I spent the weekend at my girlfriend's place & tested Flash from her computer. Everything worked well so that helped me eliminate my country location (Singapore) as the source of the issue. Her computer's a 3 year old Vaio & mine's a 3 year old HP. I thought it might be a video card issue because she tried to Skype from my machine when we were travelling & it didn't work. So we brought her laptop to my place on Sunday & experienced the same buffer every 3 seconds that I do with my own laptop.
We're in different parts of Singapore but, most importantly, we have different providers. She uses Singtel & I use Starhub. I'm going to try & bring my computer to her place next weekend & then to another friend's apartment who has Starhub. I really hope we can figure this out.
The good news is, at least, I got to watch the return of Fringe. That's the only show I really care about. Too bad it's probably going to be cancelled in May.