The Internet's Short Attention Span

Powered by    * Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.       Interesting.... Because the more I surf on the Internet the more I find my attention span shortening. Anybody else think the same too?             Click the following to access the sent link:       The Internet's Short Attention Span*               *This article can also be accessed if you copy and paste the entire address below into your web browser. http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1903951,00.html

Photo Diary

If you've been seeing the strange headlines with no text or pix attached... I've been trying to email/MMS photos from my phone, but suddenly nothing works... :( So here they are:

After one shopping trip with my mother, here are the winning finalists.... ( one of them is my gym bag by the way ) She finally chose the pink one, the one that I was originally eyeing for myself...... -_-!!!

I love Cold Rock. That's the only text I can think of for this picture. :)

After one night of shopping with my moth

The first flash mob I've seen being organized in Singapore... even though it's organized by a business, and not exactly that spontaneous, still worth checking out, no?

http://ping.fm/vCCZI

I got presents! Very happy :)

Salmon Skin Exfoliation Rubs

It's orange, it's fresh, it's a favourite food of mine......


Yes, it's a SALMON SUSHI. [ok, it's a plush toy]

I swear I wasn't about to buy this, but Yenn insisted it was 'damn cute' and a total waste if I didn't buy it, so instead she bought it for me, insisting that I will put it on at least one of my bags when I go out with her.

Er, cannot imagine this on some bags lor....



And then I realised that it was handsized, it had a good grip.......

It's perfect for rubbing on Yenn's bare skin. In order to highly irritate her.

rubarubarubarub!!!!

After a few rubs, the response was "GET AWAY FROM ME YOU PERVERT!!!"

Now coming at all facial salons near you.... the Salmon Skin Exfoliation Treatment!

The more I grow the more I question.

The more I question, the more I realize how much others don't know.

And more worriedly, how much they don't care.

The more I realize they don't know or care, the more I try to go against them. The more different I try to be.

The more different I try to be, the more crap I get from others.

The more crap I get the more miserable I get.

The more miserable I get, the more resigned I get.

How like that? Sigh...

Maybe the last line should be instead:

"the more miserable I get, the more determined I am that I should not remain this way forever and the more I take steps to ensure my future happiness."

Yea, that sounds better.

In reference to below post:

After I ended my fuming, I took a shower to cool down and decided that, as undesirable as it was, the most proper thing I could do was to go to work after all.

After all it wasn't a last minute notification, since the mail was sent out a week ago. And if I didn't read it then it was my fault that I only heard about it on the day itself.

So I went anyway, listened to people talk about something that I didn't use in work, I understood half about everything that they were talking about. And when I asked why I was put down for this, the answer was basically 'just in case in the future' -_-!!!!

Apparently when I was young, someone forgot to warn me that maturity could result in miserable wastes of your time.

Right now am most disgustedly sianz....

I did not check my email for about a week or so and apparently my name got put down for something and I didn't know.

Today, that it's supposed to take place, I receive a call from a colleague that I've been put down on it.... and I'm supposed to appear at work about an hour from now...

I'm farking pissed because I want to stay as goddamned far from my workplace now as I possibly can, and now I have an obligation to go back and I don't know if I should honour that because it could be partly my goddamnned fault that I didn't see this before, but mostly

I'M JUST PISSED OFF AT THE IDEA THAT I HAVE TO GO BACK TO WORK WHEN I ALREADY THOUGHT I DIDN'T HAVE TO. WHAT'S THE GODAMNED LIFE-OR-DEATH IMPORTANT THING THAT REQUIRES MY PRESENCE???????? JUST TO LISTEN TO SOMEBODY TALK ABOUT SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T DIRECTLY AFFECT MY WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its supposed to start in an hour and I still dunno if I should turn up............. oh blardyfarkinghell...................

Jeremy Monteiro and the Tang Quartet was not so aptly named, since in last night's concert, there was less tang than I thought.

There was jazz and plenty of good jazz. Quet thought the saxophonist was great and I thought the trumpet was superb, and we both agreed that the 4 stringed instruments were sadly 'extra'

This was quite disappointing in that aspect. The Tang Quartet are a brilliant quartet of stringed instruments in their own right. For this concert, most of the music seemed to have been handled by the jazz musicians rather than them. They seemed to be relegated to the role of light musical accompaniment, drowned out at times by the heavier sounds of the saxophone and trumpet.

All in all, a good concert, but with some better arrangements, could have been better.

( funnily I expected to enjoy this one more, since I wasn't familiar with FF music and this concert had 2 of my favourite artistes. Oh well, just goes to show... )

I went for a performance as part of the Singapore Arts Festival, Ruhe ( silence ) at the National Museum. It sounded interesting because it seemed to be presenting the point of history from ex-German officers during WW2.

Honestly, it wasn't really what I was expecting. I was expecting something like a play, or mini play cum dialogue. Turned out to be a bit more art-farty than I thought :p

We were ushered into a room at the National Museum, where chairs were laid in a circular pattern all facing the center of the room. As the last few stragglers came in, lo and behold, several men in the audience stood up and stood on their chairs.

yes, stood on their chairs.

Then they started singing. And I looked around for the CD player, because my god, mon dieu, watashi no kami, I never believed that 10 men could sing in such perfect, sublime harmony. It was like the most perfect angels' choir had come down from heaven.

After a while, a woman's voice crept up on the mens' and the men gradually sat down to reveal a female member of the audience. She started talking about her involvement in a German hospital during WW2, how she saw Hitler, and her admiration for the pride and courage of the amputees that came to her hospital.

The singing then resumed and later on another man stood up to defend his role in the SS during WW2. To him, it was simply something you had to do at the time for man and country. Making life all the more surreal when he came back to the real world only to feel like he was living a fake life. And having all that he was fighting for decried and put down by the Allied forces.

The 2 dialogues were interesting because they present a side of history hardly ever heard by the victorious side: That of the losing party. We have heard in countless history lessons how our grandparents suffered at the hands of the Japanese soldiers, how the Jews died in the Holocaust etc etc but we don't often hear what happens to the side that lost.

