I will be the pattern of all patience; I will say nothing.

The Cure
So I think I’ve found the cure for a bad day at work. 80s music! There’s nothing like Walking on Sunshine!

I know I grew up hearing all these songs, but couldn’t really appreciate it growing up. Eyes Without a Face? What? When Doves Cry? Rapture? Here Comes the Rain Again? It’s different now. Do you know you’ve grown into the next demographic box when you start to appreciate the Bee Gees, Blondie and Billy Idol?

Leslie Kwok
Came in fourth in the SEA Games 50m freestyle. Poor thing.

Mandarin, Ginger and Green Tea
I can’t believe they found what green tea smells like, but the sweetened, chemically manufactured mass market scent that passes off as it is quite pleasant. L’occtaine has a good version of it. And now I’ve found a much cheaper alternative! Good old trusty PalmOlive! I doubt there is any real essential oil content in their Aromatherapy Body Wash, but I like the cheerful Mandarin, Ginger and Green tea one. (It’s the green one)

Plant Day #1
Didn’t go as planned. I forgot to bring it into the office. And I don’t think I’ll bring it in tomorrow, since I’ll be off Thu/Fri – the poor thing will just wither and die over the long dry weekend. This does not bode well.

I’m starving!
Which reminds me last night we had dinner at My Mother’s Kitchen at the Paragon. I am not fond of the food, it’s basically like tze-char at Crystal Jade prices. I feel I’m better off eating at Crystal Jade. They do have a nice variety of Peranakan food (Buah Keluak, Meatball Soup and Ngor Hiang) but I didn’t try it.

The clincher came when we saw how they prepared Roti Prata (costs between $6.50 – $7.50 i think). First – they take the frozen dough that comes in a packet that you can pick up at Cold Storage… ugh.

I ate there years ago, and I liked it. I had some stir fried beef with celery, some soup and rice I think, but sorry, it’s not on my favourites list anymore.

Good Morning Vietnam!
Been reading about Vietnamese History, it’s quite interesting. It looks like the Vietnamese people always had to fend off one invader after another. the Chinese, neighbouring countries Cambodia and Champa, the Mongols, the French. Tough lot they are. The Chinese held on the longest, and had a heavy influence on administration, education, and stuff, and here’s the bit that’s cool – they tried to turn Vietnam into a patriarchal Confusian society and the people balked at it. Two sisters headed a revolt, but the Chinese squashed it. The sisters drowned themselves to evade capture in the end, but they’re still regarded as heroines today. They aren’t the only ones. The women play a large part in Vietnamese history, and it seems they didn’t just sit around and take any crap. S-p-u-n-k-y.

The Library of Congress is a great source of historical information. Its interface is somewhat prehistoric though, by web standards.

Monday
The name of my Mom’s cat. We lost Tuesday. Mom’s still sad about it.

It didn’t really feel like a Monday at work today. Probably because I’m going to be off again on Thursday and Friday.

My Plant Adventure Day 1
I bought an indoor plant from Ikea the other day. My dad insists that this one is truly and indoor plant, even though it didn’t have the label other indoor lants had. He claims, that the ones labelled as Indoor Plants were just tolerant of low light conditions, and the one he insisted I get would thrive under low light conditions. We’ll see. I’ll try not to kill it.

I’m bringing it into the office tomorrow to improve my general office well-being. So I’ll put Plant Day 1 as 11 Dec 03.

It is, incidentally, Sue Lin’s birthday today.

Stress Test
Spent the day with my dad again, which is a real stress test. He just talks and talks and talks – and he always solicits a response. It’s as if whatever’s in his brain has to be articulated. It can get quite trying.

But I manage.

