Goodbye, 2006!

Another year came and went, and now it’s finally the last day and into the final hours. As a recollection, here are the things that I’ve done that meant something to me, chronologically order:

Jan 21 – Baptism in Christ
Declaring my faith, trust and love in Christ was a huge way to start the year of 2006. Not to mention the fact that 21 January is also my birthday!

Apr 3 – Driving Test
After long and hard hours were being spent at the driving lessons at Singapore Safety Driving Centre, 3 April was the faithful day I took my test. I can never forget how edgy I was on that day, and it had been 50% skill and 50% luck I will say. The cut-off point that I need to get was below 20, if not it will result as a failure. Well, I got 10. Haha…

May 6 – SAT Test
Since the beginning of the year, I had wanted to get into the renowned university, Digipen Institute of Technology. One of their criteria though, is the SAT. Wanting to pursue my dreams, I went ahead and register for one. May 6 was the faithful day, if I remember correctly. Well, it was a most grueling session that I had, and I got my results at June 2. I did fairly, mainly because English language was never strong.

My results are as follows:
Critical Reading 580
Math 660
Writing 490

May 6 – Singapore Government Voting Day
At the age of 22, I was legal to vote for who will be taking on over the Singapore Government for the next 5 years. Is it the People Action Party (PAP), or other parties, such as Working Party. As I stay in the area where I was legible to vote, I went ahead after my SAT test that day. It was a good experience though, seeing how the things are set up, the entire process as well. I never knew that I will actually be interested in the political scene until I needed to vote. =D

Jun 12 & 26 – Wisdom Tooth Operation
These are the 2 most traumatizing day of the year 2006. Had my wisdom tooth extraction operation on both dates, a pair on each side at one time. During the operation, though I don’t really feel anything, the pulling and pushing action that the dentists were doing will stay with me vividly. Post operation, it was bleeding so much from the wounds that I cannot even open my mouth at first, as when the gauze moves, the bleeding will be gushing. It took me 5 days to recover from side.

Jul 13 – Canada Trip
The long waited holiday! It was a great trip and I’ve experienced so many things. Travelled to Edmonton, Banff, Drumheller, Vancouver and Victoria Island during the tour, and it was such an eye opener. Spent a good 2 weeks to visit the area, eat great food, and enjoy the summer sun of Canada before returning back to Singapore on the 27 July. 2 weeks was not enough, and I really wished for a longer stay, but being restraint as I’m still a National Service man (NSMan), I had no choice.

Sep 29 – ORD Lo!
After serving 2 years to the nation, I’ve finally ORD lo! I’ve been looking forward to this day every day ever since I entered service. I believe this should be a mentality that most Singaporean guys will have. Nevertheless, these 2 years had been an excellent experience as I learnt the ways of a soldier. It is the kind of thing whereby you will not be able to experience it anywhere else.

Oct 16 – Found my dream job!
After several weeks of job-hunting followed by a couple of interviews, I’ve finally found my a great job with the dream scope that I had in mind at Radixs Pte Ltd. I am employed as a Flash engineer, and it has ever since been a great joy, working on my favourite program and programming language. My skills are still green though, and there’s so much more to learn on a daily basis.

Nov 7 & 8 – Adobe Max 2006 Singapore
With Adobe Max 2006 being the first conference that I had officially attended, I must say that it was a most enriching and invaluable source of experience. I had definitely learnt a lot during that 2 days, and I totally enjoyed myself, not to mention the food as well that Grand Hyatt provided. =D I learnt more about the upcoming Flash 9, codename Blaze, Flex 2, Actionscript 3, Apollo, the new products’ integrated workflow since Adobe bought Macromedia over, and especially the inspirational Flash presentation by Erik Natzke.

Dec 17 – Christmas Comes Early
Another first as well, this was an event organized by my Church that was about distributing food to the less fortunate so that they may experience the love of Christ. It was a heartwarming session when we brought food to them, and seeing their expression of gratitude. It was a win-win situation, as the families are being touched by us, and I personally, touched by God. My faith definitely thickens.

To the new year!

A Lovely Christmas

This had been a very meaningful Christmas for me this year, and I really want to thank God for it.

God said that we are the light of the earth, so our purpose as Christians is to bring the light to as many people as we can, dispelling the darkness that the devil so loved, so that people around us may see and experience the love of God themselves.

I finally answered to God’s calling a few days ago, and called up my God-mom and brother and invited them to church, since there’s an evangelistic drama that’ll be staged by the drama department of our church. Thank God that both of them responded positively. Indeed, our Lord answers if you knock on his door! I need to emphasize though, that both of them are non-Christians.

Hence this early morning, on the 25th of December, we set off to church and for the first time, I feel this happiness that was overflowing overwhelmingly in me. This Christmas drama unfolds God’s greatest present, especially when a person is going through an adversity. Three angels are sent to three distraught families as they go through their respective sorrowful trials. Through it all, each family discovers that God’s greatest present is really His presence.