And it is a performance like this that makes it interesting. Because when you hear the dialogues ( Adapted from real interviews with ex-SS officers ) you realise that apart from the megalomanical Hitler, most of those that were fighting under the banner of the swastika were simply ordinary folk who felt that they were doing the right thing for their country, and that many of what they felt were similar to what soldiers in England or anywhere else could have been feeling too.

After all, regardless of whoever died, or regardless of how human we all are, it is the victors who become war heroes, and the losers who become war criminals.

Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy concert

It started with music to stir you into battle... Music that quickened your heart and made you sit up on your seat in attention.

Then it became music sweetly calming, full of peace, calm and fields of flowers.

After that was music of a forgotten city, attacked by giants and trolls and left for dead, till one grownup survivor brought its people back.

It was music of love, comradeship, honour, battle lust and of the hope that comes happily ever after.

One of the better orchestra concerts I've been to. Now to get my hands on a cd... ;p

Yenn and I met for dinner before the concert at the esplanade.

"what did you order?"

*points to soup*

"Hey, you ordered the same soup I did. What sandwich did you get?"

"bacon and cheese"

"I got that too!"

*pause*

"what tea is that?"

"peach"

"me too!"

*pregnant pause*

"we may be hanging out too often together."

"agreed. What colour underwear are you wearing?"

And for the record that last line wasn't mine!!

Flashback to the Past

One day, I saw a notification on Flickr that I had no Pro account, and that only the first 200 photos of my account would be shown.

Because of that, I thought maybe I should delete some of the photos from the account, reasons being 1) I already had copies of those photos on my hard drives and 2) I wanted to free up space for other stuff.

So I had to go into the account and discover what were the photos that I should delete. Only to find a whole trove of goody oldies.

For example, who would have thought this illustration, from back in 2005, would strike such a chord now? ( Although for polarly opposite reasons than when I first did it )



People never change either. 4 years on, I still irritate her and she still takes revenge for it.



Some made me feel regretful. I don't know when I'll ever be able to churn out something as nice as this again: ( Or whether I'll ever have the leisure to do this in real life )



Other than these, I also found a whole bunch of thought-lost photos from Graduation 2003 (!!!) that made me realise that, however fat I thought myself back then, I was actually thinner. InThan in the present now anyway -__-!!!!!! And like my weight, other subtler differences could be found if you looked closely enough. I was thinner, just like some of the others, [although the graduation gown did a wonderful job of hiding those figures] Faces looked fresher, even with the lack of makeup. No eyebags, worry lines, and a totally fresher expression in the eyes, without the effects of lasik.

I'm not sure if I should ever show these photos to future generations.

A more poignant were the even older Redang Part 1 photos I found, where all of us looked thinner, younger, fresher, and totally unaware of all the upcoming crap that was awaiting us in the so-called real world. The photos, which back then seemed so new and fresh, now took on a slightly dated feeling of being old, already beginning to take on a sepia tint although they were clearly in full colour. The colours had already faded a little, and bled a little into each other, so that the outlines were not as clear as before. Looking on them, you start to think, did it really look like that? Does my memory fail me?

Maybe these I should keep as a warning to future generations. ( "Don't think you'll never grow old. Look at Mummy and Aunty back then......" )

I only had slight regrets in the end when I was deleting the photos from the account. Of course, the important ones had already been saved in my hard drive, so no worries on that part. But as the pictures disappeared one by one from the profile page, it seemed to draw a comparison with our memories of our youth.

It was as if with each delete, I was cementing a fact that these were times and attitudes that I would never be able to revert back to. That they were gone, lost, somewhere in my past. Even though I would be able to view them again from time to time, that was the only contact I would ever have with a past that was irretrievably behind me.

Suddenly I feel too old for my shoes...... I want to go back to this.......

Bloglines - Laptop pillow

Bloglines user boredslacker (boredslacker@gmail.com) has sent this item to you, with the following personal message:

Either for sleepy workaholics, or for those weboholics who can't get enough of Facebook/Twitter... :p

---

Boing Boing

Laptop pillow By David Pescovitz Over at Boing Boing Gadgets, Lisa Katayama beckons me to this "laptop pillow for sleepy workaholics."

Let's see if I can post the events of the week without going into too much detail..

Did overtime on 2 days without finishing my regular work.

Prepped for a presentation to the boss which could have gone far better.. but he still cleared me so not complaining too much...

Have had a meeting dumped on me which clashes with a show that I bought tickets for in March. -_-!! and then dismissed by the boss before I can even try suggesting an alternate arrangement...

( would it kill you to try it? Or to even listen to me fully first?)

Been told that I have to inject more personality into my work? Although for this last part I really can't care anymore...

Plus the usual multitude of chaos from the underlings, today resulting in blood and stitches...

This year has been a total downhill slide following the stock market. I'm not entirely sure what is causing me to lapse into these depressive moods but I have to wonder how much job-related crap I can still take, or if I have to, how to get a better shovel to throw all the crap back.

But I think... I most probably want to switch company by this year. I just see no future for me right now, or rather, a future that I would look forward to.

Maybe it should be a crime...

 Massachusetts wants to imprison people for 10 years if they take a nude photo of their over-60 spouse, even with spouse's consent 

Then again, maybe it should be a criminal offence if your grandparents take nude photos if each other. Especially if they post them somewhere on the Internet... 

Sent from my iPod

Nuking a handphone in a microwave

 Microwaving a cellphone is surprisingly cool 

Now what if it had been an iPhone in that microwave? Hmmm...

Sent from my iPod

Here's a pic of e new Phone... Hoping he

Here's a pic of e new Phone... Hoping he works better than e previous one... Still tryin to get used to e operating system though...

Yes, I finally got myself a new phone... It's a Sony E 905 in gold...

I don't often change phones but the nokia was just giving me more trouble than it was worth. How dost thou irritate me? Lemme list the ways:

1. Hanging while I am doing something innocently, say sliding it open. Perchance my slides were too rough for it. A phone has to be slid like a hockey puck across ice.

