Now that we are in 2006, it will be interesting to jot down what are all my 'first' in 2006. I'll put down a list, please add-on yours and any additional interesting ones in the comments.

- First time you woke up in 2006, what time?
* 1 PM
- First person you saw?
* Eric "Ndut Bear" Lie

- First person of the opposite gender you saw?
* Momon
- First person that you talked to?
* Upik
- First person that you said 'Happy New Year' to?
* Upik(Read More)

It's that time of the year again, when we reviewed how we did in 2005, and plan for what we wanted to do and achieve in 2006. It's the time of resolution-making and goals-achieving again. So, I've drafted roughly what I wanted to achieve this year. Looking back, it has been a fruitful year 2005, lots of ups and downs, I achieved some that I wanted, improved in many areas of my life, and an extra unexpected bonus along the way. It has been great. So, on to 2006, here are few in my list that I can make public. My personal list is much much longer than these though

Church and Spiritual Life
1. More regular Quiet Time and Prayers. It was already much better in 2005 compared to 2004, but there are still lots of improvements to be done in 2006. I have completed around 53% of the whole Bible, with the current rate of one chapter per day, I should finish the whole Books of Bible by July 2007. By end of 2006, I should have completed the Book of Song of Solomon. Fingers crossed. See my progress here.
2. Be more active in church's youth. This includes sharing during Saturday service and hopefully start serving there too.
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Any of you ever tried drinking Coke while chewing on a Mentos, or ate Mentos immediately after drinking Coke? Well, if you haven't tried it, don't try it at home, or for that matter, never ever tried it. Look at this video to see what could happen when these two are mixed. Amazing huh?

Video from GoogleVideo.

I will be back to Jakarta for four days, Saturday morning flight, and I will be back to Singapore Tuesday afternoon. So, please bare that my blog will not have any update nor comments reply during these four days. Internet access in Jakarta is pathetic to say the least. See ya all, and have a great long weekend (again) hahaha....

After a few fully-packed days back in Jakarta, now I'm back in Singapore, to pounce on more activities tomorrow. Tired.

Last Saturday, I took a short trip to Jakarta for the grand opening of a real estate agency's 16th branch in Kelapa Gading. I reached Jakarta around noon time, and from airport, went straight to the office to get involved in its final preparation before its opening day.

Sunday was the grand opening day, as hundreds of guests came, including directors, president, and vice-presidents from a real estate group in Indonesia and a well-known bank group in Indonesia, top marketers from other agencies, journalists, and many many others. It's crowded, though not hectic. My family managed to take photo too.

From left to right: Myself, my brother-in-law, my sister, my niece, and my mom.
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It WAS also known as MSN Messenger. The last version of MSN Messenger will be v7.5. The next version, v8, will be called Windows Live Messenger with new icons, and new interface. Currently in by-invitation-only beta, I was invited by one generous soul who sent me the invite today. I immediately tried the new application. Although it's still MSN Messenger under the hood, it's nice to see few improvements to this daily instant messaging that we all use. Below are all the screenshots for your enjoyment. Warning: 500KB of screenshots inside.

Update: FIVE invitations to join the beta program today has been sent to five people, Upik, Eko, Bear, Vero, and my brother. Any invitations I get will be posted here, and will be sent on a first comment first serve basis
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If you were wondering what software that I use to blur out certain parts in the screenshots in my previous blog post, take a guess? A lot of you may have answered Adobe Photoshop. Wrong, hehehe.... Why should I use Adobe Photoshop that is very big in size (few hundreds MBs), expensive, and slow to load, if I can have a FREE, small in size (< 10 MB), very fast to load, and can do what I need, called GIMP, right?

Granted, that Adobe Photoshop is a much much more complex and established application, and I'm sure that it can do much more, but the problem is I don't need many of its features, not that I even know how to use them, hehehe.... Frankly speaking, it'll be like driving Porsche to supermarket to buy my weekly stocks. Taking a SBS bus will help me achieve the same purpose, for the time that is not much longer, for a fraction of the cost, correct? Hope this is the correct analogy, hehehe....

So, if you haven't tried it, and you are looking for a FREE image manipulation program, go and give GIMP a try. I like it so far. Here is the screenshot of GIMP in action in Mac OS X [330KB].

AMD has a game that you can try and hopefully win yourself an AMD dual-core processor.
Get the game through this link.
My high-score so far is 121. What's yours?

A quick look on my schedule last week. phewwwww..... Glad it was over ....

I had headache since morning I woke up today, presumably because I didn't have enough sleep during weekend. Kinda killing me whole day. I wanted to take MC already in the morning, but I forced myself to go to office still. In office, I practically couldn't do much as I didn't have enough brain cells to kill in the office. Finished one document and read half of another document was all I managed whole day, of course with all the standard phone calls and emails reading-and-replying tasks. I left office pretty early, 6 PM, reached home 7.30 PM, had my dinner in front of TV, watched Australian Open between Roger Federrer and Tommy Haas. I didn't finished watching the match though, as after dinner around 8.30 PM+, I immediately took two Panadols and went to bed.

I woke up around 11 PM when Upik called me, woke me up to ask me if I was OK, and ask me to sleep again, haha... Felt much much better after I woke up, and I bathed, talked to Pat2 and Ronald (Binilang that is), ironed my shirts, and post this blog entry. Should be going to bed again soon. I should be back to full strength again tomorrow. You all take care

Update: This morning, I felt so much better already. Thank You God

http://www.minibetonsoldier.com/game/nd90kuXQ/
My highest score so far was around 25,000. How's yours?

A bit of history and future here of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office from 95 onwards as far as I can remember and I know for futures:

Microsoft Windows 95, NT4.0, 98, 98 SE, 2000, Me, XP, 2003, Vista, Vienna.
Microsoft Office 95, 97, 2000, XP, 2003, 2007.

Those in bold are future products that are yet to be launched. What are those that you have used so far?

I'll be on leave (again), this time going back to Jakarta (again) for Chinese New Year. I'll be away from today (27 Jan 2006) all the way to 5 Feb 2006 when I'll be back to Singapore again. As usual, when I'm in Jakarta, I will most definitely not reply any comments, nor post any entry. I can hardly check my mail there with a 56K modem!!!

Planned activities back in Jakarta is to visit family after family, and of course friends along the way. I will surely have photos when I'm back to Singapore again. Keep checking after 5 Feb 2006

Anyway, to those who celebrate, HAPPY CHINESE NEW YEAR!!!!

Enjoy your holiday