B12 and I have a generation gap with Yoyo when we started discussing music we grew up listening to. I can't believe Yoyo has never heard of Hall and Oates. Or Joy Division. Or the fact that New Order sprung out of the remaining band members of Joy Division after vocalist Ian Curtis committed suicide. Or the Housemartins. Or the fact that Fatboy Slim (aka Norman Cook) used to be a member of the Housemartins. Or Spandau Ballet. Or Thompson Twins (named after the comic characters Thompson Twins in the Tintin comics). B12 and I were so amazed that we kept quizzing Yoyo on musician after musician. lol.

Today I watched a french movie called Circus Baobab (about the first circus in Africa) with Yoyo and my US travel mate. Afterwards Yoyo and I had dinner with B12. B12 explained about a new bowling idea called cosmic bowling. The bowling alley will have the lights off and all you can see are the glow-in-the-dark neon pinballs, bowling balls and bowling lanes (sort of like runways). They'll play techno music and it'll seem like clubbing in a bowling alley. Interesting. :)

Now that it's over, I can finally say that my best friend's surprise party was held at MacDonald's. Read about it at Chronoscape. :)

Believe it or not, there's a movie called My Best Friend's Birthday. To quote the synopsis from a Hollywood.com review, it's about how "two friends who are deejays at a Torrance radio station get into a mess with the police during a 30th birthday party for one of them". Erm. It's not your 30th birthday and we're both not DJs or in Torrance. The only pedigree to this comedy movie is that Quentin Tarantino wrote the screenplay.

But what I really want to say is, I hope you have a great birthday today. Nuff said.

I went to a farewell karaoke session with my colleagues instead of my regular Friday night pool. I surprised everyone when I sang of all things, a Westlife song. My colleagues believe there's still hope for me but I think I'll disappoint them anyway.

An ex-colleague looks very similar to the boyfriend of a current colleague. When they finally managed to meet, the ex-colleague laughed and said to his clone, "You're the second most handsome guy I've ever seen". lol.

Baking analogy at work yesterday. I'm too soft. I don't have the conviction to remove an incompetent baker from the bakery despite his bad attitude. My boss stepped in to do it for me. I won't let this happen again. I won't let anyone under my charge drift so far, and I will not be so wishy-washy.

My boss also lent me the book Who Moved My Cheese?. So far, 3 colleagues have got copies of this book. I think $16 is too steep to pay for such a thin book but I don't mind borrowing it to see if it deserves the hype.

Poland's unemployment is at 16%. Government's stringent laws on employment has not been helpful. Eg if an employer has more than x employees, it must provide a bidet in the washrooms; if more than y employees, it must provide toilets for the handicapped. All these are very good but it makes it very expensive for smaller businesses to hire anyone. As a result, individuals set themselves up as one-person business. They then sell their service to another company. So the hiring company pays for the services of another company instead of paying for an employee, although, it is actually a traditional employer-employee relationship. It spares the hiring company from all kinds of government regulations and tax wise, it works out better for both parties.
- my ex-colleague in Poland, on the Polish employment situation

While waiting for my brother and sis-in-law, I talked on my cell phone with you. You finally got to hear Lamb's Gorecki but didn't think much of my favourite song. It was too erratic for you. I wondered if I should go look for my errant brother and spouse but somehow thought of an old Billy Joel song called Leave a Tender Moment Alone and decided not to. The only Billy Joel song you could remember is Uptown Girl... somehow I guessed that too. You tried to distract me from work worries by telling me funny anecdotes of some acquaintances. You do have the strangest friends. I said I hope I can survive Friday. I told you about strange habits of IT people, like urban folklore that's true. About someone who worked from 8pm to 6am everyday till management issued a decree for her to work on normal hours, so someone can finally have a meeting with her. About someone else who placed the keyboard on top of the monitor and typed standing up, looking down awkwardly at the screen.

And of cos afterwards there's always the inconsequential things I wished I told you. Like how I'm getting addicted to the new coke float from MacDonald's. That I tried some coffee, durian as well as green tea mooncakes today. That my brother told me his earliest memory was of him crawling towards the TV set, curious to examine what goes underneath and being hauled back by some adult (and thinking 'Stupid adult').

I have a tough decision to make at work and my sis-in-law said something insightful. She told me bluntly that I'm not hired as a clerk so I've got to do what it takes.

I switched off my cell phone but then remembered about it and reached over to turn it back on. As soon as I did that, you called. I asked if you tried phoning before and you said that was your first attempt. Freaky. I told you about the uncanny coincidence and you said some people are just lucky.

Help. My ex-colleague in Poland just asked me to name some famous Poles besides the Pope and Chopin. Know any?

My ex-colleague in Poland told me that a good Polish movie to watch now is Quo Vadis. In Latin, it means "where are you going?". I'm not sure it's going to get screened here though. Aww.