2. Refusing to read my memory card. One day, the phone had an argument with the memory card when I was not looking. Since then they've refused to speak to each other. Never mind that I cannot save anything in the card since then.

3. Throwing diva fits on me and asking for strange numbers to message centres when previously none was necessary to send messages.

And to add oil onto fire, when I went to the m1 shop, I realized that it doesn't even gave a tradein value.... -_-!!! presumably I'd even have to pay m1 to take it away from me...

To a point, enough us enough. I wouldn't have minded using the phone for 2 years, but with these kind of problems coming in just after the one year warranty ( how convenient ) I think not worth it la...

Let's hope the new phone lasts longer now! If not, iPhone still looks tempting... :p

3.

If I was given the chance to change over my life, would things necessarily be different?

If I was put in a new place, where nobody knew me, and I didn't knew anybody, could I change myself? Change long-established habits and quirks? Develop a totally different personality? Make myself into another different character altogether?

Actually, I think I could not. I've been in situations like the one described above before, where I found myself by myself surrounded by total strangers, and each outcome turns out the same.

At the start, I'm always the aloof one. I can make decent small talk with people, but after that, people seem to forget me, or look over me. [maybe sometimes, this is due to the presence of other prettier, slimmer, and more guy-pleasing girls in the room. -_-!!!]

Given more time, and more interactions, I slowly start to develop relationships. I start to get to know a few people, hang out with them, start to know them more. Then the interactions get more regular, to the point where I know I can trust them for help.

This is the same pattern I have everytime I'm in a new social situation. I very rarely make bosom friends on the first try. It usually takes a lot more time, and a lot more fate. It also helps that there are people willing to go past my initial aloofness and actually ask me out for a second cup of coffee. [thanks, guys]

But because of this, I don't really like being put in places where I am alone. Alone, I have to either try to socialize and make small talk to appeal to those in the room, or sit in the corner like some kid punished in school. Neither of which is a very appealing option for me.

If I were to be put in a new environment, where everyone is a stranger, what will I do? Probably end up hanging out at the bookstores or the libraries. The Internet and books will always be your friends. :)

If it was you, would you change? Would you even want to change?

red

red
Originally uploaded by aki_onna

A long time ago I made a resolution to do more art. Look where that got me. -_-!!!

So now I downloaded this nifty app into my iPod that lets me doodle and another app that lets me upload the doodles to flickr. :) Let's see where this gets us.

This doodle was done when I was thinking about colour. What images come to mind when you think about a certain colour? What mood does it put you in?

For me, red is the diehard romantic colour... always associated with love, and hence this doodle.

Yes, I'm the typical Piscean I guess... :)

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Class 95 Dog Walk

All I had to do to find the Slayer and her dog was to follow the sounds of excited barking, and as I got closer, the smell of the dogs. Welcome to Canine Land. Keep your dog on a leash and try not to step on any poop.

The short walk was fun, though, because of all the dogs and a thousand photo opportunities. Which is when I learnt why showbiz rules always says never work with animals and small children. Ever tried taking a frontal shot of an unwilling dog?

Still, was fun to take pix of them all. Will try to upload when I remember... :p

20 ridiculous tourist complaints

My favourite is the one about the beach, image no 3.

( I have to agree with the blogger ondine. Why is it these people van
go on holidays and we're stuck here? )

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/5005019/20-ridiculous-complaints-made-by-holidaymakers.html

For the best content online, visit www.telegraph.co.uk

Sent from my iPod

Too much work-related thoughts have been going through my mind lately because of the major event coming up. I can still concentrate on the things I read or see or shop for, but when my brain is unguarded, a stray thought goes in and I'm in the loop again. :s I need to get the mind off...

I do wish sometimes I could put all my thoughts online like this in detail so that for once everything would be clear upstairs. Writing in code doesn't always help because later I have to translate everything into intelligible form for friends. Writing in detail will probably get me fired one day. Locking up this blog and making u readers type in a password to get in feels clandestine. What then is a good balance?

Tired of my job

Yes, I have finally gotten tired. Not the I'm-sick-of-this-crap-and-I-
wanna-quit kind of tired, but the kind that makes you want to spend
the day sleeping in instead of reporting to work kind.

I only just remarked this to a colleague that there were that more
stuff to do this year. I seem to have more work to do than before, and
shorter deadlines to finish them by. Whether this is really happening
or just a figment of my imagination I'm not sure. I just feel more
fatigued this year than in the previous two that I've been working.

Health? Diet? Social commitments? External expectations? I'm not sure
what... I just wish I had more time to properly slack for a while
instead of having the constant feeling of work looking over my shoulder.

Sent from my iPod

A slightly-abridged-cut-n-paste of a conversation today with Yenn:

"I want to buy some new music but nothing appeals to me."

"Uh-huh"

"I mean, most of the music out these days are like casual flings. Hi, yea, it was nice hanging with you, but we're really not that compatible, you know? I just think we should start seeing other CDs."

"Uh-huh"

"And then, you meet a CD, and the music on it is like, whoa, your music soulmate, the ONE you've been waiting for all your lonely life, and listening to it, it's like having sex."

"Uh-huh????"

"Ok, wrong comparison."

I think you'll be able to guess which is Yenn and which is me.......

A simple video, yet, that is powerful in its simplicity.

The last day...

That I'll ever be 27. :p

I know this is one occasion where people feel obliged to moan that they're getting older, and I know many of you do the same every year. [oh, you know who you are]

For me, I never felt this grief about 'getting older'. To me, birthdays were great excuses to blow off work, [still is] binge on favourite foods, [still is] and a time where you got unsolicited gifts of cash and book vouchers from friends and family. [though a nice new bag or two would be great...]

Lots of great memories of parties / binges on my birthdays. Heh.

And the getting older part? Never really been bothered by it, actually. Lately, been actually thinking that maybe it [breathes in] wasn't so bad to grow old after all.

Ok, there goes a controversial opinion.............

