I told you I would work on that music page this weekend and I thought I should buy the digital camera first and take pics of my music collection. Maybe that will make more sense? :)

Just met up with feline, my best friend, an ex-classmate from german class and his colleagues, as well as my own colleagues for pool. We had a lot of fun laughing and fooling around... I think I got a sore throat from all that ruckus. :) I couldn't believe it when the guys decided to play pool with their eyes closed (yeah, like using the Force in Star Wars) to give the girls a handicap and they still managed to score anyway. lol. Another incident that cracked me up was once when we all stood round the pool table looking at the balls, and someone said this resembled the scene in Pearl Harbor where the Japanese generals were staging the battleships before attacking. I can't believe I met some of these folks only tonight! :) Thanks for the company and the game.

Someone in France stumbled onto my site looking for the MP3 for Hooverphonics' Out of Sight. I'm sorry to have disappointed you but I hope you found what you were looking for in the end. :)

Last week, I asked Electrin why he started posting an online journal. He surprised me by telling me he did it over a weekend where he was badly ill and alone in the dorm. He was so weak he could hardly summon up the strength to get over to the computer and work on it, but he did. He just wanted a record to exist, in case something happened to him. I'm glad he survived that. Me? I blog to replace emailing. You?

As my best friend was commenting, our group of friends seem lately to be either blogging or reading blogs (even those of strangers). I don't have time to finish any one of the library books I borrowed nearly 3 weeks ago to kickstart my reading again, and this has seriously never happened before. Sigh.

Cos I'm never gonna stop the rain by complaining
Because I'm free
Nothing's worrying me.
- Burt Bacharach's Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head

Another in a series of rain songs.

Nowadays I have a strange time lag when I sms with my best friend. Last night, I received his sms about 5 hours behind time and this morning, it's about 3 hours. With the delay, sometimes I've forgotten what the sms is about in the first place. When the errant sms decides to show up, it feels oddly displaced.

When all else fails, there's always pool on Friday nights.

I gave the office cleaning auntie a heart attack this morning... in fact, everytime I switch the mineral water tanks on the water cooler after the current water tank has emptied. A filled tank weighs 5 gallons (how much is that in metric?) and I look too small, even (or especially) if I'm tottering round in my heels, to lift it. Well, it's not easy but I do. I used to wait for a male colleague to show up in the office to switch the water tanks, but one time I thought heck it, I'm not waiting for some guy so I can have a drink. So I tried it once and it gets easier after a while. I guess this applies to all things in life.

Music is really the best room service anyone can get.
- Per Gessle of Roxette

I beg to differ. Music isn't the servant, we are.

I'm only happy when it rains
I'm only happy when it's complicated
And though I know you can't appreciate it
I'm only happy when it rains
- Garbage's Only Happy when It Rains

I don't know what to tell you except... don't let it get too complicated ok?

Beezee. BeeZee. BEEZEE.

WhatIs.com explained today that "in an Ethernet network, a jam is a signal from one device to all other devices that a collision has occurred... The jam signal results in additional collisions in any other frames in process of being put on the line and warns non-transmitting devices to wait. Effectively, a jam provides a way to force all devices to restart any bids to get control of the line."

So if my life is in a jam..

Nie chce trawy. Codziennie jem trawe. Mam ochote na cos innego!
[Polish lesson #1: I don't want grass. I eat grass everyday. I have a wish for something different!]

My ex-colleague in Poland is now learning Polish so I asked her to write something in Polish for me. She plucked this line out from her young son's reading book. Some of the strange Polish characters cannot be written though. I've asked her for a Polish recipe too and am looking forward to that. I know the internet is without borders now but I still think it's odd this blog can be accessed from Poland. :)

While we were waiting at the Tiong Bahru MRT station, a colleague pointed out that they were playing classical music in the background. She mentioned that they play jazz at the Bugis MRT station instead. I realise I never noticed that... maybe cos I'm always listening to my Discman wherever I go. In fact, I've also missed quite a number of calls on my cell phone for the same reason. Hmm.

My cell phone ring tone used to be Dave Brubeck's jazz tune Take Five but it's been Armand van Helden's dance tune You Don't Know Me for quite a few months now. I downloaded both free from YourMobile but now I find they're charging for the good ringtones. Aww. Does anyone know where to download free ringtones now? :) I know it's shallow but I kinda like the ringtone for rapper Slim Shady's The Real Slim Shady. I have a much abused Nokia 8210 by the way.

