Monday, March 30, 2009

Blackout Drill!

Its been ages since I've done guard duty (HAHAHA YESSS ORD LO!!!)
but I still remember the infamous blackout drill.

Anyway, I'm referring to the 1 hour blackout all over the world to celebrate (?) Earth Hour, in case it wasn't already supremely obvious.

So while the world poised their fingers on their light switches, I was milling about Esplanade Park where Alpha Biofuels had their booth, fooling around and generally not making myself very useful except to entertain some foreign kids with McD french fries. And a particularly shy Spiderman-bag carrying kid (boss's nephew). What were we doing there? The generator was running on Biodiesel of course!

Oh, and filling my stomach with free Old Chang Kee, Coke Zero and Starbucks (diluted) coffee. Like a particularly greedy person said, our booth was in a very nice position (next to Starbucks).

It was a rather small scale event, with a few booths (including some no-link brands like POLAR and Chipster) and a small stage. There was a surprising large crowd at the event, though the proportion of foreigners was high. It says a lot about their environmental consciousness. Like one of them mentioned, "We have Biodiesel in Europe too!". Nothing much happened before lights out except a few cultural performances. I can understand the percussion troupe using recycled bins, but a lion dance?!? Maybe the lion was made up of recycled newspapers or something =x

I met up with XJ for dinner just in time to catch the lights out at Marina Square foodcourt. It wasn't very concerted, but visually stunning all the same. First went Maybank and their nice decorative strips of light. Then slowly the tall office buildings in the CBD turned off their lights, followed by the Esplanade's twin domes. Even the Fullerton and Merlion went dark. The only cold water pourers were the IR constructions sites. Their spotlights totally spoilt the whole scene. Once the blackout was completed, the party started, with bands taking to the stage (yes, in darkness!) and picnickers lighting up their candles.

So for that 1 hour, it was just about sitting on the grass, listening to music, staring at the relatively dark cityline, enjoying the light of the candles, the company of friends and contemplating our impact on the environment. Ok the last point was probably the last thing on everyone's mind, but still I'm sure the message got across.

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In retrospect I think the candle burning probably released more CO2 than leaving the lights on, but what the heck.

At least it wasn't about 1 hour of non-stop lights ablazing, amplifiers blasting, all-over-the-world rock concerts.

Thursday, March 26, 2009

OFF ALL YOUR LIGHTS!

Yes, even that tiny one that you keep on at night because you're afraid to wake up to a pitch dark room.

The one you turn on to read the newspaper.

The one you turn on to pee without missing the target.

The one you turn on to eat dinner.

The one you turn on to... see the switches to turn on other lights.

I think its a ridiculous idea personally. People are going to end up being frightened to death, spoiling their eyes, soiling their toilets, getting food poisoning because didn't see the fly that landed, and fumbling over the light switches and tripping and falling and getting injured.

So don't be a dumbass and obsessively observe the Earth Hour thingy. Its not like its some new government thingy telling you to speak more Mandarin.

Come to think of it, even Shan from 98.7FM is learning Mandarin from 93.3's Peifen. Hmmmmm.....

Anyway back to the topic - imagine if LTA/CAAS were to support Earth Hour. I wouldn't want to be on the roads/landing at Changi from 8.30pm onwards man.

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Seriously, I hope this event will spread more awareness of the environmental challenges we face. Its not just about wasted lights or light pollution. Its about getting the world to sit up and wake up and do something, even if it means turning off the lights at 8.30pm for 1 hour every year.

Earth Hour. Our Earth.


Note to readers: Above comments are made in good humour and are not meant to critise the event in any way. The author supports Earth Hour, really. He pledges to reduce his carbon footprint by turning off the lights on his mp3 player. And he sincerely hopes that every hour can be Earth Hour.

Saturday, March 21, 2009

DIY for greenies!

DIY green tip #2

Did you know? The amount of water needed to flush down your solid waste is actually around 75-80% of the full flush. And for the liquid waste, its even lesser.

What to do if your home doesn't have a half-flush toilet bowl? For the really motivated a few scoops of used washing machine water will do the trick. But of course how many of us would actually go to such lengths to save water? Plus the solids probably require a whole pail.

For those who would really like the convenience of pressing a button, here's a DIY thing you can do.

Zng my Toilet Bowl

You'll need: A couple of small 250ml water bottles. Depending on the size of your cistern, you might want to try even smaller containers (Chicken essence bottles, hair gel containers etc)

1) Fill the bottles with water.

2) Open up the top of the cistern and throw them in. Try to arrange them neatly.

3) 3 - 5 bottles should be enough. If you're worried about the... stuff not going down when u flush, keep it at 4

4) Assuming a full tank of 8-9 litres, you'll be saving around 0.75 to 1.25 L of water per flush! Which is around 10-20%.