But looking back on some of the other snafus that happened in my life, I have to admit that this current age, where I am now, holds somewhat more advantages than any other time in my life. Every other era in my life so far has been a smorgasbord of the worst kind of insecurities, and it's only as I'm nearing 30, that I've either come to terms with these insecurities, or learnt to chuck them aside as a waste of my time. I feel... strangely more emotionally stable, more grounded. I can care about the things that are really important to me, while deciding not to care at freakin' all about the stuff that should be bothering me.

This was something that I could not do well at any other age.

So let's stop looking at the worst parts of life as something to regret or close into the attic. They should be celebrated, with great glee and joy! [and partly because they're over] In this wonky spirit, let me show my gratitude for all the shit received in life thus far:

I'm grateful for being stone broke for most of my teenage years, and for spending till I was stony broke in my uni and tuition days. Only when you go through days of having absolutely no money do you appreciate it more later in life and learn how to save and spend more wisely.

I'm grateful for all the ghastly, ill-fitting and totally unsuitable clothing I wore. Only through those mistakes did I start to learn the rudiments of good taste. [and, in other people's opinion, still learning]

I'm grateful for being fat. That way I know no one is ever around me simply because I'm sexy and chio. It also gives me a stronger drive to exercise and eat more healthily than a lot of thin people.

I'm grateful for my job, which sucks the life out of me and surrounds me with people that drive me nuts. They make me more creative in imagining how to start a new business, new career and drive me to seek out ways in which to make my life better. Without this bloodsucking job, I don't think I would have researched career options, gone out with friends as much, or even learnt lindy hop. I would have just been.... another civil servant.

I'm grateful for all the stupid, narrow-minded and plain incompetent things that I come across. They stimulate me to find better solutions, simply just to prove to unbelievers that there is a better solution out there.

I'm grateful for all the years I spent single, while others were getting attached, and even married. They made me more grateful and patient for the one that came along. Which also reminds me that.......

I'm grateful for all the heartache, disappointment and grief the DF put me through. [including the kitchen sink] It was only after we aggrieved each other that he learned how to live with/endure me, and me the same to him. Makes me think that we do have a shot at being with each other after all.

And before you're convinced that my life has been nothing but one bad dream....

I'm grateful for the friends I have. The friends that I meet a few times a year remind me how precious our relationship is each time we meet. The friends I meet every week help me get through the daily turmoil of life. I can't live life without either kind.

and to sum up:

I'm grateful for all the shit in my life. It makes cheap toilet paper that much more precious.


So, sweep all old regrets under the presents. Birthdays are a time for cake, and even better if the cake comes with mascarpone cheese and plenty of rum!

On Valentines' Day, he fetched me from my house for dinner. When I
opened the car door, there was, lying on the car seat, a freshly
bloomed dark red rose and a knowing grin on his face.

A good start to a good evening. ;)

Sent from my iPod

25 things

Happily and innocently reading Quet's blog till I saw the word
"tagged" with my nick... Bleah... So here are 25 things about me:

1.
I have studied 3 languages: English, Chinese and Japanese. I am fluent
in the first, passable in the second, and dismal in the third. And
despite this I want to take up 2 more languages in my lifetime.

2.
I have been attached for the last 4 years to an emotional blockhead
who's given me more stress and a wilder kind of happiness than anyone
else in my life. If that doesn't make me a kind of saint I don't know
what will.

3.
I spend more time with my friends than my boyfriend or my family.
Which puts me in direct opposites with about half the people I know.

4.
Also, I spend most of my time out wandering somewhere. I feel
positively brainless if I have to stay at home. Makes me feel like
I'missing out on something.

5.
I spend my most peaceful and rejuvenating hours at the art museum. I
love to see the art and love to dream about my own.

6.
I think daydreaming is underrated. No one ever realizes the value of a
good 20 mins doing nothing but stare into space. Yet they always want
the kind of effort from you that you cannot produce without staring
into space.

7.
I think the best way to live is to be damned with what everyone thinks
and just do things your own way.

8.
I have an increasing impatience for what I consider stupidity, or a
lack of ability or willingness to think for oneself. I can forgive
this in children but I find it totally infuriating in adults. I cannot
get around that some people will do things simply because and for no
good reason. And that goes for a lot of civil servants.

9.
I can be downright sarcastic when I want to be, but sometimes my
innocent humour gets misconstrued as sarcasm. This probably explains
why my friends are few but close. ( thanks guys )

10.
I have joined some of the most unlikely CCAs people would ever think I
would join. I have been a shortlived softball pitcher, played in a
chess team, become a librarian, ok not so unlikely, and to the
surprise of Some friends, become vice president of the Chinese
orchestra.

11.
My CCA record in JC was equally fruitful with me having filled up
almost everything in it. My studies were not as fruitful, and I was
just thankful to have been able to drop accounting. Come to think of
it, that also describes my current patterns with my work...

12.
The only thing I did well without breaking a sweat for was English and
GP. Where my classmates used to struggle to form 2 coherent
paragraphs, I had already finished my essay. Tip to all future
parents: never be stingy over books for your kids.

13.
I thank the gods that my dad encouraged me to read half the trash that
I did. Nobody ever stopped me reading comics, trashy novels or books
beyond my age group at home. If you doubt the value of some forms of
comics and novels, read my above point about English and GP again.

14.
Up to this day, I still feel naked if I don't leave the house without
some reading material in the bag. I usually end up buying some
magazines on the way.

15.
Following the point about reading, some of my favourite magazines
include 8 days, Oprah, Cleo, computer Arts, Time, Newsweek, Wired and
Psychology Today.

16.
And to show some vestiges if a bilingual education, I have been
reading the same Chinese manga for 14 years. And the title shows no
sign of ending soon. -_-!!!

17.
This diversity of taste also runs to my music. I listen to 98.7, 99.5
regularly. On my iPod, I have lounge, pop, rock, rap, jazz, Chinese
ballads, which I listen to fairly regularly.