A candle loses nothing by lighting another candle.
- the subject of an email I received today from a friend. Thank you.

At another mobile bookfair, (I know I know, how mobile is it when some bookfair always seems to be a permanent fixture near my office? Hey, invite me over to wherever you are, maybe the mobile bookfair will follow. lol) I saw an Opera guidebook and decided to buy it to get acquainted with the plots of operas (the long-lost siblings, the woman who was a man, star-crossed lovers etc). Then it turned out that the Opera guidebook comes with an Opera CD, as well as a Classical guidebook and a Classical CD. So I ended up buying them all. The lot was really too cheap, and though they're not my normal music preference either, I feel strangely indignant for them. Crazy. :)

Amazon ("Earth's Biggest Selection") just emailed me that they still can't locate my order for John B's Redox Catalyst Reprocessed (drum & bass). I guess I'll have to search for it in Hong Kong then. I like to physically look for albums and I can park myself in music stores for eons. On the occasions where I found what I liked in the discount bins, I would be ecstatic but also highly indignant that what I consider class acts had been relegated to the bargain section by non-discriminating folks.

Every problem contains the seed of its own solutions.
- Norman Vincent Peale
[Believe it or not, this is printed on my MRT farecard along with a pic of sunflowers. Eh, I guess it's something to help me feel good when I commute.]

I guess Blogvoices will be down indefinitely, you can email me your comments instead. :)

No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth.
- Robert Southy

Today I read a poem I wish to adopt.

Do you think there is a 'fusion cuisine' recipe for strawberries and red beans, or are they both too disparate and uncompromisingly west and east?

Take a walk outside yourself
Get to know the person behind the face
Is it someone you can really love?
Is it someone who looks down from above
With a view of the rain
- Urge Overkill's View of the rain

Just overdosed on Vitamin C today. I know I'll keep chewing those tablets if they're right in front of me. I munch nervously when I'm in stress and today has been death-defyingly hectic. Urgh.

My ex-colleague in Poland emailed about bruised strawberries. She mentioned that although it is the strawberry season, it's rather hard to find a full basket of fresh, unbruised strawberries. It seems like lots of callers rang up the radio station to make the same complaint. Perhaps the good ones are snapped up by exporters, hotels or restaurants, or perhaps it is in how they're stored. I wonder how strawberry picking went for the friend in Chicago?

When the horse dies, one comes down from it and walks from there.
- a Cantonese saying which my friend used to describe her on-the-job learning

An old friend of mine just started blogging so I'm pointing to his blog here. Do check out Dave's Strange Days. :) This is the guy who lends me comics and provides the occasional links I feature here. Lots of music and lyrics reference at his blog too.

NBA this week again! No, I don't mean basketball... I mean No Boss Around. lol.

Chewing on my second Vitamin C tablet this morning. It's orange flavoured and I think the limit is 4 per day. Hmm.. I normally don't take supplements but I impulsively bought 2 bottles of Vitamin C (or a grand total of 200 tablets) last week. Nowadays I seem to be so occupied that excluding breakfast, I only take one meal a week at home. I can't be getting much nutrition from the junk I tend to eat on my own initiative. :)

And here are the results to which one statement is false in my June 18 entry:

1. (Excluding CDs that come together with music mags) I bought 99 CDs last year.
True. It's not that many CDs.. my table-tennis guru bought at least twice as many as I did. :)

2. I have tried eyelash perming before.
True. Did it once out of curiosity and won't try it again. They treated my eyelashes and placed tiny curlers on them, and I had to lie on a bed for half an hour or so waiting for them to set. It's a strange experience... not being able to open my eyes cos of the tiny weights of the curlers and the endless waiting for someone to come rescue me.

3. I watched more than 50 movies last year.
True. The friend in Chicago disputed this cos he didn't think there were so many good movies last year. Well, who said all the movies I watched were good? Hiaks.

4. I own 2 Pikachu T-shirts which I am too embarrassed to wear in public.
FALSE. I have a Pikachu step-counter and Pikachu pouch, but no T-shirts. I do have clothes which I've bought but never worn though.