Electrin has moved to his new site Tribolum. I'm glad you didn't go for the complete word, I won't have been able to remember. lol. Nice layout. :)

deadboi just taught me another long word. lol. Triskaidecaphobia. Fear of the number 13.
Tri = 3
skai = and
deca = 10
phobia = fear

Sometimes the longest words aren't the most useful are they? :)

On my way back to the office, I dropped by the ever-present mobile bookfair (yeah, the mobile bookfair is becoming as regular as 7-11). Bought 2 collections of short stories (P.O. Bronson's The Nudist on the Late Shift and Rick Moody's Demonology) as well as Banana Yoshimoto's Amrita. I think I'll probably read them by 2003 if I follow a FIFO approach to reading books I own.

This morning I attended 3TapRiff's ROM ceremony where Dave was one of the photographers. The bride and groom looked radiant and there were lots of wellwishers. However, there was a bottleneck in the queue maybe cos people weren't getting married fast enough. lol. I remember telling 3TapRiff in the lull waiting period that it's sort of surreal, that we're still in touch all these years later, that I'm at his ROM... I asked him if he's got any last words as a bachelor and he asked if I'm going to blog them. But he didn't say any after all, and soon everyone filed into the Cherish room (yes, ROM rooms used to be named after flowers but they've since been renamed) and lo and behold, our boy is married. :)

Congrats you. To quote Fatboy Slim, you've come a long way baby.

Of all things, we chatted about wheat prices during a meeting today. I didn't realise wheat prices plunged cos the cropduster planes weren't allowed to fly after the plane attacks in America. Hence pesticides couldn't be sprayed to protect wheat crops. I don't think I ever discussed about wheat before.

Electrin taught me a new word today. Triboluminescence. Light created through friction.

Since I forced pearl tea on limabean, he's been having a cup a day. lol.

My US travel mate changed her cell phone and passed all her previous phone cover accessories to me. :) Thanks. I've got quite a few cell phone covers to begin with so now it's probably more than 10. Well, today my cell phone is a fire hydrant red.

Today's baking analogy at work: it's easier to bake than to describe cakes convincingly to potential customers so that they will buy cakes from you. Customers want to know how different pricing is if cakes are 2 tier or 3 tier. They want to ask how many eggs go into the cake mixture and why. They want to know if they can have more eggs in the cake mixture for the same price. They want to know how fast cakes can be baked, even on non-working days. They want to know if we deliver cakes overseas. They tell you about other cakes they've eaten before.

Sometimes I miss baking.

May you find some peace, and if you can't pray for it, close your eyes and offer it up to someone else.
- Ryan Adams

My UK travel mate told me one of her friends has a T-shirt with the caption Year of the Tiger, 1999. When she saw the T-shirt, she was quite perplexed cos 1999 was actually the year of the Dragon. It turned out that the Tiger in question was not the Chinese zodiac sign. lol.

My UK travel mate and I walked from Orchard Road to Holland Village, and after that I walked home from there. It's the first time I've ever walked so long here though I've walked much longer when I was backpacking overseas. My UK travel mate was commenting that not everyone is willing to walk that distance. I'm glad we did.

Decided not to bum at home and somehow got limabean to walk downtown with me instead. I bought Vol. 1 and 3 of Magnetic Fields' 69 Love Songs (Vol. 2 was missing, aww) while he did intensive retail therapy. He bought about 5 CDs (including Pernice Brothers' The World won't End, which my best friend was considering buying. Hey, you know where to borrow it from now, lol.) plus at least the same number of books, and then swore never to come out with me again. Yeah riiight. :)

My jc girlfriend has recommended me to try the tofu and pearl drink from Quickly instead of my usual red milk pearl tea. Initially it felt a bit strange sucking up tofu through the fat straw but I found that I prefer this combination. I guess I just like tofu in whatever form or fashion.

Quest was trying to explain to me the differences between sad, unhappy and melancholic. He ended up using smileys to clarify in the following way so go figure. lol.

sad is like :(
unhappy is like *sulk*
melancholic is like :|

My mum is a conservative mooncake eater. She sticks to the standard white lotus mooncake with single yolk. She also doesn't cut mooncakes into quarters, only halves. Quarters aren't quite enough.

Yesterday I met a stranger who has an extra tiny shrivelled thumb on his hand, ie. he's got 6 digits instead of 5. It's probably the first time I've seen such a hand, and I wondered if he was teased in school about it, and whether he ever considered surgically removing it. Perhaps an extra tiny thumb has shaped his character, made him stronger. I thought it was a difficult but special gift.

It's raining now so maybe today will be a quiet day in with my books and music after all. I was chatting with Quest yesterday and I told him I like to freeze moments. I froze a moment when I was still in my teens. I remember reading a book and listening to music, and it was so peaceful. And somehow even then, I sat up and knew that if this moment went on auto-repeat, it would be quite perfect..

My Chicago friend wanted to comment on One Blind Mouse but sent it to me via icq instead. Next time, click on the Comment button at the end of that entry ok? :) Anyway, here's his comment lock, stock and barrel:

"here's a short story abt 2 mice u can tell him: 2 mice lived in a mousehole and one day found a chunk of cheese outside their hole. after much argument abt whether they should go grab it, 1 mouse decided to go for it. alas it was a trap and he was taken away by a cat when he stepped out. the other mouse however, stayed in the safe mousehole and died of hunger. i'm sure i dont need to explain the moral behind the story."

