Warhammer 40K Dawn of War

I always look like shit on my laptop. You canot zoom, cannot change camera angle etc...
Well, I was proven quite wrong when I finally played it on my desktop with a can-survive N6600GT.

A whole new meaning to the word meat-loaf.

See the 412 sign, the thread mark and the details?

See the face of the imperial guard? The bottom were somehow censored... Emm...

The mighty squiggoth looks awesome.

An Auction gone terribly wrong Part 2

I has heard of stories of auction con and unfortunately this whole string of event has pointed to that. A claim that the account was wrong, when it was right. Then refusal to send item. Most buyers will give up and just be sad and angry that they were unlucky. But not me, especially now that I know I can actually recover the transaction, hopefully. And then, another SMS to her again and she claim she has sent out and started calling names and obviously the unfriendly tone.

Wtf are u irritating or what. Two days ago didnt i sms u that item been sent out it was on a friday. Only to realise e money been transfer to wrong acc. And now u keep pestering me like a pests. What more do u want me to reply u.

Suddenly I look like hte bad guy. So silent it shall be I said to myself.

On Monday, I went to the bank to see what can be done. DBS said you can request to reverse the transfer but I have some forms to sign etc. So in 5 mins, all is done. All I have to do is to wait for their officers to conduct their invetigation and maybe call me etc.

Meanwhile, a few days has passed. Yes, DBS actually hasn't called me. I did asked how long it would take, DBS told me they dun know. I wonder who would know... Anyway, suddenly I get a SMS from her again, for the first time she started. Basically she asked if I had received the item. Well, of course not I told her. And I might as well as her how she manage to send the registered post on a holiday friday. Guess what? She DIDN'T. It was sent as a normal post. Now there is no way to check or even verified that she did send or I didn't received. This is totally so no cool for a seller to promise one thing and then do otherwise.

Anyway, I message her and told her I didn't want post in the first place. And she promised registered post. Now, I think I can't be at the least responsible for the "lost" of the item. Andthen silence again. I wonder how does she do business with other people.

You said you will send by reg post one lo. Not my fault. Told you dont do by post liao. You can ask singpost to trace lo even for norMal post.

Anyway, all I can do now is wait and see. I will only make my next move when I can recover my cost from DBS and whether I did recieved the item or not will decide what I will need to do. IF I do recieved it in good condition however, I feel its only fair I pay her (if I can recover my cash from DBS). Well, can anything else go wrong?

To be continue...

Good Riddence to Soup

The Soup Place is gone. YES, GONE. So do not ask me where it is.
Thanks goodness... IF you want, I do have lots of campbell soup and nice breads.
You can purchase a bowl and I will even throw in 2 breads for &7. :)
Please make a reservation first. :P

An Auction gone terribly wrong Part 1

The following tells a true story and as such I will make no attempts to protect the identities of the involved parties. In fact, I will even expose the identities just to show you that this actually happens and is not another urban legend.

The aution itself :
http://auctions.yahoo.com/sg/i:Lancome%20Miracle%20Perfume:99330434

It all started as a normal auction for an item on Yahoo Auction Singapore. In this case, the Lancome Miracle Perfume 100ml. Before bidding, a few simple questions like is this 100ml? New? Etc since no picture was displayed. The seller promptly replied to say its new and selling cos she does not like the smell. (New? Emm, ok maybe she tested it in the shop. And still bought it? Emm.. Anyway…) She even gave me 10% off.

So, I bidded and asked to close. Soon I get a nice reply to ask me to transfer the money to a POSB Bank Acct and she will send out the item. In fact, I have to do that or I will get a BAD rating within 3 days. How efficient. Anyway, the SMS is as follows :

Ive sent u a email yesterday too, kindly make payments within 3 working days to posb savings 209-04734-9 of $47 inclusive of $2 postage & handling fee. bad ratings will b given if buyer fails to make payment. thanks. save this msg as my email i sent today i didnt include my bank account no. thank u.