5. Back in University days, my password was MEEPOH cos it's the favourite food of my boyfriend then.
True. A University friend cracked my password somehow and walked up to me before a lecture to say that one word MEEPOH. I yelped and dashed out of the lecture to change my password on the spot. lol. I still haven't figured out how he cracked my password though.

6. I have experimented with wearing hazel, grey and green coloured contact lenses.
True. Another of my phases. Grey is strange but green is actually quite interesting, like cat eyes.

7. There was a phase where I only wore brown clothing.
True (well, as much as possible). I'm very colour conservative and it takes a lot from me to even venture to wear floral prints. :)

8. In Junior College, I liked to bring my soft toy cow [Kassandra the Prophetess] into lectures.
True. And I clipped dangling earrings on her too. lol.

I feel so tired. Yesterday was a whirlwind of activities without pause. I played tennis, watched the movie Atlantis and went to a friend's place last night to watch VCDs. I was still awake when we watched the movie Josie and the Pussycats, but I dozed off hugging a cushion and curled up on my friend's sofa while One Night at McCool's was being screened. I woke up a bit lost and looked around to see my best friend asleep too. That's it. I woke him and we left the rest to go home.

This morning when I got up and read the newspapers, I smiled when I saw that in his comics strip, James is tired too and just trying to keep awake. That makes 2 of us.

Just bought Travis' latest album in anticipation of their joint concert with Coldplay here in July. A couple of us will be going. :) I'm glad... it's been a while since we had a decent concert here.

I woke up groggy this morning after 4 hours of pool last night. Jogging or tennis? I sms'd my best friend but there's no response. Ok, tennis then.

I met Electrin for the first time last night for dinner and pool. He said I would recognise him by the T-shirt he would be wearing but didn't say what. He was right. I did. No one else was wearing the Blogger T-shirt. lol. I guess I beat you to blogging this.. it was great meeting up and thanks for the game!

More of the leftie/rightie stuff from Electrin:
- the ultimate leftie/ rightie test for him is which hand holds the scissors
- though being right-handed, he can switch to holding chopsticks with his left hand cos his girlfriend is left-handed and it's easier for them to eat together this way. How nice. :)

I guess it's been a while since I've met someone who possesses such unwavering certainty. Not operating on random chance, but on trust and belief that something is true, will happen and does. I wish I was the one to switch on the monitor, convinced of what I will find. I wish it's me.

My boss just told me I'm going with colleagues for a business trip to Hong Kong in July. I haven't been there ever since it returned to China, so it's been a couple of years already. The other colleagues are thinking of tagging along for a short weekend trip and we're all buzzing like kids on a school field trip. :)

Were you looking for my guestbook? I don't believe I have one. lol.

Both the friend in Chicago and the ex-colleague in Poland mentioned that they're probably picking strawberries this weekend. So far apart and yet, there are strawberries to be picked on both continents. Something I've never done is pick a fruit from a tree and eat it. Must jot it down as something else to do before I hit 60. :)

And of cos, fruit picking reminds me of a song. Just not a pleasant one. It's my favourite Billie Holiday song, about lynching of the blacks in the southern states by the Klu Klux Klan... her voice an instrument of her smothering anger at the injustice of it all, burning the edges of that tune and setting it alight. Here is a book named after her song... a difficult book to surface cos of its controversial nature but it did.

Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.
Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter cry.
- Billie Holiday's song Strange Fruit, lyrics by Lewis Anderson

Gotten some amazing feedback from friends regarding the 18th June entry on which one statement is false, and I'm struck by 2 facts:

1. Only one person has gotten it right on the first try so far.
2. Nobody ever doubted I bought 99 CDs (excluding music mag give-aways) last year.

What's your guess? :)

My best friend just emailed to say he was later than expected cos of flight delays. No wonder I couldn't reach him yesterday. The good news is he's gotten me my Cosmopolitan magazine though. Hiaks. I wonder if I hanker after that magazine just cos it's banned here?

Hmm... he just phoned. The boy is back home after being bounced from Minneapolis to Chicago to L.A. to Taiwan. The delay was supposedly caused by icing on the plane engine. He's against United Airlines now. Did I ever mention that Air France lost my luggage once? lol. While coming home from London, I was derailed to transit in KL instead of Paris. My luggage however, was oblivious and went onto Paris anyway. Luckily, they located my little truant and I got it and the 20+ books in it back. That was a close call though. :)

My brother just emailed to say he's reading my blog. :) Brard, dun tell mum anything I won't!

