I'm back finally. There's so much to say about Vietnam I hardly know where to begin, but what I really want to talk about first is actually the last music video I watched in the hotel before taking the flight back home. It's a song by french band Daft Punk called One More Time. The music is quite repetitive really, but what caught my eye was the japanese anime theme of the music video (directed by Leiji Matsumoto, the manga artist of Galaxy Express, Captain Harlock and Queen Esmeraldas). The anime music video is set in the galaxy of the future, where the band was playing to the crowd and everyone was dancing and enjoying themselves. No one noticed the invaders' spacecraft on the radar screen and the invaders (dressed like ninjas) descended upon the planet of the joyous folks. And when someone detected with horror the warning blip on the radar screen, the invaders have appeared. The music video ends there. What is it trying to tell me? What?

It's been rather surreal this week. I've known more facts about different folks, gained and lost trust, discovered blogging and developed a slight rash or allergy which I hope will clear by tomorrow morning (doesn't look like it). I am also in denial about going to Vietnam today... I don't quite believe it yet and I'm not really ready. lol.

I just got home from watching 2 movies at the film festival. One movie is Irish ('When Brendan Met Trudy'). I'll rate it so-so. The other one is Japanese ('Sunflower'). This one made me laugh and cry. The premise is that a girl Tomomi was suspected to have drowned out in a fishing boat by the sea, but there was no body found. Her primary school ex-classmates made a journey back to their hometown to attend her funeral. While at the funeral, her parents were summoned away to identify a corpse that could possibly be hers. As a result, the funeral couldn't start and the ex-classmates started reminiscing about the past. Bit by bit, Tomomi's character was fleshed out, and along with it, the story of her first love in school.

Some scenes in the movie are strangely endearing. Like when Tomomi was travelling on an upward-bound escalator and bumped into an ex-classmate on an adjacent downward-bound escalator, and the 2 girls kept walking in the opposite direction to their escalators so they could stay on the same level to talk. And also when Tomomi's childhood love refused to hit her with a ball during a game, even when the objective of winning is to hit an opponent with the ball. The movie title came about because Tomomi's childhood love described her as a sunflower (even though in reality she didn't like the sun). In return, she gave him a sunflower seed. Aww.

I'm caffeine intolerant so I don't drink coffee. I used to drink a lot of it but it's been 4 years since I took any regularly. A cappucino at 3pm can keep me awake till 3am the next morning, that's how bad it is for me. lol. As a result, I need to ask for decaf at coffee joints. I don't know what you think, but decaf drinkers are treated like 2nd class citizens. I got glazed looks from counter staff when I asked what drinks on the menu have no caffeine content. There were cases where I got served caffeinated coffee anyway when I was told otherwise. And then I would lie awake in the middle of the night staring blankly at the ceiling.

Strangely, my favourite Ella Fitzgerald song is her rendition of a jazz piece called "Black Coffee".

This is my truth tell me yours.
- title of an album by Manic Street Preachers

Someone joked that since I seem to post my entries regularly, it's ok to omit direct communications with me and just drop by to read my blog. Weeell. If you think this is all there is, do what you like. :)

I'm going to miss playing pool this week due to my tight schedule. I try to play every week with my best friend to unwind. I feel content just chatting and hovering round the pool table, pocketing balls while listening to music. I'm not that good a player but it's like a sacred ritual you know?

Looks like thunderstorm now and I'm debating about attending the Palm m505 launch this evening. Somehow I know I'll turn up anyway. I'm such a susceptible geek.

Rain stopped. Back from the Palm m505 launch.
*techie mode on*
Fantastic stuff (Secure Digital/ MultimediaCard expansion slot, moving videos of up to 30 seconds etc) and the American presenters were really funny. However they've changed the Universal Connector (again!) so that means a new Palm cradle. And they've changed the stylus too so yeah, the Palm accessory cases are doomed for a makeover as well. Official launch will be round end May and the market price will be about S$800+.
*techie mode off*

And you thought I could only rave about strange music and literature.

Listening repeatedly to a drum & bass track by Rosheen called "Hide You" now before heading out for late lunch. This is one of those rare wrap-around songs I have a soft spot for. It's when the start and end of a song blend seamlessly together such that you can listen to the song on auto-repeat and never figure out where it starts and ends. It's like the music goes on forever and ever. How nice.

I've just hijacked a bungee ball which my ex-colleague has left behind. At least I call it a bungee ball for lack of a better description. It's a ball attached to a real long elastic cord which ends with a strap to be wrapped around the wrist. The idea is to throw the ball as far away as possible and to miraculously flick it back into your hand. Like a yoyo on extensions. I kept trying it out but somehow the cord is too long, or I didn't get its unpredictable flight path. The ball never returned to my hand. Hmm.

All things considered, I'll rather be flippant than to flip.

