Dog Walk 2007

Mediacorp's Class 95 FM is organising a dog walk event.

Date: 1st April 2007
Flag Off Time: 0900
Venue: Bishan Park 2, near dog run area

For more details, see the official website: http://www.class95.sg/contests/others/DogWalk2007.htm

Hello, I'm a Mac...

Saw this cute advertisement at the IT Show 2007. Just couldn't help laughing.
So I went home and did a search on YouTube, as as expected, it was already uploaded last year.


In case some of you find it too long to load (its 7 minutes), you can watch the individual clip here:
1. Wall Street Journal
2. Network
3. iLife
4. Better
5. Restarting
6. Virus
7. Work
8. Touche
9. Out of the Box
10. Trust Mac
11. Angel vs Devil
12. Accident
13. Mac as PC
14. Home Movies
15. Counsellor

Other clips:

• Vista Security
• Surgery
• Meant For work
• Tech Support

JP Morgan Chase Corporate Challenge

Date: 3 May 2007
Place: The Padang (Singapore, not Indonesia)
Time: 6 pm
Distance: 5.6 KM

More details here.

Gonna try to do it within half an hour. But first, I gotta shed that extra fats I gained from my reservist last week :-(

宝岛寻人 - Paging for Xiao Zhang...

My mom had just given me a daunting task - to find her god son whom she lost contact more than 10 years ago, since we last shifted house towards the end of the last century.

He had stayed in Singapore for a few years, working for a 豆浆 shop. He has since left and went back to Taiwan with his family.

The only clues my mother gave me were a couple of envelopes with 2 different taiwan addresses and contact number, and an old picture of him with his kids.

I wonder if 朴学亮 still helps people search for long lost friends....

张森煜先生,你知道我妈在找你吗?

Judgement Day

Finally, the day has come when I was required to appear before a judge at the Subordinate Court's Primary Dispute Resolution Center for the hearing on my motorcar accident in 2005. Besides the plaintiff (Jag driver), the second car driver was there as well and she told me she would just speak the truth. I was pretty grateful as her statement would determine if the Jag was telling the truth or not.

When the time came, the 3 of us went inside and the judge asked each of us to describe what happened on that fateful day. I shan't say too much here as I don't know what is the legal implication. After hearing the stories from all parties involved, the judge concluded that the Jaguar driver was 45% liable, the lady driver had stopped in time and err on judgement, hence 10% liability. I was the rear driver who created the physical contact for all 3 cars, thus at least 45% liable for the damage to the first car.

I was quite satisfied with the judgement, but the same cannot be said for the Jag driver. He didn't accept the judgement's recommendation and said he 'need to speak to his lawyer'.

So as it stands today, I am still waiting for a possible trial, yes a real trial if that fellow is not willing to settle.

Cross my fingers for the moment...

'House-cleaning'

Have been lazy to update the links that I provided on this blog.

But today I finally did some clean up. I have added a group of links to some forums I visits regularly (at least for most of it) and another set of links on Photography. I have also created a section call "Food", hopefully I can add more in future. :p

Big car make big turn

Long long time ago, actually not very long. It was about one and a half year ago. It was during lunch hour, and me and my colleagues had just had our favorite Beach Road Prawn Noodles. I was happily driving back to office, along East Coast road, following behind a red Toyota Altis when suddenly the car stop abruptly, due to a Jaguar Coupe cutting into her lane.

Apparently the Jag driver was coming from the right lane to go into his office carpark on the left. The lady driver in front of my car had initially thought he was just doing a filtering to the left. But upon realising he was in fact trying to get into the carpark instead of proceeding straight on, she slam the brake immediately. Although she manage to avoid collision with the Jag, I was too close for comfort and had little time to react. I swirl my car a bit in that moment of instance and hit the brake at the same time but it was too late.

My car bang into the red Altis' rear and the collision pushed her car forward and bang into the left side of the Jag.

Fortunately, no one was hurt in this accident. I was still counting my blessing, especially since I had a potential bride-to-be at that time amongst my passenger.

Photos were taken by my colleagues, and by those road 'vultures' (people who look out for car accident and offered towing and repair services). The road accident forms were filled up and particulars were exchanged before I got my car towed to the workshop.

During the exchange of information, one of my colleague overheard that the Jag driver commented (to somebody) that his car was big and he had to make such a wide turn to go into his car park. And he seems to insinuate that the red car was not at fault since she manage to 'stop' in time, but the accident was caused by my collision.

View of the Jaguar from inside the private carpark entrance.

Another view of the Jag from the car park entrance.

A view of the red Altis from the left.

The red Altis' front right bumper.

The damage on the Jaguar.

View of the damage on the rear's right side.

The position of the red altis after collision

Close up of the rear damage of the red Altis.

My car's damage.

Why I decided to blog about it was because almost two years have gone and the Jaguar owner is still seeking repair claim from both of us. Apparently, he was not happy with the original allocation of damage liabilities, everyone (including the owner) has a part in the repair cost of the Jaguar, which I heard was about 12K SGD.

Next Monday, I would have to go to the subordinate court to appear before a judge and re-iterate my statement to him and get a new judgement.

It shall be my first time stepping into a court. I can only hope for the best...

Update: See here for outcome of the judgment.

The Young Photographer of the Year competition

Source: http://www.canon.com.sg/youngphotog/

CANON-THE NEW PAPER

Young Photographer of the Year

Canon and The New Paper are now looking for Singapore’s first Young Photographer Of The Year. We want to give him the gear and the training to kickstart a professional career.

The winner will get a full fledged dSLR system worth $5,000 : Canon EOS 30D body, 430EX flash, 3 pro-grade prime lenses – 24mm F2.8, 50mm F1.8, and 100mm Macro F2.8 and the new Pro9000 A3-sized photo printer.

He or she will also earn an internship (lasting at least four weeks) with The New Paper’s Photo Desk, and be guided personally by award-winning veterans.

Three other runners-up will win Canon EOS 350D and 400D kits.

You don’t need to own professional gear to join.

•	As long as you are able to show us three photographs, one each of the following themes – People, Action and Scenery, we will be able to tell if you have the chops to make it in this line. Images can be taken with any film or digital camera but not camera phones.
•	Finalists will have to undergo an intensive one-day shootout organised by TNP.
•	You must be aged 16 to 35, and the TNP internship must be served within one year of the competition end date, or forfeit a cash value of the prizes won.
•	Contest entries should be taken within the past two years, properly captioned (description of subject, time and place taken), sized between 1 and 2MB, and emailed to tnpwin@sph.com.sg
•	Include your name, email address, contact number and type of camera used for the entries.
•	Deadline is 29 Mar 2007.
•	For more information, email TNP’s Ian Tan at tanyhi@sph.com.sg