I slept more than 9 hours last night and I can't remember when I last slept so long. When I woke up, an old Camper van Beethoven tune just popped into my head and won't pop out. I guess this is my inner auto-repeat song today then. :)

One of these days
When you figure, figure it all out
Well be sure to let me know
Well I'll be waiting right here
Come and whisper in my ear what it is I want to know
- Camper van Beethoven's song One of these Days from the album Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart

Thanks for enduring my inane blabber while I was stuck behind those 50 people in the taxi queue. You're a life saver. :)

I just got back from an IT exhibition. Basically for 3 hours, I trawled through 6 halls in 3 inch heels. Yeech. Suffice to say I was more interested in collecting freebies there and hunting down people I know than to gather industry updates. lol. My haul includes a sponge toy shark on a bungee stretch cord, some Post-It notepads, a pen, a paper notebook and mouse pads. Went for a Jackpot hit to try and win a Palm m505 but won a curled up bracelet instead. Well, all in a day's work.

A friend pointed me to Neil Gaiman's site to check out his latest work American Gods. Read it for yourself. :)

Once, if I remember rightly, my life was a feast at which all hearts opened and all wines flowed.
- Arthur Rimbaud

At another mobile book fair (there always seems to be one), I bought a Penguin 60s classic of Arthur Rimbaud's A Season in Hell. Rimbaud was a controversial french poet genius who started writing at 16 and stopped at 21, during which he fell in love with another married poet Paul Verlaine.

In short... Love, Pain and the whole Damn Thing.

I have no idea why but I woke up at 4am to try out the latest Emode test. It tells me my flavour is pink grapefruit. lol.

My colleagues just said that instead of coming from Venus like all the other womenfolk, I originate from Pluto cos it's the most distant planet. I guess it's cos my interests are alien from theirs. Well, maybe it's Utopia on Pluto and I'm a Plutopian. Does it really matter? :)

Wearing... white sleeveless knee-length dress with little twee pink and purple flowers instead of my usual plain grey. Yes, I can't believe it either.
Sitting with... shoe-less feet tucked in under me (knees always pointing left, hmm... does this mean? Oh, never mind)
Working on... mindless documentation of user authorizations within system. Nuff said.
Listening to... Madonna crooning Frozen.

I'm just trying to find
A decent melody
A song that I can sing
In my own company
- U2's Stuck in a Moment You Can't Get Out Of

My colleague just passed by my cubicle and taught me how to twist stapler bullets together to form a thorn-like boobie trap. She said in mock seriousness that we could leave it on seats to jab other folks. lol. Everyone is turning nuts. :)

Weisst du eigentlich, dass du etwas ganz Besonderes und Einmaliges auf dieser Welt bist?
[German lesson #13: Do you know you are totally special and unique in this world?]
- another unused greeting card unearthed by my german colleague. On the cover, a mouse is trying to console a sad sheep. Eh.

Which one statement is false?
1. (Excluding CDs that come together with music mags) I bought 99 CDs last year.
2. I have tried eyelash perming before.
3. I watched more than 50 movies last year.
4. I own 2 Pikachu T-shirts which I am too embarrassed to wear in public.
5. Back in University days, my password was MEEPOH cos it's the favourite food of my boyfriend then.
6. I have experimented with wearing hazel, grey and green coloured contact lenses.
7. There was a phase where I only wore brown clothing.
8. In Junior College, I liked to bring my soft toy cow [Kassandra the Prophetess] into lectures.

I know Blogvoices is down so you can't possibly post your guess...but those who already know me and feel inclined to can email me directly with your guess and find out if it's correct. Will post the false statement end of this week. :)

My best friend just bought The Winter is Coming, the latest album by band Elf Power. He likes them but the band name alone is enough to make me want to buy the album. :) I am fascinated with elf names.. I bought Austin band Retarted Elf's self-titled album for self-evident reasons.