Today is car-free day as the local government tries to encourage motorists to leave their cars at home and commute to work by public transport. I'll know in 8 hours' time how that will turn out. :/

In the meantime, if you're reading (and you know who you are), here's a list of all the other folks who were born today too. I hope you get lovely weather today and that everything will turn out grand. :)

zum Geburtstag viel Glueck.

My Palm V had a deathwish today. I am reviving it now as I type, coaxing it to remember everything my PC has stored from the last backup 4 days ago. This is not the first time but it is one of the more severe cases where my Palm V just drained flat without a reason. Come to think of it, my previous 2 mobile phones also switched themselves off on whims. Maybe I'm not a gadget kinda girl either.

I've inspired a friend to blog! This is seriously contagious.

I just received an email from an online bookseller asking me if I want to increase my chances to strike it rich by promoting the book version of the game show "Who wants to be a Millionaire". Gee. Soon after that I got another email which says that a Straits Times reporter wishes to interview a Mensa volunteer to see how this person can perform against those participants on TV. Eh. Probably a lot of folks will be glued to their TV screens tonight with the launch of this game show here locally. Doesn't matter though, I still don't watch TV. :)

Everything you can remember in 30 seconds is yours to keep.
- title of a short story by Peter Ho Davies

My mum has turned me into an early person, not punctual but early. I'm incapable of being late (I also have this notion that a Divine Presence of Punctuality is looking over me and even if circumstances are bad and I'm late, someone is bound to be later than I am.) Not the most glamorous sort of Guardian Angel I agree, but there you have it.

"I've got to stop getting obsessed with human beings and fall in love with a chair. Chairs have everything human beings have to offer, and less, which is obviously what I need. Less emotional and intellectual feedback, less approval, less patience and less response."
- Carrie Fisher

Isn't it funny that the spanish fashion label Mango has got a website called www.mango.es which happens to be grammatically correct in plural? I know I'm losing it.

I'm probably going to bring Matt Ridley's book "Genome: Autobiography of a Species in 23 Chapters" to read in Vietnam. I have this whimsical thought that if I can understand about my DNA make-up, I can get a grip on my life and move on. Weird huh?

Why do I irc? Cos I met my best friend valk there. I was chatting with someone else about programming on irc and he messaged me to ask about programming. I thought is this guy for real? And he was.

This is the same reason I talk to strangers on the plane. Cos I met this girl on a plane enroute from Frankfurt to New York and we've been hanging out ever since.

I guess I'm just hoping to make friends like them again.

A friend told me that sometimes this is as good as it gets. Some good things don't repeat themselves. Like there won't be another Pink Floyd album like "Wish You Were Here".

Well, today Quest added me to his blog team and I guess I made a real friend there. Maybe it doesn't hurt to hope sometimes.

Next week this time I'm going to be in Vietnam. I have a travel guide I haven't read. I'm only half vaccinated, ie. I kinda chickened out of my Hep A shots and I'm not really sure I'm anti-malaria. I don't know what's going to happen actually but I trust everything will fall in place. :) I'm not bringing my mobile phone or my Discman to Vietnam. I'm going cold turkey already. :(

By the way, "vaya con dios" is a spanish phrase which means "go with the gods". If you're wondering, vaya means go. It's also the name of a belgian band started in 1986. As well as a hotel. Hmm. But really I derived my nick from Russian poet Vladimir Mayakovsky.

And well, cos vaya sounds like fire. :) I think I'm a closet pyromaniac cos my favourite Charles Bukowski poetry collection is "What Matters Most is How Well You Walk Through the Fire". There's also the fact that my favourite attitude song is from Afghan Whigs' album "Black Love". This song is called "Go To Town" and in it, the singer and his lover drive to town, burn it down and just leave. That really blows me away.

I confess I like to keep sms messages. Currently I keep 6 in my Outbox, which are more than I keep in my Inbox. Don't ask me why I keep them, I just do.
They are:

1) "The love-boat has crashed against the everyday. You and I, we are quits, and there is no point in listing mutual pains, sorrows and hurts". This is a translation from a line in the suicide letter by Vladimir Mayakovsky, Russian poet in the 1910s. He was only 30.

2) "I would like to step outside my heart and walk beneath the enormous sky." This is yet another translation from a line by Rainer Maria Rilke. One thing about all these translations is that there are so many different variations that are valid. I find that the first one I read is always the one l like best though. :)

3) "Retrohesive: events disconnected when they happened but now cannot be separated from each other." Something to label my freak coincidences and strange twists of fate. lol.

4) "A good proof has a very high degree of unexpectedness, inevitability and economy." A paraphrase of a remark by Hardy the famous mathematician.

5) "What does anyone want but to be a little more free?" A line from the inner CD sleeve of Godspeed You Black Emperor's album "lift yr. skinny fists like antennas to heaven", which is coincidentally a double CD consisting of 4 instrumental songs.

6) This is a caption from a T-shirt which says "You Lose, You Go Home". Sums up life pretty neatly doesn't it?

I don't know what I can save you from.
- a song from Kings of Convenience's "Quiet is the new Loud"