Oh, what a time to be a gamer! There are so many much anticipated new games that finally hit the shelves in the last couple of weeks.

Enemy Territory: Quake Wars kicked off the flurry with its wide-open spaces, and teamplay comprising a mix of specialists who support one another in combat. It really does feel like being immersed in a war, with attacks coming in from more than just the opposing grunt team but also from artillery, armoured vehicles, water and air craft, all vehicles piloted by the players themselves. ETQW is really meant as an online game, so there's hardly any plot, except to distinguish one side from the other. There are several maps with objectives to accomplish on both sides; whichever team completes all its primary objectives on the map wins the round.

I dunno why I bought the game, though. I'm never going online with it. I'm already getting myself murdered by the off-line mode bots. Besides, after getting myself player-killed by my own teammate in CS (I was shot in the back even before the game started so the berk could pick up my weapon which was presumably more expensive than his) I've never trusted the online gaming community ever again. There, I said it. You guys officially suck.

But ETQW is no fun playing alone, so I'm amusing myself with Spider-Man: Friend or Foe. It plays more like a side scroller than the other games in the SM franchise. No free-roaming in a city, looking for trouble, SM:FoF puts the player on a pre-defined path lined with obstacles, rewards and boss-battles. Like a pretty NES Mario in albeit gorgeous 3D landscapes and a whole lot more beat-'em-up violence. The artwork is more cartoony (probably as a tie-in to the new Spider-Man animated series being released next year) than its previous movie merchandise incarnations, but the humour between NPCs Nick Fury and the SHIELD computer is priceless. The attraction to this game is in the mixing and matching of SM and a cooperative teammate who could be either another Marvel hero, or an enemy with whom SM has formed a temporary alliance in order to fight a bigger threat. Think of the Marvel Team-Up comic series of the 70s-80s and you get the idea.

And still pristine in its shrink-wrap is The Orange Box... I don't have time to play everything, you know? The gamer in me is in heaven, but I'm also a daily-rated salaryman. How else to finance the gaming habit? It's a vicious circle.

According to the NSDUH survey, the education industry ranks pretty high in employee depression. Above us are people involved in the social and health care type services (not surprising), and immediately above us are the artists, entertainment and sports people (also not surprising because depression makes for great spectacle).

But every other type of occupation appears happier than us. Even the janitors, the construction workers, and the maintenance personnel sport bigger smiles on their faces, while the engineers and architects are the least depressed, laughing all the way to the bank. Could our mothers who so insisted on us getting an engineering degree have been right all along? They were a bit off about the doctor thing, though.

So there. Your teachers are a depressed lot, many of whom are probably borderline psychotics on the edge of a nervous breakdown. The stats say so. Kids, what can you do to cheer us up?

In "Resident Evil: Extinction", the T-virus has taken over the world, and only a small handful of survivors remain to fend for themselves against an unending army of the infected undead. It's literally "you and me against the world" when Alice chances upon a convoy of survivors among whom are her old pals, Carlos and LJ.

With supplies running low, Alice brings the convoy a rumour of a safe haven in sunny Alaska. Too bad they're stuck in the Nevada desert. Solution: hit Vegas to stock up for the long drive ahead. Setting-wise, Vegas is a brilliant location for the movie as its distinctive landmarks have been ripped off the major landmarks of the world, so it really does look like the living fighting the undead within a microcosm of the entire world.

While scary-looking, the flesh-munching undead are, as usual, not the "Evil" the title refers to. Yet again, it's the self-serving Umbrella Corporation that seeks to enslave the undead, making Umbrella-ella-ella the largest employer the planet has ever seen. Having no needs of their own, the undead demand no wages, and hence, Umbrella would not have to contend with any future belligerent labor union asserting the rights of the unpaid, unwashed, unliving masses. Now, if only someone could remind all this potential zombie-power resource that they don't actually have to eat living people as they don't actually have to eat anything, 'cos they're, well, already dead.

That job, the Corporate President leaves to Dr Issacs, the Evil Resident of the US research facility. Issacs goes after Alice, whose mutated blood is key to his company's recruitment drive, while Alice just wants Issacs' helicopter so she can fly her chums to Alaska. Talk about conflict!

The movie is kept tight and tense, with a number of "boo!" moments to keep us on the edge of our seats. Somehow, I felt the fighting wasn't quite as intense as "RE:Apocalypse". Maybe the bright, open spaces of desert combat had something to do with that. Zombies don't have much impact in the light of day, and without the dank, claustrophobic crawlspaces to play hide and seek in, it isn't so much fun. Still, babes, guns, bullets that strike with palpable impact, and Milla; I'm not gonna argue.