Quest just showed me where I can take a test to see if I'm a leftie or rightie. Well, I'm surprised to say I'm moderately right-handed, which is more rightie than I thought. lol. While we're on the leftie or rightie topic again, a girlfriend who's a confirmed leftie actually holds her chopsticks in her right hand. Her reasoning is that she eats less when she holds her chopsticks in her left hand as that will collide with the rightie sitting on her left. So she went with the flow. Hmm.. we all adapt to circumstances don't we?

This weekend I sampled music, bought CDs and my favourite magazine Uncut, watched a movie, attended an Indian fusion jazz concert, checked out a club I've never been to, had a teddy bear picnic, played pool and read inbetween. Blissed out.

Don't ask me where all the songs come from and why I remember them. I don't ask you how you breathe and why you do. :)

My best friend visited Lake Superior and when I asked him how it was, he said 'Big and nice'. Erm, ok.

Did you hear them yell,
"Land damn it land"?
You say you can't,
Well I hope you can.
I hope you can.
- Grandaddy's song He's Simple, He's Dumb, He's the Pilot.

That pilot has lost his maps and plans, I hope you've still got your bearings.

Last evening I spent 2 wonderful hours sampling music at Borders' music section. One album that struck me was Dusted's When We were Young, which led me to visit their website and to this story there. Whimsical sketchy cartoon about love, hate, childhood, a little boy called Jack and monsters in the woods.

"... I fold my arms and sit and wait. No care for wind, nor tide, nor sea will ever move me."

That boy is talented, but he's very destructive.
- Dusted's song Biggest Fool in the World

And I have a thing for alter-ego songs. You know, when songs get reinterpreted or covered by other musicians and sound so different from their original forms that they seem to have split personalities. I like the surprise when I start listening to what I think is a new song and realise that hey, I know this! An alter-ego song has a cheeky sense of humour... it tries to masquerade as a stranger and the challenge is to see how long it can fool us. Electronica covered as death metal, pop covered as big band... the variations are endless.

My favourite instance of an alter-ego song occurred when I was clubbing sometime last year. The DJ started spinning funky breakbeats which everyone whooped up and danced to, when I wrinkled my nose and thought... Hmm, why does this sound so familiar? Then I realised it's a distortion of Barry Manilow's Copacabana, an oldie which probably none of the young kids dancing round had heard of, and which they wouldn't be caught dead dancing to if they had. And I looked at them dancing so obliviously to the tune and couldn't help bursting into laughter. :)

Bought another 8 comics today... that makes it 25 in 3 days. I guess my love for comics and anime stemmed from my brother. He introduced titles to me and taught me about acid-free boards to preserve comics (which he uses but I don't). Maybe I'm the brother he never had.

Be careful what you wish for, it may come true.

I helped 2 strangers today but didn't manage to help 2 people whom I know much better. Why?

Swamped with work today. Supposed to visit a customer this afternoon but we also needed 1 person to stay back and man the fort. We decided to draw lots between the 3 of us. I drew the scrap of paper that says 'No Go' so here I am.

Bought 7 more comics during lunchtime today so that brings the total count up to 17 comics since yesterday. I found a couple more issues of Strangers in Paradise among other stuff.

Perhaps I'm not fluent in denial like James, but rather.. fluent in self-denial.

The friend who's working in Chicago decided to make home-made barley (with a little help long-distance from his mum) and he actually prepared 3 litres of it! Since I can only boil water, I'm impressed and asked for his drink recipe. Here's his reply:

ingredients:
(a) 1 cup (400ml) of barley (almost 1 pound)
(b) 3l of water in a big pot
(c) half a lemon, sliced
(d) rock sugar

1. wash (a) (supposedly, barley from china works better)
2. boil (b) with (a) thrown in. simmer after the water has boiled.
4. add (d) to taste. i put in about 100g.
5. when the barley has "opened" (it'll look fluffy and soft at this point), stop heating and add (c).

ta da! barley water ...

Electrin has just told me he can brush teeth with either hand. This has just wiped out the previous theory about how to identify the ruling hand. lol. The search continues.. :)

If anything, I've learned you can't always go home.. you can't always be warm inside. That without love, we're never more than Strangers in Paradise.
- Terry Moore

Only the person who has somebody's hand to hold will be able to laugh.
- Rabbi Harold S. Kushner

What most people don't know about love, sex and relations with other human beings would fill a book. Strangers in Paradise is that book.
- Neil Gaiman

While rummaging through bargain comics at a mobile book-fair during lunchtime today, I came across and bought issue #1 of Terry Moore's award-winning comic Strangers in Paradise for only 50 cents.