So in the later part of the afternoon we headed to the Pierce Reservoirs. We headed to Upper Pierce first. Pop quiz: if you see a sign that says Do not feed the monkeys what should you do?
a. Drive to the side of the road, roll down your windows and throw morsels of bread and edible junk out the window
b. Drive real quickly, and hope you run one of those silly creatures over
c. Follow instructions and just get to where you’re going

I can’t believe people still feed the monkeys. It’s one of the most socially inconsiderate things to do.
1. It makes the monkeys hang around the road, and come towards every car, which is dangerous
2. If the monkeys don’t pick up the food, you make a mess
3. I think stuff like french fries, chezels and crisps can make those monkeys sick
4. It makes them reliant on hand outs, and we’re not a welfare society

Is it cruel not to feed the monkeys? Well I don’t know. They must’ve starved for the thousands of years they had to feed themselves. No wonder monkeys are all skinny! And perhaps that’s where the phrase “skinny as a monkey” must’ve come from. The monkey’s general inability to feed themselves might explain where there are so many around.

Anyway. I added a few more photos from today’s trip at <a href=my webshots album.

The shot of the coconut acorn was taken at East Coast Park. We were there in the morning. And if you’re wondering, that’s really rain on the petals of those faded blue flowers. It started to rain, just as we were about done for the day.

I am Jack’s raging bile duct.
I liked Finding Nemo. Unfortunately, I’m too jaded to be Dory. I’m not saying I’m a regular Tyler Durden either. I am the all-singing , all-dancing crap of the world. You, on the other hand, might quite possibly be the whiney Narrator who eventually gets part of his face blown off for being a smartass. Yes, I’m talking to you.

Fight Club!

What movie Do you Belong in? (many different outcomes!)
brought to you by Quizilla

HAHAHHA! This wasn’t my original movie result. I’m not saying which was. But the list of results was startling. I don’t see myself as a Disney animation kinda person. Anyway, you’re going to need the “many different outcomes!” feature, trust me, I did.

This is my blog. You see what I want you to see.

1. The Elusive Tango
So today I tried to find a tango cd at HMV again. It seems that they do have it, they put it in a “dance” section in the Classical Room. Who’d have thought? It was right there next to the Foxtrot, Swing and Mambo music. Everyone’s a rocket scientist.

There were a bunch of tangos and cds, but I’ve narrowed my search to just one tune. The one they used in The Scent of a Woman. It’s Por Una Cabeza, by Carlos Gardel. Identified it through one of those Best of Cinema Something compilations. I think it’s one of the few times the violin actually sounds nice. Other times would be when it’s a Dvorak tune.

Trivia
Dvorak and I share the same birthday. But not the same year, I assure you.

More about my camera
While I wait for my teleconverter lens and lens adapter, I am trying to learn to use all the features on my camera. I haven’t been very good with it, I’ve just been groping about with the settings. I took some photos today, but nothing spectacular. All the photos taken with my A80 can be found at my webshots album.

Today was a good day. I slept in, and indulged myself. I finally peeled myself out of bed when the clock pointed 11am. and by 11.20am or so, I was ready to leave the house. And guess what, when I walked out the room and looked at the large clock – it was noon!

I ran and grabbed my stuff and realised that my colleague had called me twice in the morning. I called back frantically to say I would be in soon. Eek.

Then I left the office at 6.30pm cos I was going to meet Lee Hsin. We went to the Robinson’s sale at Centrepoint. Bad move. It was so crowded (with aunties, no less). However, she bought some stuff and I finally got a peppermill. It’s a WMF one, originally priced at S$29.90 (a little steep). It’s one of the Ceramill grinders – no prizes for guessing – the mill is ceramic. It comes with a 10-year warranty. Although I wouldn’t know where to go to make good on it. But anyway. Its price was reduced to S$15 so I picked up both a pepper and salt mill. It’s the same thing, except the design says Pepper or Salt in german on the glass part. And I got another 20% off that reduced price since I’m special (a Robinson’s Card Holder) so I am really pleased with myself.

We went to HMV, they rearranged stuff. The level where the DVDs were didn’t have the DVDs anyway. In any case, I was looking for a CD of tango tunes, but hadn’t the first clue where to start. That usually ensures you get a lot of stuff or nothing. Thankfully this time I walked off with nothing.

After Lee Hsin dropped me home (we walked around for quite a bit) I was ready to call it a day, when KF said he wanted to go to the arcade. So we headed down to Clarke Quay (where our favourite arcade is) to play a few rounds of Time Crisis 2. I sucked at it today. Lost all my lives before the first stage ended. After spending 2 dollars on it, I got fed up and went to play that Pod Racer game. Sucked at that too. Got retired because I was too slow.