I think the title, "Resident Evil: Extinction" is also appropriate to this hot news article about pet killings in Puerto Rico. The depravity of such human beings is unspeakable. If people can do this sort of thing to animals, it doesn't surprise me that we are doing it to each other as well.

Who needs a bloody T-virus? You know a dynasty's reign is about over when its members think nothing of committing such outrageous deeds. The human species has lived on earth for too long and it's time for our extinction so the world can recover from our infection. I, for one, am so not adding one more T-virus to the current infestation. Have to do my part for the planet.

I think of my Q-tip, Momo, and Kaiser, and I want to cry.

Attempted to catch the latest "Resident Evil" movie, but for the second day in a row, I've been thwarted by fatigue and inertia. Today was particularly bad 'cos while awaiting our scheduled departure time, we fell asleep watching TV. I only woke up past midnight, while June's still out cold in la-la land.

I don't have a big picture view of our college Open House event, so I won't comment too much on that. My job was to pull a team of student DJs together and schedule their on-air slots. Their role is less glam than it sounds; the kids are among the most harassed while they're on duty.

Apart from playing music (Dani was having a field day selecting the tracks to be played), they had to cope with making both scheduled and unscheduled announcements, while assailing our little secondary school guests with reminders, encouragement to participate in the various games and activities, and calling out prize winners' names.

I seem to have assembled a great team of DJs who were quite up to the task and who appeared to have enjoyed their stressful afternoon quite well. YY and Sumi were bright and chirpy, Tim and Dani turned up their 'tude attempting to interact with the audience, Zen and ZH kept cool, just taking things as they came.

Considering they have had hardly any training apart from perhaps listening to the radio themselves -- and I'm not sure Zen does, even -- I think they did ok. Thanks for being so enthu all afternoon. Wish I had the time and the expertise (maybe I can ask Howie, he's the pro) to train you all properly, though. We could be less ad hoc and aim for longer-term goals then.

Yay! Back to my usual self-indulgent bimbo self again. Got this quiz from YKM. Does seem acceptably accurate, maybe except for the mathematician part. Where did that come from?

You Are An INTP

The Thinker You are analytical and logical - and on a quest to learn everything you can. Smart and complex, you always love a new intellectual challenge. Your biggest pet peeve is people who slow you down with trivial chit chat. A quiet maverick, you tend to ignore rules and authority whenever you feel like it. In love, you are an easy person to fall for. But not an easy person to stay in love with. Although you are quite flexible, you often come off as aloof or argumentative. At work, you are both a logical and creative thinker. You are great at solving problems. You would make an excellent mathematician, programmer, or professor. How you see yourself: Creative, fair, and tough-minded When other people don't get you, they see you as: arrogant, cold, and robotic

What's Your Personality Type?

We bade farewell to our J2s at their Graduation Ceremony today. A little prematurely, 'cos they'll still come back tomorrow, and the next day, and the next... for extra classes, mock papers, remedial workshops, and anything else we can throw at them to help them make the grade and move on to the Uni.

Their finals start in 19 days, and then, hopefully we'll never have to see them again. Out of the nest, at last; spreading their fledgling wings and seeing where the world will take them to next. But till then, they'll be clamouring for one last stuffing of pre-digested worm meal to prepare them for that step out the front door, and that step is gonna be a doozy.

Since Cara took a turn to organize one of these sentimental events, it's become something of a tradition for us staff, by departments, to videotape a farewell message to our kids, wishing them bon voyage, fair winds and good fortune. Over the years, we've been pushing the envelope of what technology, creativity and good taste can avail us in crafting these non-Hallmark approved last words of advice. Now that we have embedded video technology, everyone can view D NY EL's vid to the kids:



BTW, the advice about sleep is serious. Kids are screwing up their brains, being too busy to sleep enough hours every day!

Heh, I should take my own advice.

With limited time for lunch and the sun just beating us down with withering heat in the afternoon, we just needed someplace cool to grab a quick bite. B-lo could have rolled her eyes all she wanted, but trapped in M2 with Amy, Mel and Baggy, our general consensus brought us to McD's in Gardens. Not very imaginative, our choice, but we've eaten at Dju2 once too often already, and anywhere else to break the monotony was better than that.

But McD's here has one major pull factor: it's right next to Cardon Coffee Shop at which we can find the most gorgeous muffins this part of town. They come out of the on-site oven fresh and hot, and in a wide variety of different flavours: cranberry/walnut, oatmeal/orange-peel, chempedak (eew...) are some of the more exotic combinations.

These muffins are light, not oily, sweet without being overpowering. The muffins have a faint, milky aftertaste so the flavour stays in the mouth for a little while longer. And that's quite a pleasant memory.

