YiBi's Life|Live Log

I thought of a new tagline for Earth Hour – Less CO2 Emission, More Procreation.

This is really suitable in the Singapore context, with the government so worried about falling birth rates. There was a joke (which perhaps has some truth in it) that during the old days, people had no electricity, so no TV, no radio, no computer, no internet. Basically no entertainment. So what was the best (and free) activity when lights goes off? Right..having sex. So the problem with procreation did not exist then.

So right here in Singapore, we should encourage longer Earth Hour, maybe 3 hours. Everything off (punt intended!) and there you have it, come Earth Hour next year, we will have more new infant supporters. *grinz*

My itchy hands got the better of me again. Ubuntu 9.04 is in Alpha6, which means there are things that could still be broken. But alas, I could not control my itchy hands, so I went ahead and upgraded from the current 8.10.

Fortunately, I did not regret the upgrade. The whole interface seems faster compared to 8.10. I was actually worried that it’s going to get slower, like my last upgrade from 7.10 to 8.10. I guess the improvement could be from the newer version of Xorg and/or the ext4 filesystem. I hated the ext3 filesystem because it’s so slow.

Here’s more information on Ubuntu 9.04 codenamed Jaunty Jackalope.

Anyway this is the machine that I use at work, the laptop’s provided by my company. Nothing beats my personal Macbook at this point of time. :)

As part of my effort to improve my physical fitness (and appearance), I have been getting into more activities. I’m jogging more regularly and bought a new mountain bike. And being a geek, naturally I would want to visualise the efforts in a geeky manner. So now I’m plotting my routes and paths with Nokia N95. Problem is, carrying my N95 while jogging is not that ideal. It’s relatively too thick and heavy. But I guess I found my solution.

Nokia is pairing up with Polar to provide a package which includes the Polar Heart Rate Monitor. The heart rate monitor will feed data to the N79 via Bluetooth and all the information gets recorded into the Nokia Sports Tracker software on the phone. This is cool, and really what I have been planning to do.

Watch this advertisement for the N79 Active. I do find it abit too cheesy at the ending though, too geeky..hehe..

Nokia N79 Active Advertisement

There’s only 1 problem now. Where can I get this from in Singapore?

Finally, I brought my new bike out after keeping it in the room for about a month. So this is the virgin ride, other than the ride home on the day I bought it. I was supposed to meet up with some friends nearby, so I thought I cycled instead of driving, it’s going to be good exercise.

This was the path I cycled.

Cycling Trail – 19/03/2009

I’m tracking my paths with Google Map so that I know how much I have cycled. Next time round, I will be using the Nokia Sports Tracker to record the path. Was supposed to use that, but there’s serious issues with the battery life if I use the internal GPS. I will write about it another day, so I won’t go into details here.

It was raining cats and dogs over the weekend, so my interest for cycling was really drowned. I will attempt again this weekend though. And while searching for the route to cycle to Pasir Ris Park, I discovered that there’s a mangrove board walk at Pasir Ris! I always thought the board walks were only built at Changi and Labrador. I love nature, the beach, the trees, the habitats at the mangrove. I’m definitely going to the board walk this weekend. Will snap some pics and post here!

Where’s the board walk?

[googlemap lat="1.381482716329854" lng="103.94838809967041" width="300px" height="150px" zoom="15" type="G_NORMAL_MAP"]Singapore[/googlemap]

I have been displaying Google Adsense ads eversince I started this blog and other sites of mind. For consistency, I decided not to use other ad networks. Well, today I decided to try Nuff Nang. My blog has a new look anyway, so new ad network.

For those who don’t know what Nuff Nang is, it’s a ad network that displays advertisements on your website. You get paid when people click on the ads, simple as that.

I donated blood, for the first time in 31 years. :) This is my CNY resolution, to donate blood regularly as a form of charity.

Strictly speaking, this is the not the first time I considered donating blood. The first encounter was when I was 17, still in JC. There was this blood donation drive in school. I didn’t donate because the freaking needle freaked the hell out of me. I wasn’t particularly scared of needles, perhaps it was the way I saw the them handle the needles. I stayed away from blood donation since. :P

This time round, I made up my mind to overcome this 10 odd years of fear. I checked the Donor Web website and found that there’s a blood donation drive on at Rivervale Community Club on the 14th of March, Saturday. I woke up the following Saturday morning and drove me and my wife there. So, here goes, the first blood donation attempt.

The staff at the donation drive were helpful and pleasant. I was given a sticker that read “Be Nice To Me. This is my first donation”. In any case, I think they are nice to everyone, whether first time or not. So, my blood was tested, like a blood type test. On hindsight, this was perhaps the most painful part, relatively. :)

A local anaesthetic was administered, then came the thick needle. I was abit nervous then, but I looked on as the medical staff pushed the needle into my arm. No pain! While I was observing what the medical staff was doing, I didn’t realise that the bag was already half full. Pretty fast!

These are the few pictures I took while I was waiting.

And after a couple more mins, my bag was full. The removal was swift, no pain! And then they bandaged my arm.

They even had matching bandages for ladies!

The whole procedure was very comfortable, and fast, much faster than I thought. So, I have donated my first bag of blood. The next time would be in June.

I strongly encourage more people to donate their blood. As the slogan at Donor Web says, “Your blood is replaceable…a life is NOT !” Your pack of blood may save another’s life!

This is straight to the point. I had dinner at a western food joint yesterday. They have a couple of branches in Singapore and business seems good. I thought the food should be decent.

This what we had.