So I hit the trusty Daytona 2 machines. Lovely. I had the third highest score on that particular machine. I spelt my name wrong though. Then KF joined me at the Daytona 2 machine a bit later. We raced and he lost to me 6 times in a row. He wasn’t as amused as I was.

Whose Line Is It, Anyway?
Was absolutely fabulous. My only complaint is that I couldn’t really make out what they were saying sometimes with the accent. But I gotta say the British accent has to be the sexiest in the world.

I’ll tell you about the difference between the American version and the British version when I can put my finger on it. I know there are differences, but right now, I can’t really say for certain what it is. Maybe more swearing. Maybe more self-deprecating. Maybe less Drew Carey. Maybe more responsive to the audience. Yeah. I think that’s it. They actually refer to and respond to the audience. Maybe it’s that? Seemed like more. It was fun, nonetheless.

The biggest downside, in my opinion, was having it in Bar None. Or any bar at all. Why a bar? It’s horribly smokey, the soft drinks cost an arm and a leg, and everyone’s too pissed to give any good suggestions. It was free seating. And being late and all, we were lucky to get seats. We actually had to stand around for some, and a really nice waitress got us seats in front of this couple.

The couple is another story on its own. I saw the seats in front of them (it was at the same table) and asked if we could take them. The balding dude said, well these seats are for VIPs only. I stopped myself from saying “Is that right, baldy?” to just a lameass “Oh really, how so?”. And he showed me this dumbass VIP Pass. And his date promptly told me that if we went to a waiter they’d get us a seat.

Ok ok. I know it’s lame to bash someone behind their backs in a blog, instead of in their faces at the morgue – umm, bar, but I can’t resist. What’s the point of having a blog if I can’t take potshots? Yes, yes, totally cowardly. Had I the balls, I would’ve told them to bugger off and shut the hell up and just parked my ass on the seats. But instead, I retreated like a browbeaten soldier, and waited for some seats to clear. About 5 minutes later, a kindly waitress got us the seats we asked for.

Had I the balls, I’d be a bull.

I don’t thrive in situations where there are no rules set, where there are few boundaries, and where I’ve to muster some social skill and weasel or demand my way to something I want. That’s why I don’t like bars and whine so much.

Barriers to switching
So my friend Andy, who laughs at me all the time and reads this blog sometimes, very generously gave me a code to join his blog service, LiveJournal. So being the trooper I am, I gamely accepted his offer to try it. And here I am now, using the devil I know. I bet LiveJournal’s cool. I’ll just try it again when I don’t have to wake up early the next day. It is a competitive advantage, you know. Porters 5 Forces and stuff like that – is so true. It’s preventing me from using a competing service.

Life after The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King
Since the first installment of the LOTR trilogy, I was hooked. For 3 years now, I’ve looked forward to the movie, and then the DVD some 10-odd months later. The final installment will play on 19 Dec. After I catch it, it will be another hard wait for another 10-odd months for the DVD to come out (it takes even longer if you get the extended version). And then it’ll be nada. No blockbuster to look forward to anymore. The Star Wars Prequels don’t count. Life won’t be the same again.

The next Kazaa!
From the people who brought you Kazaa comes the next greatest thing! Skype is free P2P telephony! So make free phone calls all over the world! I haven’t tried it. But when I do, I’ll let you know what I think.

Absolutely nothing
That’s my day today. I fretted a little about what to put in my blog, but didn’t get very far.

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Everywhere I go…

I should’ve been born in December. I keep seeing stuff I want that would make perfect gifts. No one in the world would probably want them. But I do. But I probably wouldn’t get it for myself. See that’s the thing. Gifts are things that other people get you, because you’re too practical to get it yourself. Gifts are indulgent. So, I’m going to Robinsons on Wednesday. I think they’re on sale or something…

Quote of the day
Make something idiotproof and they’ll make better idiots.
You can find it here along with lotsa other words of wisdom, as a poster or a desk topper. Hmm after a quick surf there – I realised its probably out of stock. There are other cool Despair posters though.