18.
I just started on opera. :p whether it remains a lingering love is
sometiing yet to be seen.

19.
I love to go for concerts but I always have trouble finding people to
go along with. So sometimes I just go alone.

20.
The best concert I ever went to was the Black Eyed Peas which had
everyone jivin' in their seats. The most memorable ones I went for was
Jamie Cullums' and Jason Mraz for their performing skills.

21.
My iPod is another that I would feel naked walking without. I don't
know how else to endure bus and MRT rides.

22.
And my headphones are one of my most treasured items together with my
iPod.

23.
The items that I most treasure are also my most expensive and my most-
used: iPods Shiroi and Kuroi, headphones, laptop Lapidora and camera
Kenny. These are items I would kill to defend.

24.
I'm also in the habit of naming my personal electronic products. Heh.

25.
One last for the road: I am a unique body unlike everyone else, and in
that I am like everyone else. ;)

And maybe I should add 26: I am capable of typing long memes. Ha!

The tagged one will be the Slayer, for always telling me about there
being nothing to blog about. Heh.

Sent from my iPod

Insomnia again

This is getting to be a tiresome problem especially for someone
working in the morning... And it's not the first time this year
either...

I'm not sure if it started because of work stress or bad habits
developed during the holidays or is simply the result of an
overstimulated mind. Heck it could even be ice lemon tea for all I
know...

What I do know is that it's 1245am, my alarm is set till 6 and I'm
blardy blogging simply to try to lull myself to sleep!!!

Because when I get like this, my mind runs on 4th gear even if I'm
snug in bed. Even when it drifts closer to sleep it hooks onto a
thought, catches it and reels it in and before you know I have the
workplan for 2 years in my head. Give me enough nights like this and I
may just rewrite the works of Shakespeare. :S

Sigh... Ah well, hopefully one night I'll come up with my million
dollar biz plan that will let me work for one hour a day... ( and if
you thought that was a crazy thought, you haven't read my previous
post about Mark Flindus... Scroll below and read! )

Sent from my iPod

How to earn $10million a year

Do not underestimate this man.


Or this spammish-looking website.


Because according to this article,


That guy makes US$10million [yes, that's 6 zeros] by working one hour a day.


Now excuse me while I sit in a corner and pensively ponder why I'm still in my job.

What is happening to our gahmen?

Is it me, or are the politicians in Singapore suddenly saying a lot of inane things nowadays?

First it was Tan Soon Yong writing about a very expensive cooking class, but I could forgive that because it was his money. [If you had a lot of money and everyone else was poor, is that going to make you want to give it all away and live in an attap hut?]

Then MP Charles Chong had to add his two cents worth and commented that it maybe "made less mortals envious". As if working in a middle class society made you a "lesser mortal". Lesser maybe by some other deficient being's standards.

After that I read on mrbrown that Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts, Lui Tuck Yew has declared the Internet "not an effective self-regulated regime". That's like saying that a Mercedes is 'not an effective minibus'. [I particularly like mrbrown's comments on this statement. Go read.]

And finally, to top it off, Singapore MP Loo Choon Yong has commented on ABS-CBN news that "procreation is not our forte", suggesting also that "because more free time did not necessarily result in more babies, people should work on Saturdays". Because we all suck at sex anyway, let's just spend the time making more money anyway. Because of course, workplace stress and overtime are not the reasons we aren't making babies. A lack of sexual procreational ability is.

*sigh* Singaporeans, please vote as best you can next election. If nothing else, at least to prevent politicians like the above from ever speaking in public again.

[all comments in open inverted commas taken from the source. Funnily neough, I couldn't open the ABS-CBN news website. Did someone in MICA finally start regulating the Internet? Hahaha]

Where is the time ?

Now that the work year has started again and there are no more festive
holidays for a while, time to get back to the grind of your daily lives.

I've been thinking about time, or more accurately the lack of it to do
everything fulfilling. Isn't it ironic that with all the devices we
have to help us save time, we end up with a lack of it anyway?

Take my iPod. It helps me blog, check mail and read blogs, but while I
do this, there is a stack of books waiting to be read. -_-!!

Your work computer or laptop is essential to your work, but with its
increased efficiency comes higher expectations of productivity.
( "what you mean that word report isn't ready yet? You could have done
it in 30 mins!" yea, 30 mins I could have spent doing something else...)

Modern lifestyle magazines are on the dot of this problem. I've read
articles on how to do 5 min workouts, 10 min exercises in creativity,
how X mins a day ( just minutes! ) can help you achieve whatever
regrettable resolution you set for youself this year. As if my life
wasn't cluttered enough with the big things, now I have to throw in
all these cookie crumbs just to fill up the time?

This is the real curse of 21st century life. That if you are able to
do more than your grandparents, you should be. There is no excuse for
neglect, cos look at all the wonderful gim-gams you have now! Your
life should be better! You should have more money, be smarter,
slimmer, funnier, happier.

Except that most of us living now know the real secret: that we're
not, are we?

MAybe the ironic part is this part that I read in a fitness mag: the
article said that we were getting more sedentary because public
transport and things like escalators took away the need to walk
around as much anymore. Thus to lose the weight, the mag suggests that
you walk more, instead of relying so much on modern conveniences.

So to slim down, live like your grandparents used to. -_-!! we spent
all that time and money on these modern gim-gams and now it turns out
we didn't have to. Next thing you know someone will tell you that to
have more money, work as a housewife or clerk and earn less first.

Sent from my iPod

My nose again...

Damn the flu. Unlike other illnesses, it leaves you healthy enough to
do some stuff in town, like go out with friends brave enough to risk
meeting you, but deletes all the taste from the food and drink you
love :s I can't wait for this bout to be over.

Sent from my iPod

Just a bit too tired...

I always go through the same mental process when confronted with something new:

1) Approach warily
2) Do some skeletal planning
3) Procrastine
4) Panic when deadlines are near
5) Get it done
6) Relax again

And this is almost with every new arrow lodged in my back.

Inevitably it is always stage 4 where my nerves become the most strained, because I was stupid enough to ignore it for too long. When the panic takes over, I forget that actually the work can be done, and that I can do it. It takes me a bit more time to actually confront the damned thing, get it over and done with, and then I realise it wasn't as bad as I thought.

