Yay for code.
I’m so happy.
I managed to complete coding a nifty little program for one of the modules in my FYP. It features adorable little coloured blobs with numbers attached to them, and you can adjust the numbers and in turn, the blobs grow bigger (or smaller).
Wheeeeeeee.
(Yes, yes, yes I know. It seems weird that here I am, seated at my desk at almost midnight, going gaga over a program I coded. The epitome of geek?)
I love coding.
Even though I’ve picked up Actionscript 3.0 only barely three months ago, it wasn’t as much of an uphill struggle as I initially expected it to be. Yes, the initial learning is tough but sooner or later, it gets better and one will start enjoying the coding process more.
More people should learn how to code. (Haha.)
—————-
Oh and yes, there was the cardiologist visit last Saturday which I’ve yet to speak about.
Well, the same issues are back after a short period of calm. The giddy spells and the occasional fainting spells are coming in waves now and in addition to these, I suddenly find myself having extremely strong heart palpitations.
I find my heart racing and seemingly threatening to thud right out of my chest after climbing up a mere two flights of stairs (I used to be able to climb up ten at one go), when I reach up to get something from my shelf, or when I bend down to pick up something I’ve dropped.
First, those palpitations, followed by the fainting spells. They come in pairs.
And one particular day last week, I experienced the same strong palpitations even when I was seated at my desk, reading a textbook.
In lieu of this, the cardiologist wishes to rule out arrhythmia. As such, I’m going to be hooked up to some portable ECG monitor (Holter) coming Friday for about a day or so - and I’d be concealing everything with a big, baggy sweater as I go around with my daily activities.
Am soooo not looking forward to it. :(
Indeed, it seems that technology advancements have pampered us all too much.
Take the optical mouse, for instance. Now, you can move that little cursor on your screen so freely, without the need to yank out the balls (har har har) of your mouse ever so often to get rid of the dust within.
I salute the optical mouse. It’s made my life so much easier ever since I got my first one in … 2005. Suddenly, Photoshop seemed three times easier to use, especially since I don’t have to CTRL-Z as many times when I do my illustrations and whatnot because that stupid ball within the mouse refuses to move again.
Perhaps this perfectly explains why I was practically tearing my hair out at Sakae Sushi this evening.
Some background knowledge. Sakae Sushi is a chain of restaurants located predominantly in Asia, serving sushi of all sorts at cheap prices. (At least, they claim to make sushi affordable - but with the recent price hike, I am starting to have my qualms.) The outlets provide computer screens with an attached mouse at every table from which you place your orders.
Apart from having to deal with the occasional soy sauce soaked mouse, and perhaps the mouse which has had its inner mechanisms completely whacked out by the previous occupant (most probably a kid!) spilling water all over it which I encounter ever so often - I also have to deal with the old, traditional wheel mouse.
Yes, the wheel mouse.
With the ball within.
I am guessing that they chose to stick with the wheel mouse because the mouse was in the shape of an adorable green frog which matched the restaurant chain’s logo really closely, and perhaps there was no optical mouse in a similar design.
But what’s the point of having an aesthetically pleasing wheel mouse, especially when the ball within simply REFUSES. TO. MOVE?!?
That wheel mouse was practically as useful as … a male mouse without any balls. (Err, okay. Corny, I know. I couldn’t think of anything better, considering all that is in my head now is nothing but mice, mice, mice.)
Oh, and the frog-shaped wheel mouse had two big eyes - which were actually the control buttons. And I found it extremely disconcerting to punch my fingers directly into the eyeball of a frog, real frog or not.
In a nutshell - placing one order of salmon sushi involved twenty slams of the mouse on the table (to dislodge the ball from it’s stuck position), another twenty attempts to move the mouse at least one centimetre (that’s the maximum the mouse will move before it gets jammed again) and countless frantic punching of the eyes … err, buttons.
-Facepalm.
Someone should declare the wheel mouse a lethal weapon. It drives people mad.
There’s this shop at Peninsular Plaza that sells really nifty stuff. It’s one of my favourite haunts each time I head out of school to grab my dinner, and I really can’t resist stepping in there since it’s so … nearby.
It’s tough for me to describe what kind of stuff is being retailed there - because the variety is just too great. Let me just put it this way - the entire store is filled with the results and inventions of several obscure (but deserve to be recognized) innovators.
I’ve gotten myself a really cute lunch box in the shape of a hamburger sometime last year - and it has little containers which can be stacked one over another in three layers within the lunchbox itself. Really great for separating food items but unfortunately, I am not the kind that carries food around so that lunchbox is presently storing my collection of medicated plasters. Hurhurhur.
Oh, and Poopah (my pet poop) was purchased from there as well. I certainly hope you remembered him … and that picture of him sitting on top of my head. ;)
I’ve since glued some eyes to him so he now looks like … poop with wide, innocent eyes. (I ought to put up some pictures of him soon since he’s not getting the attention he deserves. Pardon me, but I just find poop absolutely adorable. Yes, queer fixations I have.)
But my favourite purchase from that store has to be … this calendar.
The blocks can be disassembled and rearranged as and when the month changes, like Lego.
Which means that I have no need to run out and get myself a new calendar when a new year rolls around. It reduces my reliance on paper-based calenders, which is good for the Earth since it can be used and reused forever and ever and ever till the end of time.
Unless a piece goes missing, or should I accidentally break something, or if my dog swallows part of it … only that I don’t have a dog. What am I saying?!?
Although I must admit that I still have child-like tendencies - taking it, pulling everything apart and then putting the pieces back together again randomly just for the fun of it.
Heh, cheap thrills!
Another recent purchase from that place was a silver USB fan - a mini fan gadget thingy which draws power from your computer via its USB port. Really handy for the hot climate that Singapore has, or to make things more bearable when the school decides to shut down it’s central air conditioning system in the middle of the day when I have weekend project meetings.
I’m now eying this black, retro looking lamp from the same place. It’s currently on discount … at $39.90.
Decisions, decisions!