Yet another friend has succumbed to blogging. Introducing One Blind Mouse's blog called, erm, Mousetrap. Hey, I didn't move your cheese. :)

The test sms from icq has bounced. Odd.

Listening to Low now. It's music to break hearts by.

Lainey has a tea obsession. :) She was describing to me the various tea flavours (16!) she has now. She's got English afternoon, Irish afternoon, English breakfast, Irish breakfast, Apple and Blackcurrant, Long Jing, Ooloong, Jasmine, Japanese green tea, Vanilla and black tea, Honey Lemon blend, Camomile, Lemon soother, Earl Grey, Chai and Super Ceylon. She explained that Irish breakfast is more aromatic than English breakfast, and chai tea is the tea that makes everyone happy after drinking it. Wow.

More than 24 hours later, I still haven't received that test sms from icq.

I was asking Yoyo if we should dash for the traffic light before it turned red. He replied, "Don't be a Singaporean". So has dashing for the traffic light become a patriotic sign, since it is a significant kiasu behaviour exhibited by Singaporeans?

Another baking analogy about work. Instead of baking, I'm doing more pre-sales and paper-pushing work now, ie. meeting with customers to discuss about the cakes they want. Yoyo said the latter is what is called "emotional labour". How apt.

We were having drinks after pool and AK thought that his iced cappuccino tasted like hard liquor, namely X.O. So Yoyo and I took turns to sample his drink, but it tasted normal to us. Then AK told us to monitor his face to see if it turned red since he's really susceptible to alcohol.

I wish my face could turn red as a warning when I drink caffeinated drinks. That would have prevented a lot of grief. Hiaks.

Yoyo mentioned reading in Spin magazine that Hello Kitty tattooes used to be popular, and thought that Qoo tattooes would be cool now. All I wondered about though, was whether they filled in the colours of the tattooes. :)

My best friend couldn't make it for pool cos he had to, in his own words, do some "intellectual masturbation".

Went for my regular Friday night pool with Yoyo and AK (Auntie-Killer, cos of his boyish charms). I received a couple of sms from friends who were telling me where they were and what they were doing, and Yoyo commented wryly if I were running a prostitution ring, since everyone seemed to be reporting their whereabouts to me. lol.

More than 12 hours later, I still haven't received that test sms from icq.

At the funeral eulogy, a good friend of my deceased customer recounted about how a few of them would climb up Bukit Timah at 7am on New Year's Day, so they could see the first sunrise of the year. Everyone was lazy but they did it. One New Year's Day, my customer only brought along apple juice to celebrate their ascent of Bukit Timah. Then he laughingly promised to bring champagne on the next New Year's Day, and he did, on their last climb together.

I still remember visiting my customer in hospital, with his wife by his bedside lovingly holding his hand. His wife was talking about their Bukit Timah climbs then as well, and she said he often had to help her climb cos she was the weakest. He smiled indulgently at her then and I thought it was wonderful for them to be so in love more than 20 years later.

Life is really really short, isn't it? Be happy while you can.

When I was much younger, I fantasized that on my funeral wake, every single album of U2's would be played repeatedly. Then I went off U2 significantly and thought there's going to be a lot more variety in music when I pass away. How silly. Now I just hope someone will remember and think fondly about me like they did on the funeral wake of my customer.

One of my customers whom I've visited in the hospital just passed away. I'm simply stunned.

Currently listening to Low's album Things we lost in the Fire, on loan from my best friend. It's going to be another long day. Buck up everyone. :) We'll make it.

Out of the blue, Yoyo just asked me if I can do the Rubik cube. Well, the closest I've come is to complete nearly 2 faces but that's it. Someone is trying to teach him how to complete a cube. Hey, good luck. :)

When I was in junior college, I used to stick poems and lyrics outside my locker. Maybe that was a prelude to blogging. lol.

How do you know if a poem is good? Let a techie rather than an arty sort read it.

There are two kinds of people:
a) my love and I
b) other
two kinds of people:
1) the gray
and 2) me and my love
All people fall into two camps
that ever twain shall be:
those lost in darkness without lamps,
and then,
my love and me...
- Magnetic Fields' song Two Kinds of People. From Vol. 3 of 69 Love Songs.

I should have forgotten you long ago
but you're in every song I know.
- excerpt from Magnetic Fields' song Busby Berkeley Dreams. Yes, I'm on a Magnetic Fields rampage aren't I? lol.