Stocks sell out quickly, but that's no surprise. Just the 5 of us wiped out 14 assorted muffins, taking full advantage of the free muffin with every half-dozen purchased policy.

Mmm... muffins...

Took Q-tip to Kasey to get her microchip implant. It's unlikely that we'll lose her, since she'll always be wherever we have left her -- not that she's so deadset faithful, but that she's too scared to jump off whatever perch we've parked her on -- but it's best to be careful, anyway.

The implant is a tiny RFID chip that holds a unique identification number so that the person the number is registered to is indisputably the rightful owner of the dog, so there. It's great for identifying a lost pet, but it also makes dog abandonment a futile exercise, in case anyone could ever be so inhumanely inclined.

Kasey showed us the applicator, a small syringe-like device with a big, fat needle, about as thick as the one they use on us when we're donating blood. Yipes! On a little dog like Q-tip, that has gotta hurt.

We agreed to stay and help Kasey with the procedure. We held Q-tip's head steady while Kasey pulled up the skin on the scruff of her neck, where dogs are least likely to feel pain. The needle went in and out, and it was all over. So fast. And Q-tip doesn't seem to be feeling any distress or discomfort from the experience.

I wonder... now that all licensed dogs are "highly encouraged" to be thus chipped, could the military have a remote control device to recruit an army of canine "volunteers" should any hostilities break out?

Edit01:
Ooh! What a stoopid headline!
"Officers find ecstasy in Mr. Potato Head" Must have had a deprived childhood...

Whether we give too much attention to paper qualifications was the topic of discussion among Maddy, HH and me this morning. Consultation with the kids does sometimes bring up eye-opening observations. Despite our insistence on presenting a 'balanced' viewpoint in our essays, it was difficult to resist arguing that this situation exactly describes how maniacally obsessed we are over our certs, degrees and other black-and-white acknowledgments of our skills and accomplishments...

No point completing a long and boring essay discussion here, so only if interested, ok? Click.

Hope Mary will pull through the next few days ok. She got tix for us to LaSalle's "Oh! What a Lovely War!" but while driving to meet us, she knocked over a motorcyclist. The guy hurt his arm and was shaken up, but fortunately, nothing worse. Now she's going through the necessary reporting stages, investigation, and whatever else.

Meantime, our dinner and show plans carried on as usual. We met Jen and Adrian at Sketches for a quick pasta meal. Jen generously shared her voluptuously juicy sausage that went with her spaghetti.

"OWLW!" was quite a slick, professional production by the students of the drama school. The house opened with the chorus streaming out into the lobby area to personally invite the audience in. There was no opening curtain as the cast was already performing a selection of WW1 songs while the audience was still finding their seats. With such high energy from the outset, I knew we were in for a great show.

It was quite the history lesson on the First World War, seen from the viewpoints of the various European nations involved. We got an insight into the political and industrial leadership's motivations for the war, as well as look into the lives and attitudes the commoners at home, and the soldiers in the trenches.

It was uncomfortable as the sober realities of the horror that was WW1 were brought home to us through comic sketches, songs of the period, a backdrop slideshow of old b&w photographs, and simple mass dance movements. I was thinking that if anyone was studying up on WW1, this show would provide a nice, broad overview.

The use of the different European accents might make it a little inaccessible to our local audience though, especially if they're not used to 'Allo 'Allo. The tech was also a little off, with some of the action taking place in the dark, and occasionally the lights came on late.

Regardless, there is a lot of talent in these students. They ensemble cast played well together, to deliver a highly polished production. The guy with the megaphone had me scratching my head a bit, though. What exactly was his role, being cast so anomalously in relation to the period and the other characters? Both in and out of the ensemble, my best guess is that he is the audience's anchor to that distant conflagration so long ago.

My usually bimbotic entries have temporarily given way to issues with slightly more political overtones.I'm probably suffering from an overdose of KI critical thinking paper marking and it's carrying over into my off-duty hours.

Well, since I'm at it, I know a couple of people who have things to say about the political nastiness going on in Myanmar, so while I recover my own wits, I'll let them take centrestage for a while:

Meet Leounheort, who's all fire and brimstone about the injustices taking place up there and how we're implicated in the mess due to our money-grubbing "bizness" and other ties with the junta heads up there.

And here's ST writer, Keane. No, I don't know him personally, but he suggests a bottom-up approach to resolving the crisis which is novel and less confrontational. What do you expect from ST, right?

Interesting that Ms Yu-Foo asserts that "women in their 20s now earn 98 per cent of what their male counterparts do." It's even more interesting that the respondents to the ST report would get all indignant about it. NS shortchanges our guys in terms of their pay and career prospects? I don't think so.