I just remembered which song the line Everything's gonna be alright came from. It's Bob Marley's No Woman No Cry.

Du bist die schoenste Blume auf meiner Wiese.
[German lesson #11: You are the most beautiful flower in my woods.]
- from an unused greeting card my german colleague dug up somewhere, which he passed to me for no good reason 'cept I could read it

Friends have been haywiring left and right, and an infectious oddball mood is in the air. I'm not batting an eyelid no matter what people tell me now.

This morning, my brother (a die-hard Dilbert fan) emailed me a Daily Dilbert newsletter with Dilbert links to check out. [3 Dilbert's in one sentence, that must be a record.] So I checked out the links and came across this Spanish version of Dilbert, complete with English translations of keywords in the comic. Kinda cute.

My table-tennis guru just suggested to me to switch my racket-holding hand so now I play table-tennis with my left, no, right, no... left hand. lol.

Somewhere along the way I've stagnated at work and lost the self-confidence to move on. Scary.

For those folks who've wandered over here from my best friend's .plan... hi! He just called from Minneapolis and he's fine.

I borrowed books from the library last night despite having loads of unread books of my own. I need to jumpstart my reading again and what better way than to read other people's books instead? There's a sense of urgency to read and return them which I don't have with my own books. :)

People who don't know my best friend and I personally often don't know what to make of our friendship. I'm not sure if it's cos they don't expect people to have best friends when they're no longer kids, or they don't expect best friends to be of different gender. Somehow the concept seems really foreign to them. Why? It wouldn't make much difference to our friendship even if we were of the same gender, 'cept maybe we could finally thrash out each other's teams in the English league (if we were guys), or drool over hunks together (if we were gals). If you could see us together, you'd understand what I mean.

My best friend just called from Tokyo while in transit to America. The connection sounded so clear I was stunned for a moment, thinking he was nearby. I forgot to say it but hey, thanks for calling. Take care till you return.

Sometimes things are better than they seem. A breakup I thought had happened didn't take place after all. Though it isn't anyone I know personally, it's still something good isn't it? :)

May you swim in waters deeper than 1.8 m.

I don't know what more to tell you, I've said it all really. Everything is going to sound like a cliche but here I go again. I know you'll be brave and pull through, and just like that raggae tune goes, everything's gonna be alright. I wish there's a magic handiplast to give you to paste on and speed up the healing... heck, I would distribute them all round if I could. But I don't, so I guess my friendship will have to do. Be well ok?
You know, if one of us is happy, I wish it's you. Well, this time. :)

Life is unpredictable. Unpredictability is your friend. Say hi to him or her.
- my best friend again (the boy is in a thoughtful mood)

I feel like a pearl harbour.
- my best friend (meaning the event, not the movie)

The knee has spoken. No tennis today. Sigh.

While other folks were probably out in town on a Saturday night, my best friend and I tried playing with our new table tennis rackets instead. It wasn't that easy to locate a place to play table tennis, as we soon found out after enquiring at 3 nearby community centres. In the end, my best friend remembered this old clay pseudo-table tennis-sort-of-table in our neighbourhood so we tried playing a few games there. It was odd cos the table was located next to a drain and the tiny ping-pong ball always made death-defying leaps in that direction. I lost one in there actually. The table surface also felt unfamiliar, scratched and uneven... I'm not sure when someone last played table tennis on it. But somehow, it was a nice end to a lazy Saturday. :)

My right knee gave way today after jogging. I was surprised cos it never happened to me before. I guess I just took it for granted. Now I walk ok on level ground but limp a bit when walking down stairs. Bought a knee sleeve to wear so I can still play tennis tomorrow morning. Hope not to overdo it but I hope my knee recovers tonight. :)

Teddy bear picnic next Sunday at Botanic Gardens. Wanna go? I'll bring Bub. :)

Just came home from another jogging session with my best friend. How did yours go Electrin? :) About my best friend... even though he's probably the person I refer to most in my blog, he's also one of its most infrequent readers. His excuse is he'll rather talk to me than read my blog, which is too brief most of the time. lol. Anyway, it was a nice start to a lazy Saturday. :)

After all that leftie/ rightie confusion, a friend finally asked me which hand I used to hold my toothbrush rather than which hand I used to write with. He said that the writing hand doesn't count as natural inclination cos it's too deliberate... the hand holding the toothbrush is the ultimate leftie/ rightie test. In that case, I've got to be a leftie then. :)

Just got home from playing pool. Mixing too many groups of friends already... vietnam tour friends vs german ex-classmate vs best friend vs jc classmates vs uk tourmate and her colleague. :) Fun though tiring. Glad it's the weekend again.