Grand pianos crash together
when my boy walks down the street.
There are whole new kinds of weather
when he walks with his new beat.
Everyone sings hallelujah
when my boy walks down the street.
Life just kind of dances through ya
from your smile down to your feet.
Amazing
he's a whole new form of life
blue eyes blazing
and he's going to be my wife.
The world does the hula-hula
when my boy walks down the street.
Everyone thinks he's Petula
so big and yet so petite
Butterflies turn into people
when my boy walks down the street.
Maybe he should be illegal
he just makes life too complete...
Oh, shadows of echoes of memories
Oh, things that he brings
that he found in the sea
Oh, shadows of echoes of memories of songs
Oh, how could he know
that it won't be long...
- Magnetic Fields' song When My Boy Walks Down the Street. Another one from 69 Love Songs

Bang there was you
too gold too blue.
You told the truth.
I cried. You flew.
You called me mad (and I am mad)
as a hatter.
Some fall in love.
I shatter.
You make it rain.
Too bleak, too stark.
Should night not fall
you make things dark.
Bang here am I
No one nowhere
no ground no sky
no light no air.
- Magnetic Field's song I Shatter. Love song 23 of their legendary 69 Love Songs

M1 service personnel just phoned to tell me that my Nokia cell phone is ready for collection. Will dash down after work cos I can't stand this Ericsson T10 anymore. MUAHAHAHA. I WILL SMS AGAIN. *EVIL SNIGGER*

Love is like jazz
You make it up as you go along
and you act as if you really know the song
but you don't
and you never will
so you flaunt your mistakes
and you make them until they were you
Love is like jazz
the same song a million times
in different ways
Strange Fruit
with and without wind chimes
It's divine
It's asinine
It's depressing
and it's almost entirely
window dressing
but it'll do.
- Magnetic Fields' song Love is like Jazz. It's the second song from Vol. 2 of 69 Love Songs.

Surprisingly, one of the CDs I bought recently was the last Aaliyah album. It's probably the first R&B album I've got. Would I have bought this if she hadn't died in an air crash? Well yes, it's a well-produced catchy album. But I know I'm a music bigot, and I still pigeon-hole people according to whether they listen to Mariah Carey songs.

I'm not scared to be alone. I AM alone. I'm not scared, I'm used to it.
-- Rick Sammler from Saturday's episode of Once And Again. Another sms courtesy of limabean.

Should I stay or should I go now?
If I go there will be trouble
And if I stay it will be double
So you gotta let me know
Should I stay or should I go?
- the Clash's song Should I Stay or Should I Go?

Just received an email today from the US Green Card Office asking me if I want to take part in drawing lots to apply for a green card now. I've never received this before but isn't this sort of weird now?

I reiterate what my best friend often says. You are what you listen to.

Men and their cult movies. I can't understand why the latest Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back can appeal. What is it about crude toilet humour that bonds men you believe to be SNAGs?

During dinner this evening, we were sampling one another's CDs on Discmans. Suffice to say we bought quite a number of CDs among us. I remembered that I was sampling Kid 606's album PS I Love You which my best friend bought, and he asked me to describe the music. So I said the first track starts with a grasshopper which sounds like it's hooked up to a voice distorter, and then another electronic grasshopper joins in. There's another track which goes like Darth Vader on a respiratory system.

I realise it's very hard to describe music, and all I could do was rely on the imagery I associated with it.

My Nokia cell phone was spewing garbage characters intermittently on the display screen and I had no choice but to bring it in for repair today. In return, the service center passed me an Ericsson T10 cell phone as a replacement in the meantime. The Ericsson phone is bright PINK. I asked them for any other Nokia cell phone instead but no can do. So I've got the Ericsson phone, kit, manual and all. I can't use the Ericsson phone for anything besides simple tasks like answering and making calls, cos I'm still too traumatised to go read the manual. And when I had my first incoming call, I didn't recognise the ringtone and when I did, it sounded awful. I think I'll pass on sending any sms messages on the small T10 screen. I hope I get my old Nokia phone back real soon. Sigh.

Please give me a second grace
Please give me a second face
I've fallen far down
The first time around
Now I just sit on the ground in your way

Now if it's time to recompense for what's done
Come, come sit down on the fence in the sun
And the clouds will roll by
And we'll never deny
It's really too hard for to fly.
- Nick Drake's song Fly

I'm using my hula hoop to skip with instead. I just can't seem to hula hoop as well as the guys.

An eye for an eye will make the whole world blind.
- Gandhi. This quote was scribbled on a Manhattan sidewalk. Hopefully people will bear this in mind.

Saw Electrin update his blog with the comments option from Reblogger and got inspired follow suit (thanks!). It's been a while since I last used the defunct Blogvoices.

In the office now clearing up things and blasting Blue States' Nothing Changes Under the Sun on my office laptop. Wish I'm not but well, things could be worse.

I like reading the UK dance magazine Mixmag cos it has those weird nuggets of information, not necessarily related to dance music either. Previously, I read that the white gorilla featured on the cover of Basement Jaxx's latest album Rooty is the only white gorilla in the world.

Now I'm bemused by a quote from R Mike Mullane, three-time space shuttle astronaut. He mentioned that astronauts in space need only look out of the window to be entertained, and they do this every free moment they've got. In fact, they even carry cleaning material to wipe the nose prints off the glass. And the other source of entertainment they have is music from Walkman-style players issued by NASA.

Music and a view of the galaxy. If only that's all everyone needs to be happy.

On the aftermath of the attacks on America, Dave says there's lots of saber-rattling now. Weird phrase that. :)

I received an email today from an online bookstore with the following message:

"In this time of terrible tragedy and loss, we know that many will turn to books for answers. [We] respectfully offer a series of title listings for our customers who may be dealing with grief and loss, as well as those readers who seek a greater understanding of global, political, historical, and social forces in the midst of the current catastrophic events."