And of cos I prompt was a bit worried about closing this one by post because after all its perfume. Breakable. I send back a SMS and asked if we can meet up instead cos I worry about the bottle as well as the trustworthiness of the seller since she has only a rating of 1 (and the buyer of that rating has a rating of -2…). Anyway, she assured me that it will be wrapped and no problem. In fact, she is quite nice to offer registered post for free. After all she said $45 is a small sum. No problemo.

so sorry but i don do meet ups on small item, but if u're worried that it might break, i assure u that it comes with a box and i bubble wrap the whole thing, i can give u free registered mail u just need to pay 45 dollars.

So, it was transferred within 5 minutes. I forgotten all about it for the next few days. Until about 5 days later. Nothing came. I SMS her again to check if she send out the item. After a few SMS, no reply. Emm… Shit… I have a bad feeling about this. I called and guess what she doesn’t even pick up. After like 30 minutes of ringing. Not even a polite SMS to say I am busy or what. Then a guy (her hubby Eddie probably) picked up and ask me to call back after 11:30pm. Ok, I guess I can do that. Then it was 3 calls at 11:45, 3 more at 12:00 and no more pick up liao. At this point, I really wanted to say why would someone get a handphone and no pick up calls? Do you know there are still things call pager?

I tell myself. I must had been screwed. Police is the eventual thing that came to mind. I
realized I will have to keep all the records and audit trails proper in order for them to be creditable in court, if we have to come to that. My line of work has well prepared me for all the knowledge and skills to carefully not destroy or discredit the evidences. Anyway, I thought, its only been 1 days. Maybe I will try again and not have to resolve to Police. After all they are pretty busy people I suppose. And the next day, a few more calls, a few more SMS. Nothing. Until I send this one :

Had enough calling you liao. If you dont response by today then i have no choice but to have to file a police report against you for fraud.

Now, the police word probably caught her attention finally. A reply saying go report loh she hasn’t send the item out. Well, talk about efficient. Demanding people to pay in 3 days and after 6 days, she still has not send the item out after payment. And it really “helps” to stop responding to SMS and even phone calls. The first thing people will think is “Long Con” right? I realized that I can’t go to the police now that she has responded and that means I can say she ran away with the money. Ok, I will wait. Seriously, I wanted to stress that I had been a seller and buyer with a rating of over 150. Usually for a seller to ask payment within 3 days, I will get my item within 3 days as well. And I always send my item out within 2 days of payment. Its only fair trade. And I remain in contact with my buyer within the period and even checked with them to see if the item reached cos I am the only person who can chase after the Post Office in case of lost of damage items.

So, it was another wait and a Friday holiday followed by a weekend. I presume that this is a newbie seller trying to act professional, but I don’t really care if I get my goods eventually. The real problem then came. She said she did not receive the money. After being a bit of hostile cos I came find her, I decided I would be nice now to smoothen things out. I send her SMS again to check what went wrong. First, she gave me another account to transfer to. But I did that a week ago and it was a different number. I SMS again to confirm. After a few SMS, she said that was her friend’s account. So I asked her to check with her friend. Guess what, nothing also. Then I have no choice. I have to call up DBS. They were quite helpful anyway and traced the transaction. It well ok. So, what screwed up? I told her it was ok as the bank said and forwarded her SMS back when she asked for the account transfer.

The final nightmare came in. After a few more SMS, she finally said she key in the wrong number and that was NOT her friend’s account. Now, unless I am wrong about DBS, most bank has account numbers with a check digit. You can’t just key in an account number and its valid. It has to be checked against the check digit which is usually the last digit to be valid. Even 1 wrong digit will immediately show that the account is incorrect. What is the chances of giving me a wrong account number and its valid?