Seeing how it touched my heart and how my God-mom cried (if I’m not mistaken, as it was pretty dark), I really felt that God used me to bring His word and light to them. Feeling used by God is such a wonderful feeling. Maybe I’ve procrastinated for far too long myself, but today, is definitely a good start.

It had been a long while since the last occasion I spent time with my God-mom. It was great. I have always hoped that being a lighter for Christ, I may one day bring my entire Buddhist family to Him. There’s this message that I will always remember in my heart, which was given by my pastor, “If you are saved by Christ but do not bring the good news of salvation to your family members, you’ll be all alone when God’s kingdom comes.”

With no intention of allowing that to happen, one of my new year’s resolutions this coming year will be to bring my family to church as often as I can. I know for sure that since I ask, God will provide, in His infinite ways for our ultimate good, for His love transients all understanding.
If you know me, and read this blog today, and one fine day I come and ask you to come to church with me, please do not be surprised. For it is out of my love for you that I want you to know of my God’s love for you.

Happy 2006th birthday to my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. Thank you God for loving us, for You first loved us, so we can learn to love you. For it is You who found us, when we are like lost sheep without our shepherd. I will praise Your name forever and always.

Isaiah 9:6
Unto us a Child is born, unto us a Son is given; and the government will be upon His shoulder. And His name will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

2 Months @ Work

How time flies!

It still almost seems like it is yesterday when I had just ORDed (Operational Ready Date, when we have officially served the duration for our nation) from the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF), looking and seeking for my first job. I went to several interviews, trying to find the perfect working environment that has both the combination of opportunities to learn and grow.

Viola! It is 2 months at my current company already! What a joy ride it has since been. I have come into contact with so many people, people with distinct leadership qualities, people with exceptional skills and knowledge, and I find myself in a huge industrial university where there is so much to gain knowledge of.

Being a flash engineer, I get in touch with what I love best, pure ActionScript. It always seems strange to me as I started out learning flash on a self-taught basis. I never expected it will blossom into a full-time career. My diploma in digital media design seems to be on the road to rust though. But I'm not complaining, yet! =P

What make me even more excited are the things that are lined up for me in the months to come. One of them is this. Although the official reason for the purchase of Swift3D is for the company’s production purpose, they are designating me to be the one to create the contents! I've always wanted to learn Swift3D since a couple of years back, so this is really an adrenaline rush to me when I heard the news.

I guess I'll not be able to have such great opportunities anywhere else, and so, I really want to thank God for all of these. =)

Over The Hedge

Over The Hedge focuses on how a group of animals, after hibernating from winter, found that the forest that they used to know is no longer as it had been. We see things from the animals point of view as we saw their fear when a long wall of bush (hedge) was been erected ever since they had hibernated.

Being the usual forest-type animals, they had no idea what this "hedge" is, and upon walking over, discovered a whole new whole, the world of humans. Humans had cleared away their only source of food with their settlement, and survival became a problem. Right at this time, another character, the raccoon, came into the picture to "educate" them the new way to survive, by stealing food from the humans.

What the others do not know though, was that the stash that they stole from the humans was actually for the raccoon's own survival. Because of this, they ended up in a lot of intense stealing and escaping schemes that often put you to the edge.

Personally, I think partly the reason is that the animals are so cute and you just feel for them and hope nothing wrong happens (they are really cute!). The humans being portrayed in the movie are of an evil nature and it certainly contributes to us siding with the animals.

Storyline aside, the movie was very well animated. There were several instances whereby they exaggerated things, like when a packet of nachos was opened, they portrayed it as an atom bomb explosion of senses. It was so funny but I can definitely relate to the fact that forest animals had never tasted snacks like nachos before. =P

Seeing from the animals' perspective is really unique. It is both realistic and hilarious, especially on the way we handle food and our way of life. You'll be guaranteed to have a good fun-and-laugh session.

There are a couple of lessons to be learned here though.

• Humans' acts of deforestation are affecting the survival of forest animals.
• To accomplish big things, cooperation is essential.
• Being in a family means looking out for one another.

The Descent

This film is scary. But that sounds like a serious understatement. This should be a better fit.

Extreme horror.

It's no wonder why the movie was rated R. For the amount of scare I got, if I had high blood pressure, I would have died. I almost fell off my chair throughout so many scenes! My hands found their way to covering my ears to prevent any more sudden burst of bloodcurdling sounds from getting in for more than half of the movie.

This movie answers to the question that I always have. Why did I never like the idea of adventuring? I know it's either of these 2 things. Either I watch too much of such movies, or that I'm really just a non-adventurous kind of guy.