That's what I have to keep reminding myself about: Nothing is as bad as I make it out to be.

So the CNY reunion dinner was at the same place that we had dinner for the past 5 years or more. :S

One bright side was that the food came faster. Much faster, because we were seated promptly at 8 when we arrived, and most of the food came before 9, ala conveyor belt sushi-style. This time also, they remembered all our courses, only forgetting the order in which they were supposed to serve it, and also almost earned us an extra serving of duck. :p

Then my aged grand-aunt came back from the toilet and almost seated herself at the wrong table. I suppose she thought the South Indian family bore a slight resemblance to us.

Other than that, the CNY went on as usual and we went for the usual family visits, munching on goodies and feeding on the family gossip as usual.

Happy Niu Year! And especially to all those who sent the SMS greetings that I was too lazy to respond to! :p

Just another ordinary day...

I've been constantly urged to blog more often, and since it's a rare
night that I'm actually home early, maybe it is because I am fated to
do something other than lie back on my very comfy bed and pretend I'm
Jabba the Hutt.

So let's have some life updates, whether you've heard them or not.

Work started with me getting shot in the back by an arrow, and
henceforth I've been going around trying to discount its presence as
much as possible. Hard to do with, well, a shaft being shot in your
back by a psychotic hunter. ( oh you have to hear this story one day,
but not over the net ) I'm trying to look on the bright side but I've
been too busy going on one hunt after another.

Sigh. Damn the cryptic references.

Lifewise the year has started innocently enough. I stuck to one
resolution and have returned to the gym like the prodigal daughter. If
all goes well I hope to lose another, er, 500grams?

I still wanna join more courses and the unexpected development at work
has opened more avenues than I previously had. I've been looking
around but they all seem to require unexplainable amounts of money.
Sigh again on cue...

And lastly I just want more sleep. I dunno if it's a carryon effect
from the hols, but I've been struggling to wake each morn. For my line
of work, definitely not a desirable trait. I feel though that it's the
result of trying to wake up before the damn sun does.

Hai... Well the Chinese calendar says that the year is almost over.
Here's to another new year then, and may it be full of sweet pineapple
tarts. ;)

--
Getting all the slack I can...
http://boredslacker.blogspot.com

I'm trying...

Now trying to stuff 3 chapters of Japanese grammar n verb conjugations
before Wednesday... And by the looks of this procrastinating blog
entry via iPod, not succeeding very well...... sigh... Yenn, ganbateru..

Sent from my iPod

On Thursday, I sent off another of my friends to the airport, one who was flying off to further her studies. While a group of us were there earlier for dinner, they took out a handmade photo album stuck with long, long, and I mean, long ago photos that we had taken as a group. And I knew they were old, because I saw shirts that I.... haven't fitted into for a number of years. -_-!!!!!

I remarked that the only 2 occasions that brought me to the airport were 1) departures for holidays and 2) to see friends off to other countries.

On a number of occasions, I've seen friends off to studies in other countries, and back then, the only online communication was ICQ and emails. [gosh, how primitive] We would see the friend in question off, and then not see her face for about 5 to 6 months. When she came back for holidays, we would meet up, catch up, and all too soon, it would be time for her to go back for the new term. We would send her off at the airport, knowing that 5, 6 months later we'd see her again. This would be repeated for a couple of friends. [yes, you know who you are]

In our point of life, though, it has somewhat changed. Now I still have friends leaving, but instead of leaving only to come back a few months later, they left with no clear point of return. They left to purposely start new lives wherever they went and who knew when they would be back again.

Funny how the time spent together in our youth was taken for granted, only to be re-appreciated again when we were older and such time was even more scarce than before.

Now when we meet, there is no time for small talk anymore, because we all know that this is all we get anymore. The friendships have become more valuable because of its very lack of frequency.

Thank goodness for small mercies like blogs, MSN and even *shudder* Facebook. At least with these you don't feel as if you haven't seen the girl for very long, because you can see from her Facebook that she has just had cornflakes for breakfast and is now waiting for the ice to thaw. ( ok, I made that one up :p ) Funny thing that now a less intimate form of communication has instead deepened the intimacy.

At my age, [hm, I sound older than I really am] I think I've seen enough farewells that I've almost become immune. Maybe I've just come to realise that we all have our own different ways to go. And I've also seen enough to know that the last sendoff will never be the last. If God and airlines be willing, there will always be ways for us to meet again should we want to.

And for all else, there's always Facebook.

Either a brand new start OR the same story over again

I started the new year with a lapse in the blogging. :p don't know whether this augurs well for the start of the new year.

But up to this point of my life, every new year and every birthday starts to feel like one more in a series. Like a long running drama series, the plot slightly changes, the people come and go, but the lead actress is always there. Similarly like in a sitcom, the lead actress also manages to somehow get into the same scrapes over and over again. :p

For example, look at the new year's resolutions you made for last year. Did you fulfill yours? 'Cos I didn't -_-!!! and I'll be repeating the same resolutions over again this year. -_-!!!!!!!!!! Repeat of last year's plotline over a new season.

After the holidays, when you went back to work, didn't you feel like it was the same thing over again? I'm back to my one month neglected cubicle *Major SIGH* and when the year really started, it was the same routines over again. I'm back to the planning, the pens, the wishful dreaming of June holidays..........

What if we could run out of our own programmed life? A lead actress that stays for too long in one series faces the risk of being typecast as that particular character for the rest of her career. [Gillian Anderson, Courteney Cox, Sarah Jessica Parker] When we get too much into our lives, are we running the same risk?

What if we could run out of our own shows, and take up another role in another entirely different show? Can Sarah Jessica Parker play a cutting edge forensic scientist on CSI? [I wonder]

Can we ourselves break out of our own mold into something else entirely? Without suffering too much of the consequences?

Maybe that this what we should be doing each new year instead. Forget making pointless resolutions that you may or may not keep. Instead reflect on what your life has been the previous year. Then think of what you can do to make the next year as radically different as possible.