Everything happens for a reason. But what?

I suddenly thought of this scene in the movie Forrest Gump where he just started running and didn't stop for a long time. I think I can understand why.

And another one gone, and another one gone
Another one bites the dust
- Queen's song Another One Bites the Dust. Another colleague just resigned.

"A pulsing zombie is a computer whose security has been compromised without its owner's knowledge by a cracker so that it intermittently carries out a denial-of-service attack on target computers in a network. Unlike a regular zombie, the pulsing zombie doesn't completely paralyze its targets, but merely weakens them, in what some call degradation-of-service attacks."
- Word-of-the-Day from today's WhatIs.com is err, Pulsing Zombie

I suddenly woke up at 4+ am, dreamless. So I logged on and happened to chat with an old friend who's now working in Chicago. Then I realise I hardly ever log on without someone I know online on my icq list. :) Going back to sleep now.

I suffered fools, so gladly
and now I find I've changed my mind
- Madonna's Drowned World (My Substitute for Love). My auto-repeat song for work today.

If you like the girl, cannot just openly look mah. Must do the See-See-Dun-See-See way, understand anot?
- a friend's advice to another guy on observing women

There are barn doors
And there are revolving doors
Doors in the rudders of big ships
And there are revolving doors
There are doors that open by themselves
There are sliding doors
And there are secret doors
There are doors that lock
And doors that don't
There are doors that let you in and out
But never open
And there are trapdoors
That you can't come back from
- Radiohead's song Pulk/Pull Revolving Doors

You must have chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
- Friedrich Nietzche. [I see this quote everytime I add an entry to post in Chronoscape.]

If you're bored, check out the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest for the opening sentences of the worst novels never written. As they claim, WWW means Wretched Writers Welcome.

My colleagues were discussing last night's episode of Ally McBeal during our regular lunchtime teh tarik session. We did a poll on whether we love or hate the show but I couldn't vote cos I don't watch TV. I read the entertainment mag 8 Days every week to understand day-to-day conversations on the merits of TV shows like Friends, The Practice and X Files. Not watching TV is not so bad. Really. :)

WANTED: Somebody to go back in time with me. This is not a joke. P.O. Box 322, Oakview, CA 93022. You'll get paid after we get back. Must bring your own weapons. Safety not guaranteed. I have only done this once before.
- extract from a classified ad Quest sent me

An identity crisis is spreading through my office. Well, it's more like a mug identity crisis. The company has issued silver metallic company mugs to us and those who chose to use them couldn't tell them apart. lol. Some colleagues stuck sticker labels while others used black markers to mark their mugs. Still, there's confusion in the mornings when blearry-eyed folks struggle to find their mugs and fill up on coffee. Me? I'll stick with my white HMV mug. :)

Yeech. I hope it's not another day of one-liners.

Sometimes my life seems to be in Suspend mode and I'm just waiting for a triggering event to carry on.

In today's comics section, James added "I'm fluent in denial but I think in English". Bingo again.

Just finished watching the anime Jin-Roh and I guess I should go sleep now.
Keep safe wherever you are.

Today seems to be a day for one-liners.

According to Emode, I'm a Girl Next Door looking for a Renaissance Man. Gee.

Today is odd cos a lot of colleagues were dressed in gray. It's almost like we're in uniform. lol.

Man, all this up and down with Blogspot is playing tricks with my heart.

Seems like Blogspot is down again. Sigh.

Got an email from Hell today.