My point of view of the former was affirmed, and I'm not going for any sort of "adventuring". Ever. I have no idea why but I seem to believe that in deep caves, there will be another life form. Something unknown, something that had evolved specially for survival in the darkness. Be it either animals or human, it's just too much for me.

I'm even wondering now if I'll be able to sleep tonight. The scenes are still so fresh in my head it sends chill down my spine.

This IS, 1st class horror.

New Blog Site For Flash Tutorials

As of today, I've come to a decision that the flash tutorials I will be creating will be residing in another blog site. Found that if I post my tutorials here, they're just gonna get mixed up with my personal life blogs.

The good part is, blogger is free. =)

Here's the URL,
http://flashmechtutorials.blogspot.com

Tst Singapore?

I was doing my usual surfing in the forums and came across this guy who's asking for help. Well, I offered my help for him, but apparently what I tested in flash had no results as I needed his movieclips on stage for appropriate testing.

As usual, I simply asked him for it from the forums. In return, he said lots of belittling things, which I felt was totally unnecessary. If he had so much "secret" codes going on in his file, he could politely reject, and not return with loads and carts of sarcasm, thinking I want to rip his codes for my own use.

The worst part is when he mentioned, "Tst Singapore".

Well, he definitely fueled a great inner fire in me and I'm so pissed off. But anyway, I din't reply back as I knew what I needed was to pray rather than to get angry, and sin along with him.

Back to reality though, his comments did spur in me the want to become a more professional programmer.

I'll put both my name and Singapore's dot on the forums.

Here's the link if you're interested to find out the details.
http://www.actionscript.org/forums/showthread.php3?t=122615

History of Violence

Just watched History of Violence last Saturday but haven't got the time to write a review about it till now.

History of violence is a very good movie. How true that everyone has their own past, dark or light.

It's about how this mild-mannered, nice looking family man (Viggo Mortensen) became a local hero in his town after saving his stall from a broad nightlight robbery.

Troubles start knocking at his door the next day as people from his past recognise him after his bravado was broadcast over TV. They came looking for him and shook his family life way of its foundation. Well, the rest of the story, if I put it in words, will just degrade it.

It's dark, it's great. One of the kind that will stick in your head for quite some time. At least for me.

Flash Tutorials

The last few days had been a wild ride... I've run around the actionscript.org's forums and learnt a lot of things, not to mention also giving out a lot of tips and tricks about flash. I guess I know flash more than I think I know!

Kind of thinking, maybe it's time I create some tutorials and post them here~ In that way, if I noticed any similar posts, people can get redirected here! I can only start with simple tutorials for now though, as I'm still not a pro. But I believe practice makes perfect, I can track my progress too~

At a deeper level, I can learn a lot more by doing more examples and getting inspirations from the forums.

What a win-win situation!

Forum Life

First day playing around in the forums has been exciting! Discovered a much larger world out there and so many new things happening around.

I must say these days, lots of people are so professional with AS. They write classes, NetConnection, PHP stuff, and many others that are alien to me. It's good in a way, at least that means I have many more things to learn, which is fun!

Found this to be particularly interesting though. In one thread they mention that there's a Flash Tracer Plugin for Firefox! I didn't know that! I used to create dynamic text boxes, and tracing on the browser itself. Both time consuming and hard to use.

If that plugin works as they say, it means a new toy for me to play with. =)

Joined FlashMove & Actionscript.org

As my new dedication to improve my skills in flash, I've henceforth joined Actionscript.org and re-dedicated my commitment to FlashMove.

Been a member on FlashMove for around 2 years, but has never been active before. Actionscript.org used to be a place for me to learn new stuff about flash, it's high time I go back again!

No more laziness. Onwards and go.

The Butterfly Effect

I must be crazy. Look at the time! It's 2am in the morning and I have to work the next day.

Can't pull myself away from my monitor though. I was just watching the dvd version of The Butterfly Effect. Man... Incredible.

For those of you who didn't have a chance to watch, it's highly recommended by me! Not that my review is oh so important, but it's really great to watch it. I remembered catching it in the theatre when it came out a few years ago, and I was already thinking what a mind blowing film it was.

Today, I watched the alternate ending. Still as great, though not as much a happy ending as the theatrical version. I'm not going to say anything other than this though, don't want to be a spoilers bringer.

Go watch it if you can. It'll be worth your time.

I'm a blogger!

Been procrastinating for very very long, as I never found the usefulness of blogs. Seems to me it's just a form of digital diary, where lots of people get caught for saying the wrong things, and being sued.

The change came recently, when I started working and met this colleague of mine. What an inspiration.

Seeing the things that he does with his blogs, like flash examples and sometimes about technology stuff, I began to think, "Yeah, why not I start doing something like that?".

In a way, it kinda acts like a log to my own progression as a person I guess.

So here's a new way to start things, by officially, being a blogger.

Just in case you want to check my friend out, his space is at http://arulprasad.blogspot.com/.