Is it just me or does this seem in bad taste?

Explain to me why I feel sad.
- Limabean's sms to me

After you tell me why I feel sad too.
- my sms reply to him a minute later

I've visited people in hospitals 3 times in the past 6 days. The latest patient I've visited has developed a keen sense of smell, so much so that he's lost appetite for most food except apples and chicken essence. He didn't even know he was ill until he went for his annual checkup recently. Lots of things are unpredictable in this world.

deadboi told me he's got a thing for green lemons. He eats them raw as well as mixes the juice with peroxide to bleah his skin. He applies a thin layer on his skin and leaves it on for half an hour to lighten his skin tone. Hmm, haven't done that before. I asked him why he wants to remain fair but he couldn't really tell. I guess it's one of those inexplicable things. :)

I can't sleep again, but I've got a cold so I'm not keen to wash my feet. lol. After all that Vitamin C pill popping, I've still got a runny nose.

What we've got here is failure to communicate.
Some men you just can't reach...
So, you get what we had here last week,
which is the way he wants it!
Well, he gets it!
N' I don't like it any more than you men.
- the excerpt from the 1967 movie Cold Hand Luke, used at the start of Guns N' Roses' song Civil War

My American colleagues have replied that they're ok though they're only about 50 miles away from ground zero, but there are other folks they know who are still missing. I hope everyone will keep safe and that there won't be unprovoked attacks against innocent Muslims currently residing in US.

Violence begets violence.

I watched the shots of the movie AI with the World Trade Center towers still intact in a fictional sunken Manhattan. That scene felt so odd it stuck like a lump in my throat.

I remember all those beautiful buildings, strong and silent. Gazing up transfixed by the skyline as I walked along. Flatiron, Chrysler, Empire State, Metropolitan Museum, MOMA, the library, Grand Central station. How systematically the streets are laid out in grids, making a map nearly obsolete. Whirling through Central Park searching for Strawberry fields and the Dakota Building, smiling at skaters and patting a horse mounted by a police officer. Munching on a hotdog by a roadside stand, revelling in the multitude of people all round. Queuing for Broadway tickets on Times Square early one morning and taking photos all around while waiting. Ordering Peking Duck in Cantonese at Chinatown. Climbing all the way up the Statue of Liberty. Lingering in bookstores and museums, falling in love with everything I see.

I'm so sorry.

Yoyo said the Mayans predicted from tectonic movements that the world would end on 23 Dec 2012. Everything has become so insignificant today. Hope American colleagues are ok. Life was so much simpler yesterday morning. New York. I really love that place.

Need to go wade through the ocean of office emails again. Wish me luck.

The crystal bracelet my jc girlfriend gave me has a magnetic clasp instead of a hook one, so all I have to do is just hold the ends close enough for the magnetic clasp to click into place. Very convenient. The side-effect is it has also raised my awareness for metallic objects in my near vicinity cos the bracelet clasp keeps attracting them... scissors, metal bits on my office laptop, stair banisters... I will be caught unaware by a small tug on my wrist. Maybe I need a magnetic clasp to slow me down to appreciate what I already have.

I am Fizzy/ I am Freestyle/ I am Full-on/ I am Fearless/ I am Frisky/ I am Fruity/ I am Freaky/ I am Feisty/ I am Fly/ I am Flirty/ I am Flash/ I am Fleshy/ I am Foxy/ I am Fetching/ I am Fab/ I am Funky/ I am Feminine/ I am Fantastic/ I am Fine/ I am Fiery/ I am Famous/ I am Five.
- the "I am" statements from the cover of Tummy Touch Records' 5th anniversary compilation

I ended up buying albums I didn't intend to get. I couldn't find any album by Directions in Groove so I bought the latest album by Groove Armada called goodbye country (hello nightclub), as well as a compilation of artists from Tummy Touch Records for their 5th year anniversary called I am Fearless, Funky and Five. I think I'm starting to get music overload.

I also did a search to locate the song I failed to intercept in its entirety. It's from the Speakeasy album by Directions in Groove. Think I'll go CD hunting later. No better day to start learning new music.

deadboi's tip on falling asleep did work! I woke up this morning to birthday sms from friends and tried out my hula hoop. Well, I still couldn't twirl the hula hoop past the 10 second mark but I'm going to surf hula hoop sites for tips. My hula hoop is neon purple and sparkly, and there's a movable weight within to help make twirling easier (hmm, centrifugal force?). I wish the hula hoop were transparent though, so I could see where the weight is when I'm twirling. Maybe I'll understand the dynamics better then. The salesgirl said that it's easier to twirl larger hula hoops and the guys launched into a discussion on mass, acceleration and radius. Techies. I just commented that Yoyo's hula hoop looked like a purple aura around him. :)

Will you call a hula hoop another accidental sport?

