Books Kinokuniya does not have any English translation of novels by Mariko Hayashi. Urgh. This is really stupid.

Talking about free tissue paper in Japan, a Japanese friend was trying to explain to me that one tissue packet is actually advertising for a loanshark company. Seeing my incredulous look, she flipped the tissue packet over to show the Wanted picture of a man who owes the loanshark company money. omg. Truth is stranger than fiction.

Btw, posted some pics from Japan in Chronoscape.

I remember looking out the window while commuting on a JRail train and thinking: Even before I leave Japan, I already miss it.

Long day today. Mum and I went ikea today on a buying spree. Bought pillows, quilt, swivel chair and CD shelf (which can accomodate 224 CDs). Came home and assembled the swivel chair and CD shelf by myself, after which the Malaysia Airlines folks called to deliver my missing luggage. Rearranged most of my CDs from the old CD cases to the new one, and carried on unpacking my luggage. Totally exhausted now so I'm glad to be on leave tomorrow. :) Going to watch The Royal Tennabaums!

On the flight back to Singapore, they were screening Jun Ichikawa's movie Tokyo Marigold, starring actress Rena Tanaka and based on the novel Ichinen no Nochi by author Mariko Hayashi. I liked the movie so much I watched it 2.5 times, till they shut down the inflight screening. The movie is about loneliness, and how a girl met a salaryman whose girlfriend is currently studying in America for a year, and requested to be with him for that one year the girlfriend is away. Can't locate a decent movie review for it to post here, but I'm going to hunt for an English translation of the original novel.

Movies like this make me wish I learnt Japanese.

My spectacles are in my luggage. Gotta use contact lenses consistently now till I know for sure if my luggage is gone. Bummer.

I'm back in Singapore but my luggage isn't. It seems Malaysia Airlines has misplaced it and I am the only one whom it happened to on this flight. Urgh. Air France lost my luggage about 2 years ago on my return from a holiday in UK and I didn't count on it happening again. That was my first flight with Air France and now this is my first flight with Malaysian Airlines. Both times I flew alone. Oh well, at least I've got my travel insurance so I'll just have to wait and see if my luggage turns up in the next 5 days before it's officially declared AWOL by the authorities.

A fool and her luggage are soon parted, but at least I only lost luggage coming home.

Back again at the expensive internet center in Tokyo on my last day here. Yesterday was a fruitful day trip to Hakone cos the weather was fine, so I managed to see a bit of Mount Fuji. They were selling hard-boiled eggs with blackened shells there (cooked in the sulphuric mud and supposed to be good for health) so I wanted to try one. However, they only sold in packs of 6, so I bought a pack and fobbed the remaining eggs off on the people at my Ryokan. Speaking of which, 2 visitors at the Ryokan were brothers who looked like younger versions of Yukata (?, the longer haired beach boy). 19 and 22 year old's destined to break girls' hearts, hiaks.

And I also tried the onsen (hot spring bath) at Hakone. It's outdoors (!) but with a roof. Real odd with all these naked women (reminds me of this film fest short film I saw before with a common bath for caucasian women) but really relaxing.

Didn't go to Shabu Shabu in the end with the Japanese friend. Instead we had rotating sushi which was WAY better than the sushi here.

Today is yet another rainy day so I'll drop by the Tokyo Museum. Quite rare for me to visit so few museums on a trip so maybe this is a good change!

Oh, and a little newsbite: a new Hard Rock Cafe just opened at Ueno in Tokyo on Monday, so there are now 2 Hard Rock Cafes in Tokyo.

Currently in Kyoto and it's a rainy morning. I'm only staying here for a night so I checked into a dormitory-style hostel. Bad mistake. There's 4 of us in a room (2 guys and 2 gals) and NOW I'm really glad I brought my Discman along, cos in the middle of the night, one of the guys snored with a vengeance. omg. I laid in my bunkbed wondering if I should get up in pitch darkness and wander over to pick up my Discman from my haversack! from the closet! from across the room! so I don't have to listen to him snore. I waited 20 minutes and did it anyway. And even then he was so loud he could be heard over the music. It's sorta funny to have his snores keeping beat to the music (which is btw Hajime Chitose, Japanese Indie-pop... girl wails like a Jap banshee but so beautifully). Luckily I return to Tokyo and the wonderful single room tonight!