I had been very frustrated now. But I have to keep my cool. I asked her if she sent the item and she did not reply. I SMS again to tell her its been very long and it just isn’t fair for me to wait so long even after I has made payment according to her instruction. Can she send the item out first while I try to see if I can resolve the issue with the bank. Of course, I called the bank next and realized I have no choice but to go to the bank to make a statement declaring that I MADE a mistake and deposit to the wrong account. Well, its not really my fault, but I am willing to settle for it as long as the issue can be resolved. So I have to mark down one days the coming week to settle this. Still, I get no reply from her again. Lots of questions when through my mind. Did she actually send out the item? It was holiday on Friday afterall. Is she going to just keep quiet and pretend nothing happened cos she did not received her “small sum”. Or was this a setup right from the start?

To be continued...

There was a time...

I feel like pulling out a machine gun and shooting everyone's guts out or taking a grenade and blow everyone to pieces...
Before I say anything else, lets listen to this clip.

http://www.zshare.net/download/recording-4-amr.html

Well, its recorded on my handphone while its inside my pocket and imagine the ampitude of the actual noise. Thanks to the student of Temesak Primary School. Don't clap please, its already loud enough.

Which inspired my next novel "The Sound of Silence"...

Help! my Ah Long has voted for me!

Ok, this is meant to be funny. But its about a serious issue.
What IF, my IC was taken away by the Ah long I borrow money from or the security guard at some private estate and he used my NRIC to vote?
Will I be arrested when I go vote later?
No, according to what I know. But they will require you to sign some paper to invalidate the previous vote. That fair enough right? You dun get double vote.
BUT here is the catch. From what I heard, you are not allowed to voted otherwise after invalidating the previous vote. Basically you have lost your right to vote?
This is pretty crap as far as I am concern. I am already a victim of the incident and yet I and sure not allow to vote?
Ok, supposely I ask what my previous vote was. If its what I wanted anyway, can I don't invalidate it instead. Err... They will tell you NO. They can't tell you. What? You mean I am NOT allowed to know who I voted for? I mean its sensible to keep the vote secret, but thats as far as other people's vote is concerned. Why should I NOT be allowed to know who I voted for?
Ok, I know thats getting ridiculous.
But guess what? In order to invalidate the vote, they will have to find the serial number which is listed with my name previously. OK, so this IS the reason why there is a serial number to track me. Wow, how many people are you expecting to vote twice?
Voting is secret. Voting is anonymous. Most importantly, voting should be be taped recorded on a video camera mounted on top of the voting center right?

MySQL 5 + PHP 5 + vBulletin 3.5.4 ... on Windows IIS

Yeap, the obviously crazy combination. Running 3 open sources, 2 being free (vBulletin is not free and I wonder why would anyone pay for it) and one Windows 2003 with IIS. Who would want to do it? Not you? Well, I just did because of some crazy client needs. Personally I still feel open source should be left on the *nix platform.

Firstly, lets do MySQL. Piece of cake using the Installer version. But the problem is only beginning. Lets worry abt it later though. Make sure you dun get any errors during the installation.

Next, lets do PHP. Installing it again from the Installer version. If you encounter any errors, which some peopel do and I did, simple uninstall it and redo until you can get all working esp the Wscript part because its going to get very messy fixing that.

Throw in the vBulletin and Tada, it works. No way man, not this time. Go to /vBulletin/install/config.php and immediate you get the "VB3.5 requires that the MySQL functions in PHP be available. " error. Totally cryptic. Basically, what you need to do :

1. Go to %windows%/php.ini and uncomment the line ";extension=php_mysql.dll"
2. If you like you can try again, but you will get the missing php_mysql.dll error.
3. So, this is the hard part, you need that DLL. You cant compile it in Windows with a make, make install. So you will need to download the package version. You will find the DLL inside "ext" directory. Copy this to your PHP directory. (C:\PHP).

Now kick the /vBulletin/install/config.php and you are in business.
Well, I wont go about explaing configuring vBulletin here, you are on your own.

The Package Revealed

This is what is in the box. The Dell Inspiron 6400. Mac-ish looking computing monster.

This is what is in the box. The Dell Inspiron 6400. Mac-ish looking computing monster.