Meh..

Taken from Tiara's blog:

i didnt get in to any of hte local university. NOT even teaching. Man. Well, thats the result of getting average grades. I'm happy for the rest of my friends who made it though. =) I guess God has something else planned for me. As long as I do well in the future is all that matters.

I'm no more angry or sad. Just thankful. Thats all.

No one can imagine my delight upon reading her post. It seems that the whore's finally getting what she deserves. Ouh yea sure God has something else planned for you, but none of it involves you being successful in life. It's probably more along the lines of letting your bf impregnate you and then getting abandoned by your ultra-conservative folks, leaving you homeless and with no one else to turn to except for your sorry excuse for a bf who got you into that shit anyway. And that's not even the worse case scenario. What if he leaves you? After all, given the circumstances, who wouldn't? Nobody stays in love with a hypocrite for very long. Plus, what's a good-looking guy doing with a scrap project like you? Sure, you looked stunning when I was ravaging your pussy in SunPlaza Park two years ago. But as I look at your current photos, I can't help but bletch at your increasing ugliness. And should your decline follow the y=3-x graph, you would reach your hideous trough about a year from now, about the same time that your Mr Wonderful would stick his ding-dong (you even gave pet names to penises yea, you horny fuck) into you and cum deep inside your used pussy. Just what Mr. Lee Boon Haw ordered huh? His former head prefect venturing into the world of single motherhood at a pathetic young age.

Labels: Fuck You

My first error. I got too engrossed with getting the PCBs done that I totally ignored the components that were needed. As I was scanning through SP's online component store, I realised that they did not stock a couple of essential items. The PT2399 required for the delay, for example, was not available. So was the JRC4558, which i kinda expected. Same goes for the VTL5C2 needed for the tremolo. But what was surprising is that they also did not have the TL072. C'mon, you gotta at least have a general purpose dual op-amp in your inventory!

If not for RS Singapore, I would have panicked like a schoolgirl who's skirt got torn off when it got stuck in the train doors while she was rushing out. RS has got the 5C2, 072 and 4558 covered. But there was still the PT2399 missing!

By the sheer stroke of luck, I hit upon a source for them. Ebay. Upon further probing I also got sources for MN3007, should we wanna build a chorus too. Ok, so now the components are covered. However, I'm not too sure whether SP would reimburse me for ebay purchases. I think I'm gonna ask our supervisor tomorrow. I need to hand in the final budget to him anyway. I'm pushing for $700-$800. Hopefully the management would agree.

Labels: Final Year Project

So after 6 weeks of meddling with Linux and Red Hat, I decided that enough was enough. Screw this shit, I told myself. I'm gonna do something that I have at least some experience in. Something that I've been meaning to do but have only been able to complete small projects due to lack of time and capital for the resources. Something fun. Something totally unrelated to the boring and geeky world of aerospace. Something to do with guitar, or any instrument-level music device, and it's signal manipulation.

Bingo. I'll do guitar effects! But first I would have to convince my group and my supervisor. Persuading the former was easy. We all were dead desperate after 6 weeks of doing close to nothing anyway. Convincing the latter was surprisingly effortless too. He was very welcoming towards my idea. I dare say that he supported it too after I showed him some schematics, PCB artwork and pedals that I brought from home. He then asked me to write a formal proposal and a informal budget list, which I promptly handed in later in the afternoon.

If all goes well, we should be etching the 8 PCBs by next week and then populating the boards the following week.

Labels: Final Year Project, Guitar Effects

I always look forward to Wednesdays. Just two hours of lessons at 10. Then, it's off to play.

Lumbered on the 'dread-mill' at 2pm. I hate those things, but between running under Singapore's hellish sun and running in the uncomfortably cold 20 deg C gym, I'd take the latter anytime.

Then I met Esther, Yusof and Mansur for volleyball at 330pm. I learned how to jump and spike the ball. I learned that Germaine's a freshie in DBAT and that she's got cuteness written all over her tiny frame.

Volleyball ended at 5.30pm. Yusof, Mansur and me went to the gym. I did some upper body work. I felt that I was beginning to neglect my core workouts. Ouh well, there's always another day for crunches and sit-ups and side bridges and flutter kicks. We went to the SP pool afterwards and contemplated about hitting the pool. We didn't, opting for a hot shower there instead.

Can't wait for next Wednesday!

Labels: Wednesdays

Yesterday, I met Claire at Tampines Mrt. I asked her if she could buy me a set of acoustic strings and a capo earlier in the afternoon and surprisingly, she agreed. Today, I spent recording a guitar backing track to Frente's version of "Bizarre Love Triangle" which according to Claire, was for her vocal exam. I did three versions, one at 112bpm, another at 116bpm and finally one at 120bpm. It took me about 6 hours to do it. Ok no. It only took a measly 45 minutes. In between recording the different versions, I got engrossed with learning Kaki King's "Goby" and "Night after Sidewalk". Alternate tunings and slap harmonics have a quirky way of pushing my buttons I guess.

I had second, third and fourth thoughts about getting a DD-7. A part of me wanted to use the money to get new ss shoes, new clothes, new pickups for my tele, new haircut. But then the other part suddenly screamed, "Fuck it's got a 40 second looper!!". Hell, that was enough reason to get it. I came home from Ebenex a very happy man. Nevermind that I'll spend the next week starving in school because I blew my allowance on it. Nevermind that I'll have to skip gym because what's the use of pumping iron when you can't eat anything afterwards! Even though I've only had it for only 27 hours now, it probably has been stepped on the most number of times compared to the other pedals i have. I've got no regrets blowing $250 on it.