Just came home from playing badminton with a couple of friends. The last time I played badminton they still used wooden rackets so you can guess how long ago that's been. lol. When I started playing, I instinctively used my left hand to hold the badminton racket. Everyone started groaning and told me to switch to my right hand cos I use that hand to hold my tennis racket anyway. I just couldn't. So now I'm sort of ambidextrous... being a badminton leftie and a tennis rightie. Great! :) I really don't care.

It's more of a religious thingy.
Like VI and Microsoft Word are in essential text editors.

In the wild wild west of the internet when there's less security and people are on unices, they can actually type

finger [insert name] | more

to see the .plan.
- my best friend on why his .plan is not a blog

Nepalese King Dipendra has just died after the bizarre slayings of his family. He was only 29.

Ever since Quest mentioned about this journal, I have been returning to read it everyday despite not knowing who the author is. It's a basic text-based journal which seems to be stuck at the May 27, 2001 entry, and I can't find any archives to refer to. I know it's odd but I worry about this nameless girl who's on the verge of a breakup and hope everything is ok for her.

As usual, I was reading through the Straits Times while having breakfast this morning. There's this quirky comic strip called James that I follow faithfully. It's not the funniest actually, but I find I have a strange affinity to this little boy with the overblown head, who makes wry statements too old for his age. Today, James' tagline was "I'm fluent in denial". I laughed when I read that and thought "Me too".

I was flipping through a magazine and saw the definition for the word Nostalgia. According to the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, this means "a wistful or excessively sentimental yearning for return to or of some past period or irrecoverable condition". I thought that definition hit the spot exactly.

Tennis was cancelled cos of the rain but then it got sunnier as the day progressed. I went out and got the anime movie Jin-Roh even though I'm only half-way through the Cowboy Bebop anime series. I also dropped by HMV and bought my first classical CD. It's Symphony no. 3 (Symphony of Sorrowful Songs) by the composer Gorecki. Skipped the book fair cos a friend mentioned that there's not much there. And before I know it, the weekend's gone again.

Everyday is like Sunday
Everyday is silent and gray
- Morrissey's Everyday is like Sunday. Looks like rain today.

I bought the latest Depeche Mode album as well as a double-CD compilation of Japanese rock band Luna Sea's singles. Happy!

Instead of jogging, my best friend suggested blading this morning. Well, he bladed and I shuffled, though I improved a bit. I don't have the natural instincts some people have for picking up sports... everything seems to be a conscious learning struggle for me. I guess the trick is to keep at it, even if it takes me much longer. :)

You're death and living reconciled
Been walking home a crooked mile
- from Depeche Mode's song Dream On. Dave Gahan's voice is really something isn't it?

Just got home from Zouk. Too techno for me so I couldn't get into the music. Sometimes I don't know why I still club. I dislike the crowd, especially the posers wearing sunglasses in the dark or those wearing long-sleeve jerseys which are too hot on the dancefloor. That's why I like to close my eyes and focus on listening when I dance. Hazardous but worth it. :) I enjoy dancing with my best friend cos he doesn't freak out when I tune out and he really goes all out to dance (yeah, he chews up the dance floor too). But I don't know how much longer I can carry on though.

Tell me if my hair is on fire.
- what I told my best friend when we were dancing next to a cigarette-waving dancer

My german colleague just told me that the word Depp means Idiot in german. Err. Poor Johnny Depp.

I'm going for the Dave Clarke gig at Zouk tonight. I need some music that's real to me.

There are 2 surefire ways for me to destress: plucking my eyebrows and playing pool.

Today's Straits Times featured on Gorillaz, which is supposed to be the first virtual band to exist. The human band members are not revealed, we see only their toon personas. Dave Albarn of British band Blur is the lead singer and I quite like their single Clint Eastwood. Actually, I have a soft spot for some songs named after people too. lol. Lamb's Gorecki (named after the classical composer) and Cake's Frank Sinatra are examples. I wonder if it's less likely for a song to be bad if it's named after someone, cos there are more expectations to live up to.

Got an email from Electrin who was concerned about my previous post. Thanks and sorry, I didn't mean to alarm you. :) I guess my blog is just that, random thoughts, and lots of thoughts zing through my head everyday... those that I catch and blog may not be reflective of my whole mood that day, only that instant I'm blogging.

Today, I sms'd with 5 friends and bumped into another friend on my way to work. Conversation was fast and furious, tomorrow is the weekend, all's right with the world. :)