And so I'm wide awake early on my birthday wondering about caffeine content in bubble pearl tea and considering making birthday resolutions. Then I thought nah, one thing at a time. Let's try to sleep first. Got on irc and deadboi advised me to go wash my feet (but dry them) before I attempt to sleep again. Will try that and see if it works. :) Thanks.

Why would u rather stay in the back when u can boogie with me in the front?!
- deadboi

First of all:
I am tired.
I am true of heart!

And also:
You are tired.
You are true of heart!
- from Dave Eggers' book A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius

she lives in this house over there,
has her world outside it.
grapples with the earth with her fingers
and her mouth--she's five years old.
thread worms on a string,
keeps spiders in her pocket,
collects fly-wings in a jar scrubs horse flies
and pinches them on a line.
she's got one friend he lives next door,
they listen to the weather,
he knows how many freckles she's got,
she scratches his beard.
she's painting huge books,
glues them together,
they saw a big raven;
it glided down the sky--she touched it.
today's a birth-dat--they're sucking cigars,
he got a chain of flowers,
sows a bird in her knickers,
they're sucking cigars,
lie in the bathtub,
chain of flowers.
- Bjork's song Birthday. It will be wonderful, a birthday like this.

Bags. I have an unhealthy collection of small bags which can probably fit only a pack of tissues and a cell phone. I don't recall the last time I used any of them cos I always lug around a load of stuff like my Discman, a book and a cardigan. I end up carrying a black sling bag instead (yes they're always black sling bags). The latest one I got today looks like it can fit in an encyclopaedia. Woohoo.

Quest told me 7 pearls have 100 calories and I've just drunk another bubble pearl tea tonight. It's always like this.

My best friend had a weird theory today about the polite Asian way of refusal. You know, when you go "Take it lah", and the other party goes "No lah", and you start again with "Take it lah". He tried this out on me and limited it to 5 cycles of repetition to be convinced that I really meant "No lah". His reasoning was that there will be 5 read attempts on a hard disk before a read error is declared.

And this is how my best friend has compared me to a hard disk.

Check out Yoyo's Ida the Ignoramus. Finally, a friend who has cartoons online. :)

Today was quite unexpected. It started off sorta bleak cos I received some bad news and when I was rushing out, my black sling bag showed signs of giving way. Thankfully, the bad news wasn't that drastic and things started looking up.

There are so many things I'm trying not to forget about today. How my brother doesn't have time to spare, but bought me a cola-flavoured chuppa-chup lollipop to lick on as we tried catching up on each other's lives while running some errands together. How my friends rallied round to help celebrate in advance my birthday tomorrow though I didn't even plan to go out today. How I actually caught sight of Tony Buzan at Borders, though I didn't go up to say hi or ask for his autograph, or tell him that I'm a fan of his mind maps.

Thanks for the badminton racket. (My best friend chose it for technical specifications but my table tennis junkie remembered laughingly to ask if I like the colour scheme.) Thanks for the hula hoop. (I can't believe that we all dropped by the toy fair and tried out the hoops together. It was so funny to stop and look on to see all of you twirling the hoops next to the bunch of kids, and I still can't believe Yoyo is the best hula hooper. lol.)

Thanks for the hilarious conversations during dinner. Like the discussion on how women are more strategical while men are more operational or tactical when it comes to approaches to love. It went something like: women are more strategical cos they have more long-term goals for love, eg. "I will buy sexy tops to attract his attention". Men are more operational (real-time processing), eg. when they stop by a traffic light and try picking up a cute girl standing next to them; or more tactical, eg. using delay tactics to convince a girl that he will change his ways (even though he has no inclination to do so).

Thanks for remembering me. :)

Spent the day with a girlfriend of mine. She made a crystal bracelet for me and I'm really touched. Taking the effort to do this, that's really something. Thank u you. :)

My table tennis junkie coined an interesting term called Accidental Athlete. He called himself that for his inadvertent foray into different sports recently. I guess a couple of us have the same Accidental Athlete syndrome as well. Hiaks.

Something else I realised about myself again. I'm too inquisitive to reject gifts of strange songs.

but the tigers come at night, with their voices soft as thunder.
- a line Electrin used as the topic for irc channel #poetry. Nice, where is this from? :)

3TapRiff emailed to say this line is from a song in the musical Les Miserables called I Dreamed a Dream sung by the character Fantine.

How to make me return your call ASAP. Send me a sms asking me if I'm playing pool or attending the Daft Punk gig and wait 3 seconds for the sms to arrive. This was what Yoyo did, despite knowing that of cos there's no Daft Punk gig. I'll give him credit for inventiveness. :)

My Chicago friend told me he received a chopping board as a birthday present though he didn't expect anything. This is erm, peculiar.

Limabean just treated me to pool and dinner and as usual, it was great to chat with him. I've always thought that I would be him if I were a guy, cos we're both sorta in-your-face, cept he may be better at it since he doesn't mince his words. lol.

Anyway, he was explaining to me about this breast test he was doing, where he had to spot the real breasts from the fake ones out of 20 pics. He answered everything correctly cos he was checking for 3 things: the shape of the breast, whether it sags and how stretched the nipple looks. It never ceases to amaze me what sort of things a buddy tells me.