Labels: DD-7, new pedal day

My tremolo pedal has a sickening issue. It boosts the volume significantly when engaged. In the vast plains of Utopia, a tremolo should not do that. At the waveform's peak, it should be unity volume. The idea of a volume mod to counter the issue cropped up. That way, I could expand the use of my tremolo, both as a normal 'unity volume' tremolo with the option of a 'clean boost' when the speed and depth knobs dailed to minimum and the volume pot adjusted to taste.

Circled in red is the output jack. I removed it first. The idea of a volume mod is to connect the circuit output to lug 1 of a pot, and then lug 2 of the pot to the output jack. Lug 3 and the ring of the output jack would be connected to the circuit's ground.
As usual, de-soldering was a pain in the ass. I should remind myself to get a de-soldering flux/wick soon, because my de-soldering pump is pretty much useless. Nevertheless, I soldiered on and finally removed the output jack.

Circled in red is where the cheap black plastic jack once was. Circled in yellow is a 100k pot. People normally use 5k pots for volume control, but I felt that using a 100k would bump my 'awesome quotient' a few steps higher. Circled in blue is a spare mono jack I ripped out from my failed dual-transistor fuzz circuit.
So I plugged my guitar in and turned on the pedal. Volume control did what it was supposed to do, but it did a little more too. It was also active when the pedal is bypassed!! I didn't know why it was doing that!! Could it be that I soldered the pot somewhere in the the middle of the circuit? Did I accidentally short out a pcb trace while soldering and de-soldering? Did the pedal's 'non true-bypass' nature contribute to this problem?

Then i figured out the reason. Either on or off, true-bypass or not, the last remaining thing before the output jack is the pot. So even if the effect is bypassed, the signal would still go through the pot. This means that although I was able to achieve unity volume when the tremolo is on, the signal level would reduce once I turn the effect off. A cut in volume when in 'engaged' mode would lead to the same thing in bypass mode. So, unity volume was never achieved in the end!! I just ruined the resale value of a $115 pedal!! Kudos to me!!

Labels: failed big-time, failure, guitar pedal, Volume Mod

This poem was nominated by UN as the best poem of 2006, written by an African kid.

When I born, I black
When I grow up, I black

When I go in Sun, I black
When I scared, I black

When I sick, I black
And when I die, I still black

And you white fellow
When you born, you pink
When you grow up, you white
When you go in sun, you red

When you cold, you blue
When you scared, you yellow

When you sick, you green
And when you die, you gray

And you calling me coloured?

So while bouncing around in cyberspace, I chanced upon a killswitch mod for guitar. The schem looked so simple. I just needed an On-On DPDT switch, which I remembered taking from one of my school's lab. Heated the soldering iron up, stripped some wires and off I go. Took me about 6 minutes to solder everything up. Pictures below.
Yes, those thick wires are 18 awg. I replaced the flimsy 24 awg that came with the guitar with those 18 awg some time back. I swear stripping those 18's would have given me arthritis in my wrists if I'd done them on a daily basis. Much to my expectation, the killswitch works. Sadly, I didn't have a drill to drill a hole through the control plate to mount the killswitch there. So, after half an hour of wanking with it, I took everything apart.

Labels: Killswitch mod

Surprisingly, I didn't feel as shagged today as I expected myself to be after yesterday's events. But my thighs were a little sore, probably the result of forgetting to warm-up and cool-down the day before. Not sore enough to keep me from running though. I did a 3k loop around SP under the freaking hot noon sun before quickly heading to the pool gym to do the remaining 4.33k. Did some upper body work afterwards at the various stations.

Did I mention how awesome the pool gym is? They have a medicine ball. A fucking medicine ball!! Core work-outs here I come!! The gym is 4.37 times better than the one at T14. There's much more stations here in the pool gym but the downside is the overwhelming crowd. There's so many Big Papa Pumps here grunting their guts out that my embarrassment for them outweighs the initial intimidation.

Labels: awesome, running is awesome, SP pool gym

Today's weather is total bliss for an outdoor junkie like myself. I played soccer from 11am to 3pm. Had volleyball from 3pm to 5pm. Went swimming from 5pm to 6pm. I thought of hitting a few miles on the road when I got home at 7.30pm but the thought was quickly extinguished by the smell of my mom's cooking. Now, my calves hurts like hell and my forearms are sore as fuck.

I love the day's that are like today, when most of my time is taken up doing sports or fitness stuff. Like the time in November last year when I woke up at 6am on a Saturday to hit 19.5km on my long run, then hurrying back home to change and then go to school for a captain ball tourney at 9am, which mind you was not the slow-paced pick-up games that you played in sec sch with your fbt shorts wearing female class mate. This was intense and high-octane shit. It ended at noon and after resting at home, my friends called me to play street soccer at 6pm. I was so shagged by the time I reach home at 9pm. The next day was hell. Every part of my body hurts and it was such a drag to even go to the toilet to take a piss.

I expect I'll experience the same thing tomorrow.

Labels: Hurts, Limbs falling off, Soccer, Sore, Swimming, Volleyball

The modern way to eat ramen Behold my lack of flexibility

Labels: Ramen Ten