Here's to your 2009. :)

--
Getting all the slack I can...
http://boredslacker.blogspot.com

Merry eX-mas?

So this is a bit late.... yar.... :p but Merry Xmas to all...

The party went great, thanks to all who came, saw, and demolished the turkey ;) You guys are the reason why my mom still likes to go crazy and strangle disemboweled birds every year.

Thanks to all who played along the Twister game and for embarrassing yourselves in the name of mass entertainment. Now I know why Twister is still the classic party game. ;)

Thanks to those who took the effort, and braved the Xmas crowds to buy gifts for the gift exchange. Your gladitorial bravery is commendable.

And even if he doesn't read this blog, thanks to a DF who flew by and made an attempt to socialize with my friends, something that I've been bugging him since, well, the start of the relationship. :S hey, it's a start.

Thanks for the gifts, the cards and the reaffirmation of friendship, the greatest gift of all.

Here's then to next year, and to more of the best, less of the rest!

What I consider a droolworthy Christmas:

Namely consisting of just about everything in that picture, if you can find them.

Note: I didn't get any of them -_-!! but a dream's a dream, hey? ;)

I just finished through clearing and deleting a lotta old email from my main yahoo accounts. *keeps the spade*

Out of curiosity, how much stuff do you keep in your inbox? I ploughed through my accounts, tidied up a bit, and I realised that in my personal account, I have mail that reached all the way back to 2002 -_-!!!!! I had mails sent to friends, mails with stupid jokes, [that I still found funny, haha] and so much old mail I kinda felt like an archeaologist. -_-!!!!!

The interesting part is reading through the mails I had written to friends back then when I was still in uni. [how long ago that was] I read about some of the crap I went through back then, and now I think: man, I was an angsty teenager then :p Thankfully I *think* I'm more mature now so that all that stuff back then seems..... too long ago. Despite all the *angst* I seemed to have put in my emails, I don't even remember some of that crap that I was so anxious about back then anymore.....

Chalk it up to one more advantage of age: Other concerns are now literally long gone. ;)

New Hair

A trip to the hairdresser and a thought about change means that now I slightly resemble this:

Without the egg, hor.....

Why I did it? Honestly when I saw the photos that she showed me, the hair I saw was a lot straighter and longer. -_-! So I thought, ok lor, just for a change and pretty curious to see myself with curls too.

IT was a long laborious process of wash, cut, and getting hair zapped in some sci-fi alien anime contraption, only to see hair that, at first, looked like this:

Later on, after some washing and drying and brushing, the curls have sort of settled. It's still like freshly cooked maggi, and I'm not exactly sure whether it's the greatest follicle faux pas on my part, but I'm still fascinated by myself in the mirror. [my hair is actually curly!!!] Not to mention at least it's got more volume than it ever did when it was straight, and on a good mood, I think it adds some spunk to my look. ;) Let's just hope the good mood lasts ;)

The both of us are back from Bintan with slightly charred skin. -_-!!! Thankfully for us, the weather was sunny and cool for the 2 days we were there, and only rained on the last day when we were due to leave anyway. Ha!

I did think of going on that mangrove trip, but when it came to whether we should 1) sit in a boat out in a swamp looking for snakes and 2) sit in a massage bed and get a cheap massage and sleep, -_-!!! You can guess what we chose......

The 3 days were the most slack holiday I had ever taken. Previous holidays saw me rushing from venue to venue, wildly taking in the sights and taking in the shots with Kenny. This one saw me lying by the pool for half the afternoon, and then swimming in the pool for the rest of the afternoon. [sea out of bounds due to strong monsoon winds]

Actually, the 3 days were so slack that I just realised I have nothing to blog about anyway! -_-!

Overall a good relaxing trip, but next time I think I'll try Batam or somewhere cheaper. The prices are outrageous even by Singapore standards....

Random rambling 1:

Am going to Bintan tomorrow for 3D2N to do nothing but slack and forget that I ever have to go back to work.

Random rambling 2:

Opened email at 1:45pm to find that had entered wrong amount for Bintan trip and had to pay additional to make up the difference, or face reservation being let go without notice. Deadline of payment: same day, 12pm. -_______-!!!!!!!!!!!! [My understanding: If I do not pay on time, I could potentially go all the way to Bintan tomorrow morning only to find that the room would have been given to someone else.]

Random rambling 3:

Frantically log onto website only to find that payment was unsuccessful.... twice, with 2 different cards. Frantically call agency 5 times, only to find...... phone call mysteriously hung on other side. Wondering if my late payment among many others has been responsible for financial downfall of travel firm.

Random rambling 4:

Finally get someone on the line, spoke to her as *politely* as I could without actually shouting *too loudly, I hope* at her, and she confirms that the reservation will be held till I come back to Singapore. *phew*

Random rambling 5:

Finally feeling my heart beat go back to normal. Sighing over how job has quickened temper. At least I'll be able to go on my 3 days as planned.

There is a rather discordant [read: f**king NOISY!!!] symphony being played in my house at the moment that is drowning out anything else played in the house.

This symphony is played by the HDB Construction Unsymphonic Orchestra, and the programme is as follows:

Opus of the Thumping Hammers
Clattering Planks
Symphony of the Drills

The performance is for the benefit of Replacement Metal Roofworks and is performed free of charge for my block every afternoon. Because it is held on the roof, I have Category 1 seats to this engaging performance.

Here is my resounding response to their performances:

Done by one Seb Lester on Flickr.

This is a post about Kuroi, who has so completely integrated himself into my life in a way that Shiroi [the iPod classic] did not.

Yes, a month or so with Kuroi, the iPod touch, and I'm in danger of selling my soul forever to Steve Jobs. How do I feel about Kuroi? Well, after using him a while, my predominant thought is:

Why didn't anyone THINK of this before? It's GENIUS!!! *end fangirl drool*

Through sheer ingenuity and possibly the backing of the devil, Apple has managed to come up with something that is not quite an iPod, but more of a mobile entertainment device. Other than the usual storage of music, videos and photos, [was it that long ago that MP3 players could only hold music?] Kuroi also holds contacts, notes, a calendar. It also holds the one killer app that killed me, namely, a wireless adapter .