I just bought a mini set of boules from the mobile bookfair. Boules is the french version of the English lawn bowling, a game which I've tried once before. The aim is to have a target weighted ball a fair distance away, and to pitch a heavy ball along the ground so as to arrive as close as possible to the target. It's supposed to be one of the fairest games ever invented without biase to sex, race or age.

Here's to the bruised and the broken hearted
Here's to dear friends now departed
Here's to the lonely here's to the lost
Here's to those who love at a cost

Here's to the bitter and the reviled
Here's to the rejected child
Here's to those who don't have a hope
Here's to all of us in the same boat

Here's to you and here's to me
Only time's gonna set us free
Beautiful losers
You beautiful losers
Here's to you and here's to me
Here's to our philosophy
You beautiful losers
I'm gonna take all your bruises away
Away Away
We'll be winners at the end of the day

Here's to the talentless and the trying
Here's to those who are always crying
Here's to the fearful, here's to the faint
Here's to time that'll make you a saint
Here's to the broken, here's to the bent
Here's to you all heaven sent
Here's to those that are lost at sea
Here's to the time that'll set you free

Here's to you and here's to me
Only time's gonna set us free
Beautiful losers
You beautiful losers
Here's to you and here's to me
Here's to our philosophy
You beautiful losers
I'm gonna take all your bruises away
Away Away
We'll be winners at the end of the day

Here's to rain
Here's to thunder
Here's to those that are trodden under
Here's to darkness
Here's to death
Here's to each fading breath
Here's to sorrow
Here's to pain
Here's to heartache once again

Here's to you Here's to me
Only time's gonna set us free Free
Set us free
And when we die we're gonna go dancing
At that nightclub in the sky
When we die we're gonna go dancing
At that nightclub in the sky
You beautiful losers
- Marc Almond's song Beautiful Losers

Do you ever finally reach
a point of knowing
or do you just wake up one day
and say I am going?
- Cowboy Junkies

Do you suppose there are more songs written about Friday than any other day of the week?

I will be picked up in an hour's time.
- lainey foretells her future. lol. Enjoy your camping trip!

Nearly one week after I visited my hairdresser, my mum still couldn't tell I trimmed my hair.

Limabean taught me once to stand my Nokia cell phone on its end, so that when it vibrated with an incoming call, the cell phone would twirl around drunkardly. If the cell phone cover was an original one, the twirling would be more graceful cos the end would be more seamless. Hmm.

Just got back from pubbing with my colleagues. Started off drinking vodka ribena but liked the ribena so much I ended up ordering ribena on the rocks next. It's funny how everyone else likes to drink ribena but is too embarrassed to order it plain. Seems like we're all too adult. Anyway, I tried to sms my drink order to the bartender and it worked. Except I got the table number wrong, and they had to send a waiter around to ask who ordered ribena on rocks. lol.

I've got an unexpected blog visitor from Israel who decided to email me since I stubbornly refuse to include a guestbook here. He's read Lord of the Rings twice already so I guess I better buck up huh? :) Drop by Meir's site for a look-see, it's quite a refreshing read with a bit of everything.

Lately, I have more prominent dark circles round my eyes than Tare Panda. Man, this can't be good.

I find that I'm aspiring to be a human dictaphone. I blog to quote conversations near ad verbatim so I don't forget. Actually it's the least I can do to encapsulate the moments when I feel like "I don't believe I'm having this conversation". My memories tend to stray like lost sheep and Blogger is my Little Bo Beep guiding them back. Well, something like that.

And there is a whole site of Poems on Pumpkins by kids. lol.

An old fren 3TapRiff just bought me lunch. (Actually, it's interesting what sort of nicknames people will like to be known as if you ask them. One of these days I'll like to write more about it. I figured from his demostrations that 3TapRiff is a certain tap-dancing step. It is done by brushing the toe of one foot against the ground, followed by dropping the heel of the same foot, and then the heel of the other foot. Why 3TapRiff? Cos he's the kinda guy who stands in the corner and does a 3TapRiff. So, there you have it).

He just read the last few weeks of my blog in one go and suggested another method to memorise the sequence of the planets which he read somewhere. It's the phrase Space-Men Vote Earth Most Jolly of Solar Universe's Nine Planets to represent Sun, Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto. I take it that I won't be forgetting this sequence for quite a while. lol.

Unfortunately both of us didn't have ciggie lighters on us, so he couldn't demonstrate his single-handed flick-and-light Zippo trick. He mentioned that I could search the internet for Zippo tricks to check it out. We also bantered about his coming wedding and issues you never thought getting married will bring up, well, like chandaliers. He said he had to protest against having chandaliers in his new place unless of cos, it's big enough for him to swing from like the Phantom of the Opera.

Thanks for calling me up and being a friend still. :)

I bought Way Out West's album Intensify after all. I'm listening to it as I'm ircing. I said that at times like this, I realise why I'm Pluto, the most distant and smallest of them all. And then you said you're the moon. Somehow somewhere you dug up another of those obscure links you're so good at locating and sent it to me. So many beautiful words to reaffirm my faith and feeling about writing, whether you realised it or not. And you asked if I'm still flying aimlessly. I replied yes, I'm still hovering round cos I have no permission to land. You said isn't it tiring? I answered, is there a choice?