If Ms Yu-Foo's assertion was meant to show how we're closing the gender gap in wages and work, we need a reality check. Because of 2 years' NS, women get a headstart on their careers, while the men discharge their national obligations. Chronologically, women start work or continue their education at the university at 18, while the men can only start at 20. So women have 2 years' seniority over their male counterparts, and yet are still earning 2% less than a man who is just landing an entry-level position at his first job.

It's even more disturbing to consider Ms Yu-Foo's observation that our female grads outnumber our male grads. A female grad with 2 year's seniority over her non-grad male counterpart earns 2% less than him while they are in their 20s? I'm no Math major, but somehow that doesn't sound at all equal to me.

But a more important consideration of wage equality would be the gap between male and female earnings as we grow older. I'd like some data on that before I agree that we have indeed closed the wage gap between the genders in S'pore.

Where the guys are really losing out is in their academic achievement, if what Ms Yu-Foo says about us having more female than male grads is true. That means that more women are in a better position to advance in their careers than men because they have the necessary qualifications to do so. Education does seem to be the Great Equalizer of social disparity in the long term.

So, guys, if ya wanna be lazy, slack off, and don't study, then don't complain when a girl overtakes you on the career track. Understand?

We are approaching the last leg of our 18 month tour. The final stretch before another batch of JC kids take their final exam and, nothing personal, but we hope to never see them again... except perhaps as future colleagues or if they return with valuable tribute in gratitude to the ones who have set them on the path to their success. Right.

This is the last 100m sprint to the finish line, and the good news is that whether each student crosses the line in great vigour and strength, or limps across battered and bruised from falling face first into the mud once too often, everybody wins! And in this final stretch, we staff will be pushing, pressuring, cussing, cajoling, waving pom-poms, whatever -- anything to keep spirits and confidence up so that as many of our students as possible will find the courage to make this last effort to finish well.

The majority will, as they do every year. But this stage of preparation is also like the eve of a major battle. In the gathering gloom, faces aglow in the flickering campfire light, the Commander will "proclaim...

That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
Let him depart; his passport shall be made,
And crowns for convoy put into his purse;
We would not die in that man’s company
That fears his fellowship to die with us.

(Henry V, 4.3)

This too is the reality of the task we are all facing. There will be those who for one reason or another are still deficient in the training, the focus and the courage to do what's necessary to ensure victory, or even their own survival. They shouldn't be tested if they haven't earned the right to be tested.

These next few weeks will be crucial to all our JC2s. If you commit to the fight, then you bloody well FIGHT! Each subject you take is a front you must attack to your last breath, no giving up, no giving way. If you waver now, you might as well go home now. Choose.

Finally took Cat up on her lunch offer today. It was great to see her & Sam, Joyce, and Joyce's little 'un, Jun, a reunion of sorts of people who once spent a lot of time in each other's company. Dan was celebrating his daughter's birthday so he couldn't join us. And Googling around, I found Nic who's now a corporate head in the ad industry in KL, a whole capital city away. So perhaps the old YU alumni (though Sam's actually from UT) might actually start meeting each other more regularly, now that we've sort of reestablished contact.

I was last in TO in '92, and in 15 years, we're married and a couple of us have kids. But the last decade and a half, for me at least, feels like no time has passed at all. Yet so much has changed, and we no longer have a common campus or church to keep us together any longer. It'll be will and goodwill, and email(!) that'll keep us in touch with each other now.

Our afternoon began at Brewski's. Location happenin' but not overcrowded, central enough for all of us to get to, food of good variety, quality and value. Seeking dessert, we moved from there to Dempsey Road, Cat's preferred stomping grounds. Dempsey Road is a huge knowledge gap for me and June. The rustic charm of the expansive converted army camp promises intriguing eating and exotic shopping and demands further exploration.

From the various choices available, Jun decided for us that we wanted Ben & Jerry's. The outlet here is like a countryside barn, all wood and some cast-iron supports. It was packed and noisy, with an electric atmosphere, more than what I'd expected on a lazy Sunday. The youthful staff were smiley, friendly and warm. Great place to while the afternoon away, catching up on old friends and acquaintances (what? no! really?), while our ice-creams melted slowly in front of us.

The quick snapshot here shows (L-R) Joyce, Jun (see the resemblance?) and Cat. See y'all again real soon, 'k?

There's a lot of anger and fear over our CPF changes. A lot of questions about what the govt is doing with our money, making us buy a compulsory annuity which we can only cash out if we survive past 85, and how many of us are likely to do that?