5) Test it out. If your... erm... stuff doesn't go down, reduce by 1 bottle. If it goes down nicely, you might want to raise that bar and throw in another bottle.

Rationale:

Since the cistern operates via displacement, once you throw the filled bottles in, the capacity of the cistern is reduced by that amount. Simple!

Plus you get to recycle those bottles! And save on the utilities bill!

Man, PUB should really hire me.

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Quote of the week:

Konfusius say, "Man who run after bus, will be exhausted!"

Monday, March 16, 2009

Saturday Bloody Saturday....

I never thought I'd ever experience being taunted by my Liverpool loving friends.

For the past 4 years through JC and NS, it was always US, the Red Devils, not the Reds, doing all the taunting and suan-ing. When Ferdinand scored with a volley, we laughed at them (a defender scoring against Liverpool! With his FOOT to boot!). When O'Shea scored in the dying minutes, we chuckled at the cruelty of it all. When we drew square, we always believed that our superior team had an off day.

Somehow 2008/2009 has been a different season.

When Torres scored, we cringed at the untimely stumble by Vidic.
When Evra hacked down Gerrard, we shouted our disbelief, until the replay confirmed our fears. When Gerrard subsequently slammed home the penalty, we cried at the near miss of Van der Sar's diving hands.
When Giggs, Scholes and Berbatov were subbed in, we prayed and hoped.
When Vidic pulled down Gerrard, we hid our eyes, hoping the card would be a nice shade of yellow.
When the red was shown, we slumped in our seats, all hope lost.
When Aurelio curled in the free kick, we hid our faces, embarrassed by the keeper's immobility.
When Dossena chipped Van der Sar, we laughed, not at all in mirth. At his staring, hapless figure as the ball bounced slow-mo into the net.

It has been a bloody Saturday in Manchester.

Monday, March 09, 2009

4 weeks after infection...

(Note! Numerous references to Left 4 Dead, non-gamers alert)

Besides going to work and sleeping, I'm left with 3-4 hours every night to do my own thing.

I'd usually fire up Left 4 Dead to start another zombie killing spree but I guess tonight will be different. Maybe its got something to do with being overwhelmed in the final scenario of Blood Harvest 5 times on expert mode.

I haven't been following the news recently, other than scanning the pages of Today every morning while I munch on breakfast (its really just a routine I go through, the real objective is to get to the sports page). One article in the Sunday Times really got my attention - regarding the recent suicide case and the possible influence of video games and WoW. Not an overriding factor but probably part of a box of tinder waiting for a spark.

Another red mark for us gamers. Its too tedious to delve into another discussion on the effects of excessive gaming on gamers but I do know there are a few (ok, maybe not just a few) gamers out there spending loads of time on their Maplestories and WoWs and L4Ds and DoTAs. Frankly speaking if I wasn't working I think I'd be joining that group =x. In a way I'm glad I'm not glued to the computer chair although sometimes I wish I was, just to blast away a few Boomers and watch them explode in glee.

A great stressbuster, Boomers are.

So if you think the world is 2D side-scrolling, have a night elven girlfriend and zombies as neighbours, get a life! Get a... job.

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Today a new worker from China joined the company. I really gotta start brushing up on my Mandarin proper, somehow English words keep slipping through the gaps whenever I attempted to communicate with him. Probably explains the D7 I got for Higher Chinese for my O levels.

Still, translating is hard work, especially when you have an Indian and a Chinese worker working together. Hand signals usually do the job.

To end off this post I shall start posting tips on how to reduce your carbon footprint, in our Singaporean context =) Gotta justify the green in my blog title or I'd get reported for greenwashing.

Carbon tip #1

For all you broadband users (you, yes YOU!), turn off your modem and wireless router at night before you sleep. Yes I know its UNLIMITED broadband but surely you don't need to be all typical kiasu Singaporean and keep it on 24/7 just to make full use of the UNLIMITED access, even when you sleep?

So if you're not downloading anything, turn it off. Prevents the neighbours from leeching, too. You don't want to be giving free suppers to possible Bleach downloaders, lest you receive the dreaded xedo letter.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

Today I was searching around for Firefox tweaks when I found this skin to make Firefox 3 look like Google Chrome, the all-new open-source browser by Google.

Feeling abit tempted to compare the 2, I searched "Firefox 3 vs Chrome" and the first comparison I found was hilarious.

From http://www.piggynap.com/google/google-chrome-vs-firefox/



I've always thought that the Google Chrome logo looked really familiar but I never really realised it until today.

Logo FAIL.

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Anyway for some laughs, check out this place:

http://failblog.org/

especially for those who love "FAIL" jokes like me XD