How many IT people does it take to change a light bulb? The correct answer: IT people shouldn't change light bulbs. Janitors should change light bulbs. Why? Not because IT people can't do it, but because light-bulb changing is a function that can be identified, partitioned and executed at a lower cost by a janitor than by IT people. Changing light bulbs ourselves just doesn't make sense.
- Frank Hayes in Computerworld's MarketTalk. Exactly.

Don't give up on writing your .plan ok?

I was focused,
So locked onto you, so brilliantly,
Everything that was not you was blind-spot.
- from Ted Hughes' poem Fidelity. Reading through his words, it's hard not to glimpse traces of the destructive love he shares with Sylvia Plath.

And a poem unfurled from you
Like a loose frond of hair from your nape
To be clipped and kept in a book.
- from Ted Hughes' poem Wuthering Heights

I still have 2 more VCDs to watch for the anime Cowboy Bebop but I'm trying to delay the inevitable. I guess it's cos I know the sad ending, having skipped forward to take a peek. It doesn't matter if it's fictional, I know I'm going to cry my heart out and I don't want to. And so now the story is suspended in time for me, like for Bjork's Selma in the movie Dancer in the Dark.

My best friend's .plan is going to be at geocities instead after his U account expires. Resorting to blogging is not an option for him, so I guess I will have to continue loading that huge load of text everytime I read him. Hiaks.

Perceptions. A friend was telling me about the latest album by Way Out West, which comprises of DJs Jody Wisternoff and Nick Warren. I haven't heard their music before. Instead I thought of Way Out West as the famous Laurel and Hardy comedy movie. Instead, I thought WOW, the acronym for this duo.

I bought the Ramones' CD anthology yesterday. It's one of those classic punk-rock collections I procrastinate against buying cos someone else probably has it, but I succumbed and bought it anyway. The first time I heard them was when I was doing a temporary job before entering NUS. An older girl working with me dubbed cassettes from her brother's music collection, and gave them to me. She said it's songs that are nothing on the radio. I think the first Ramones song I've ever heard was We Want the Airwaves. I like the Ramones for their flamboyant short songs, nonsensical lyrics and whimsical song titles, especially The KKK took my baby away.

I've since lost contact with this girl who gave me the Ramones, but people who leave me music have a special place in my memory. Isn't it always like this?

While in university, I saw on the tele a guy teaching a memory trick for remembering the sequence of the planets. The planet nearest to the sun makes you think of hot so Mercury. Mercury tossed a ball to Venus (he actually had a ball which he passed to the audience). Venus tossed it to Earth, then Earth tossed it to its fiery neighbour Mars. Next to the largest of all Jupiter. Then come SUN (Saturn, Uranus, Neptune) and finally the tiniest Pluto received the ball last. Who says you never learn anything from the idiot box? :)
- my ex-colleague in Poland. Thanks for teaching me this.

I wrote I Wanna be your Boyfriend because we had all these other songs with I Don't Wanna - I Don't Wanna Walk Around with You, I Don't Wanna Go Down to the Basement. The only other positive song we had was Now I Wanna Sniff some Glue.
- Tommy Ramone, on why he wrote the song I Wanna be your Boyfriend.

Just learnt a new word. Nictitate. It means to wink. Where do these words come from anyway?

What is the probability of 16 people in a gaming clan all with heights 1.8m and above? I parked myself in Quest's irc gaming channel and listened to some of these guys rave about network games. Eye-opening, to say the least. lol.

I've never visited any Disneyland. The closest I got was giving the one in Paris a miss back in '96. I guess I'm still not into amusement rides and games.

One of the ways Anthony Robbins mentioned to advance one's personal power is the cleansing of the body by becoming a vegetarian. He has convinced someone I met today to become a vegetarian after attending his workshop. Wow. A lifetime diet changed just like that.

Went to the gym today and visited my hairdresser to trim my hair (girlfriend told me not to cut it short cos "short hair is a vice", lol). Didn't watch any movie but ended up going to womad (world music festival at fort canning park) with my uk travel mate. It wasn't as good as last year but we had fun. :)

I set the irc channel topic before I went to sleep last night, and this morning when I woke up to log in, it has remained unchanged. It has survived nearly 8 hours, a record for me. I had a whimsical thought that Ted Hughes should be proud of himself if only he knew. The topic was his line God help the wolf after whom the dogs do not bark.

My friend in Chicago, now temporarily relocated to Japan, watched a movie on his flight there. He sent me an icq message afterwards that he was tickled by this line within the movie which said, "The first kiss is the only real one, every other kiss is just protocol". I can't figure out which movie that is though. :)

Baking analogy of the day: my company is like a hotel and my bakery is like a lower-class eatery within it. Not high class enough to be a restaurant, but able to sustain itself cos everyone eats pastry even in bad times. However, since our hotel is 2-star locally, it's hard for our bakers to move to another 5-star hotel.. even if our bakery bakes delicious cakes.