It's like a bet: we all put our money in a common pot and if we make it past five years as an octogenarian, we win and we can take our share (plus interest) back in monthly installments. If we don't make it, well, that's the nature of gambling -- win some, lose some. Sure, S'poreans make a national pastime of 4-D and Toto, but who'd have thought CPF would be the latest game S'pore Pools is offering?

I dunno. I'm not really into that debate at the moment. I have more pressing concerns about my CPF. Like how my personal CPF contribution to our housing loan is practically servicing only the loan interest, while June's contribution can only put a tiny dent per month on the principal. And next month, the interest rate is going to be revised again, more likely up than down.

What this works out to is that a truckload of my money doesn't belong to me, but it does pay for my right to own a house... eventually. It's a loss making proposition since the market for my location isn't likely to return to the high, heady time that it was when we bought it. So barring any unforseen incident, we'll be staying put for a while.

This morning, we were at our local HDB office transferring a large chunk of our accumulated CPF to reduce our loan to 10 years from 18. That's 8 year's worth of interest saved, if I calculate correctly.

10 more years to pay for my flat, then maybe I can start worrying about whatever money I have left to retire on.

It's not just us abandoning pets any more! They're doing it in the US too! With domestic rabbits! *shakes head and wonders what the world's coming to. Click here. Thank goodness for animal rescue volunteers, both here and there.

Canis domesticus has suddenly leaped onto the endangered species list. Owners of unlicensed dogs now facing a tenfold increase in fines for the offence have devised a brilliant workaround their predicament: abandon their dogs before the revised law kicks in.

How ironic that a law revised to offer more protection to our pets has resulted in more cruelty to them instead. Couple of issues here: rigid, over-reactive laws designed more to punish than help the situation, and people who would rather save themselves and their money than be responsible for their own pets.

But it's the latter issue that probably caused the former. As people who are urbanizing over what used to be natural habitats of other species, we've been losing sense of our interconnectedness with the plants and animals that form more than just the backdrop of our existance. When they get expensive or inconvenient, we get rid of them like we get rid of garbage.

But a punitive law with such a heavy penalty isn't helping make this situation any better. All the more we've made keeping pets an even more expensive proposition. No one wants to pay for an annual license. They are going to want to pay a $5k fine even less.

Law and punishment won't solve a problem if we don't address the root causes of the problem. Penalizing people isn't going to make them respect their responsibilities. Some dumb idiot abandoned what looks like a pomeranian which somehow wound up on the central divider of the TPE! Charitable assumption: dog somehow ran across the highway from wherever it got abandoned. Uncharitable assumption: dog got abandoned where it got found, owner hoping that a passing vehicle would put the ex-pet out of its misery.

Why do we feel the Govt is always controlling our lives when what we've got is really what we deserve? A little more thoughtfulness towards our fellow beings, people, please! We don't need a Draconian legal system to keep us in line, just a measure of common sense and a little empathy towards others, human or otherwise.

"Censorship is the best defence against unwholesome values. Discuss." Yes, another outline.

I think for an 800 word essay, this one is unbelievably difficult to write. Censorship only limits access to specific content in the mass media. It's really hard to link "content" with "values" without some kind of extensive waffling because the two are obviously not the same thing.

I'm not entirely happy with this outline, especially the way I brought in the idea of "education" from nowhere, and some of the connections are more convenient than considered. It's even a little vague and unrealistic. But what can you do with such a minuscule word limit?

Oh, in case anyone asks why my "outlines" are as long as an acceptable GP essay, it's because they're really outlines for a much larger research paper. Get the hint, KIds?

Edit:
Forgot to mention that M2 went for his 50k servicing. Now he handles a little better, pickup's a little faster, purrs smoother. Wonder if the effect is just psychosomatic?

I think it was Cat who got me where I am today. I recall way back in '91, when we were still young and irresponsible students, she said to me, "why don't you go and teach in a JC?" Who knew it would take nearly a decade of aimless wandering around in the wilderness before her throwaway suggestion would become prophecy?

Thanks, Cat. Now I'm swamped up to my eyeballs with marking; reports, outlines and reviews clawing at my back; vetting of testimonials (SGCs they call 'em now -- same animal, new cage); prelim casualties to comfort and admonish while juggling the inevitable pre-finals consultations that are about to recommence; and a dozen other ad hoc things to accomplish before the year-end hols.

Ah, to be an irresponsible student again...

Whole day spent on drawing up essay outlines and writing exam markers' reports, although according to my schedule perhaps most of what I did was a little premature. I'm confused...

Anyway, while I'm at it, here's another essay outline to bore you to tears with:

"Consider the importance of skepticism in society today." Click here.