Paired with the Safari browser, this made the iPod into a mini PDA, but the one that really killed me down was the App store. Connect to this baby, and you get games, utilities, games, note-taking tools, games, photo apps, and did I mention the games?

And half of them are free!!!!! The other half you pay for, but some are as cheap as 99cents. Argh!

Ok, if I sound bad, it's because I know I really got it bad. I started out with a few games in it, and I used it to read blogs and mail on the go, but last night I opened the App store and that's when it all tumbled down for me.

In went drawing software, note-taking software, an app for a fashion website, and a Japanese dictionary -_-!!! And in the space of a few minutes of each other........

But on a more sober note, I can't help but think that this is what mobile computing should be all about. Here I have a device that fits into my pocket, that can surf the Internet on wireless, and that can download straightaway and painlessly, numerous other applications that would make it stronger. The reason why I was so hooked on the App store was that it was so darn easy to download them. A matter of clicking on a button, waiting a few minutes and then the app was downloaded. No opening of new and unnecessary windows, no having to choose a file to download it in, since it went straight to desktop and all free.

I have run into some problems with it, of course. A lack of office tools makes it unsuitable for office drones who need their Microsoft packages, and also means that I am not able to do work on the go with this, unlike my previous PDA, Suss. [Although with something this sleek, you won't want to do work on it anyway. :p] Typing is a chore without a stylus. And don't talk about connectivity to other devices. No infrared and no Bluetooth, so everything I keep in there is stuck in there, unfortunately.

But other than that, the touchscreen, the Apps, the games are addictive enough for a leisure user to keep in her pocket. The OS is simple enough to quickly understand and get used to. If only I could hook this baby onto mobile broadband, it would be perfect... which makes its big brother, the iPhone look more and more tempting.............

*end hungry fangirl drool

It's getting more and more addictive to play with Kuroi on a wireless
connection... Makes those mobile broadband plans more tempting anyway,
if not for the threat of me becoming a permanent resident of the
Internet... Sigh...

--
Getting all the slack I can...
http://boredslacker.blogspot.com

Bossa Nova

No, this is not a post about beach jazz, this is really the 2 kittens suddenly adopted by Quet.

Quet's friend had found the above Nova and his black sibling Bossa near the Esplanade, and if she and her colleagues had not rescued the kits, they could have been culled by the authorities.

Nova was placid enough to let us take her out of the box and walk around the seat. Bossa, being the more psycho one, tried a few times to scratch the hand that tried to take it out, so we gave up after a while. Later on, when it probably got a bit lonely, we took it out, whereupon it tried to make a break for freedom, ran into Yenn's vest and encouraging its obedient sibling to do the same thing. [Yenn had the scars to show for it]

They are cute, though. Here's Nova: [check out the ears]



We called them Bossa Nova because of the jazz that was playing at the open stage. Indeed, while Quet was driving them home, they mewed the loudest when her Dark Knight soundtrack was playing, but kept quiet when she switched to 92.4 These are some cultured kitties!

Quet and her friend were supposed to split the kits between themselves, but later the kits were found to be too young and too fond of each other to split, so both cats ended up in her house!

Last I heard, they were rapidly running amok all over her house, playing with the gleeful abandon that all children have and causing no end of anxiety to their new owner. In the two days that they had been in her house, they had ran amok, making her have to chase them down, bankrupted her with their vet checkup, caused her to sprain an ankle, and got themselves stuck in her massage chair while they were running from her.

After I bemusedly heard all this from her on Monday night, I can only conclude, that these kits are not destined to be this for her:

Anime Festival 2008

You gotta love an event when cosplayers turn up. It's guaranteed to liven up any anime event where the main purpose is to sell as much merchandise as possible and promote any screenings as much as possible. Because, as from the picture above, inviting the cosplayers invariably invites the fanboy/girl-photographers. Yes, I know, moi being one of the mentioned.

The event itself was interesting, but there's a glut of too many retailers [toy sellers, comic sellers, art companies selling books and posters, anime companies promoting upcoming movies and serials, and one manga cafe] and too few fanart. [exactly 4 stalls -_-!!!] Which is a pity, because judging from the art on those fan tables, it's a crime against society that some of those people aren't doing this professionally. One more group of victims of the recession. *shrugs*

But you din' read this post to read my rantings on the unfair treatment of Singapore artists. No, you did it to see pictures of cosplayers, didn't you, and here they are:


Other cosplayers have a hard enough time getting around in their costume. This guy did it complete with skates.

I love the detail and attention on hers.

I have to insert a blogpost of thanks to the cosplayers who gamely posed for the shots, despite us photographers hovering around like shot-hungry vultures everytime one of them so much as combed their hair. The cosplayers I approached for some shots were more than willing to pose in their costumes for my 1 or 2 shots, and the other 100 that came from other photogs as soon as they spotted them posing.

I'm learning something about photographing other people. Most people are more than willing to pose if you ask politely and take a good shot of them. [no one wants fugly shots of themselves on the Internet] So if you ever want to take shots of people, the first thing to do is just ask.

I loved the delicate way she posed with the flower.



When I was taking the picture of the two cosplayers above, I looked down and I saw something you would not usually see on the ground:

A tail! Belonging to one of the next 2 cosplayers:
And this guy was my favourite of the entire show. He was not the best dressed, he was not the most detailed, he was probably not the most realistic costume.....

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But he's the cutest, can?????? Most of the time he had a friend helping him to get around to places, because, face it, where are the eyeholes on that costume?

Fun though it was to walk through and take photos, more could be done for the con. I remember going for one that was organized by a major fan club once and you could tell the difference. There were tons more fan events, fan booths, fan art, fan stuff... you get the idea. It's more interesting to shop through the art done by fans who really put their heart and soul into their art and stuff rather than.... a bunch of panels put up by odious Odex. And how about more art and doujinshi?

The con has potential, just wished it did more.