred for failing.

All that, and more, next time, on Quentin's Blog :D.

Controller Revolution

If you're into this sort of thing, you probably already have heard, seen, read ... and heard, read, and read again about the controller that Nintendo revealed for its next-generation game console (previously codenamed Revolution, presently nameless) that kinda looks like a remote control (disambiguation: a TV remote control).

Linkies: Gamespot impressions, Gamespot on the unveiling, 1UP article, eToychest interview, Eurogamer interview

I figure this will be lots of fun but deviating so much from the rather standard console controller design will freak quite a few gamers. From what I've read from a few forums a small number have been freaking quite a lot :).

Anyway I'm now very excited about this new console and I will almost certainly buy it when it's released, by which time I'd have probably (read: definitely) graduated from Poly.

Of course my excitement doesn't really mean much these days because I'm excited about everything. Yesterday I was quite excited when one of my sister's bear dolls defeated the evil bolster-like-thing after a rather one-sided fight that mainly involved the bear headbutting and sitting on the bolster monster. I think I'm getting closer to losing it.

I really should be studying, but what the hey

Do a Google Image Search of Mélissa Theuriau. That there is quite possibly the best thing I've ever seen on the Internet.

Just a little background. Mélissa Theuriau is a French news presenter for LC1 in, erm, France. And she is pretty - very.

Another link for video goodness (Warning:possibly offensive ads).

Thanks FARK!

Oh my...

This comment was for the entry two posts down. Looks like comment spam to me.

Where are Weblogs Inc and Gawker Media's Katrina Appeal ads?
Duncan Riley> I have a great deal of respect for both Nick Denton and Jason Calacanis, and indeed both have provided interesting and thoughtful coverage on the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, but here's a ...
Hey, you have a great blog here! I'm definitely going to bookmark you!

I have a mortgage company san diego site. It pretty much covers mortgage company san diego related information.

Come and check it out if you get time :-)

Couldn't the guy have tried harder to make it not seem like spam? I mean, "Hey, you have a great blog here! I'm definitely going to bookmark you! BTW check out my site for san diego mortgages" would definitely make it seem soooo much less spammy. And boost my ego in the process too. This? This is just lame. Who the hell is Calacanis? Why does his name sound so cool?

EDIT (4:58PM): *looks at comments, turns on word verification for comments* Why do people do lame shit like this?

I changed back my blog title

ooooooooooooooh

So this guy Bruce writes about Singapore...

For me, the unsettling aspect of Singapore isn't their repression, which is subtle and always nicely-dressed in legalisms. No, the weird part is the public exhortations, the regime's Taoist PR campaign. They've got some kind of genuine Techno-Confucian Mandate of Heaven thing going on. It's being carried out by really bright, eager, workaholic city apparatchiks who are keenly rehearsed.


Once you've got the population ship-shape through relentless moral pressure and the efficient delivery of social goods, they really don't require a lot of caning and drug executions; on the contrary, even though they're not all spontaneous and touchy-feely, they're proud of themselves. They're not real thrilled at waving party flags and national banners -- they'd obviously rather go shopping -- but, well, they put up with the official triumphalism. They seem to take some comfort in knowing that some exquisitely educated Lion City mandarin is firmly in charge of coining slogans.

Link from Boing Boing.

To me, this deserves a big "HUH?" Partly because of the terms I have never/very rarely seen like "Mandate of Heaven", "apparatchiks", and what have you. I am rather weirded out by the reference to Taoism and I completely do not understand the part about taking comfort in some educated mandarin (oranges?).

The guy mentions the city state machine politics and the competence Singapore's government. He claims "competence doesn't seem like a big deal until you are forced to realize that your own government (US of A) has none". To me a government's competence seems like something one should take for granted. What? You mean not all governments are competent? For shame! ;)

Post-ish

This is a test-ish entry about how wheel-ish putting "-ish" behind nouns or verbs to make them into adjectives is. Already to me this seems stone-ish and an atom-ish cannot-be-done-ish thing to do.

WTH. Why am I even doing this? This is Terry Fox-ish.

Highlight here for explanations.

test-ish: this is self explanatory
wheel-ish: usable; good
stone-ish: hard
an atom-ish cannot-be-done-ish thing: a little impossible thing
Terry Fox-ish: Terry Fox was lame. No disrespect meant, just needed a sufficiently famous and lame person.

WAAAHHHHHHH!!!

Just a while ago I was thinking about why the hell I'm so bored these days. Then I figured this was probably because I had a few school projects to complete (ie. things to actually DO). Instead of becoming less bored due to the fact that I had things to do, I don't feel like doing those things and therefore actively seek for other things to do. I can't find that many things to do, and normally I wouldn't care, but because I'm doing this to keep away from the projects, I keep looking. Looking for something to do is incredibly boring, especially little things that are not supposed to take up much time, just keep me away from my projects until I feel like doing them, so I'm not looking for fruitful activities, but rather for time-wasters.

I think I might pick up a language at the end of the semester. I'm thinking French. Hmm... I'm so screwed up.

Because I'm bored... and because I wrote this in my project report

hey it rhymes...

I'm guessing my project supervisor will probably get me to remove this part from my report. Since I don't feel like doing anything else...

Below is a list of variations of the word “blog” ranging from the somewhat realistic to the downright ridiculous. I expect some of these words to become commonly used in the future:
•Celebrog – A blog created in conjunction with or as a celebration.
•Cereblog – Frequent updating of an individual’s mind, referring to the everyday process of learning or thinking. May also refer to a blog updated by telepathy or mind-control, and the act of updating such a blog.
•Corplog – A corporate blog.
•Phoneblog – Similar to audioblog, a blog made up of audio recordings. Otherwise, a blog updated by the use of a telephone, or the act of updating such a blog.
•Shoutblog – A blog in which every letter is capitalised, making it seem as if the author is constantly speaking loudly. Otherwise, a blog updated in some way related to shouting, and the act of updating such a blog. The term “shoutblogging” may be shortened into the word “shouting”.