Kyoto. I've never removed and put on my shoes so many times in a day as I did here. The Standard Operation Procedure is hit a shrine, take off shoes, walk round, put them on again. I've seen my first Zen garden too (eh). And the folks here overestimated everyone's walking ability. They have walking tour maps estimated to take 50 minutes. Well, 5 hours later I'm still on the same route. I guess they didn't factor in that people do stop and look INTO the temples instead of passing them by. My feet hurt like nobody's business and I'm determined to walk again today, rain or not.

On this trip, I met lots of girls. Australian, Hong Kong, Taiwanese, Japanese... but no guys. Well yah, da mouse is right about the Jap guys. They're tall, lean and nonchalantly good-looking, hiaks. And yah, I'm returning this Saturday night.

On the fourth day I felt lonely for the first time in this trip. I went up the Tokyo Tower to the very top (even though I thought it's a tourist trap) and there I felt like talking to someone. But I am so glad I had the courage to come alone, to motivate myself to do something for ME. I didn't get lost on the subway, not even once. On this trip I often seem blessed to be in the right place at the right time. Yesterday I was the last one to enter a Kyoto temple before the gates were closed for the day. Thank you whoever is looking out for me. :)

UK travelmate: I'm meeting Tokiko tomorrow night after my day trip in Hakone. She's bringing me to eat some Jap steamboat or something.

Going off to venture in the rain to goodness knows what. Maybe visit a castle. Quite the thing to start the morning with, don't you think?

Coming to the internet center seems to be a daily morning ritual now. Saw a girl being picked up by one of those porn star seekers at a traffic light. She was dressed skimpily though it was 9 degrees celsius yesterday, but anyway she refused the guy without another glance. Good for u girl! Plugging into my Discman (yes I succumbed and brought it along) helps weed out people from approaching me, though an old uncle asked me for directions. Shinjuku government building observatory tower at night was great. Today is Harajuku and Shibuya. Hiaks. Gone to have fun now.

Posting this in an expensive internet center in Tokyo. Arrived in one piece with the kindness of strangers. Rained lots and it's cold, so that coat was a blessing. Seen cherry blossoms and had my fortune told (in English) in a shrine. It gets dark real fast and I'm now off to see one of the tallest buildings in Shinjuku. Muahahaha. Life is good isn't it?

Well ok I'm still here. Sorta packed (spring coat included) and now halfway through reading the book If Life is a Game, these are the Rules. Think I'm going to finish it before I get to the airport though. At least I can buy a copy of 8 Days magazine at the airport to while away my time. Don't think I'm going to bring my Discman along... going to sink into the hubbub of noise there. Will find an internet cafe somewhere if I can, and update the blog. If not, the world will do fine without my ramblings.

Finally Japan. :)

Not going to be here this time tomorrow.
Not going to be here this time tomorrow.
NOT GOING TO BE HERE THIS TIME TOMORROW!

Hegemony told me to stay one night in a Japanese love hotel for the experience.
everything is done anonymously. nobody can see you, not even the cashier. you pay money in a vending machine and select your room by pressing a little button. then a room key will come out.
He taught me that "kochira rabu hoteru wa arimasu ka" means "are there any love hotels here?".

Hmm... water bed, why not? :)

What I'm most apprehensive about on this Japan trip is actually the subway/ train system. I keep thinking that I've been on the London Underground, the New York subway and the one in Paris, and I've survived! So the Japan subway shouldn't be too bad right? Well if I freak out, it'll be an experience too.

Must remind myself that nothing beats being stranded alone in the dark outside a tiny European railway station in the middle of nowhere at 4 am in the morning.

Surprised. My next-cubicle colleague gave me a book today to bring along to read in Japan. :) It's Cherie Carter-Scott's If Life is a Game, these are the Rules.. about the 10 Rules for being Human as introduced in Chicken Soup for the Soul.

The rules are:
1. You will receive a body.
2. You will be presented with lessons.
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.
4. Lessons are repeated until learned.
5. Learning does not end.
6. "There" is no better than "here".
7. Others are only mirrors of you.
8. What you make of your life is up to you.
9. All the answers lie inside of you.
10. You will forget all of this at birth.

Looking forward to watching the Japanese movie Monday on Arts Central tonight. Watching Monday on Wednesday sounds whimsical, like super-imposing 1 time dimension on another. Let's hope it's not another late night in the office.

The good news is I heard it's getting warmer in Japan. This means I'll be able to see cherry blossoms when I'm there instead of just plum blossoms (not that I can tell the difference). Since it's supposed to be warm, I'm wondering if I should ditch my spring coat to make room to bring a thicker book there to read. Any comments? I'm thinking of Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. I heard that there's so much time to read while travelling on the trains in Japan that someone finished Lord of the Rings. Wow.

Been working late recently and I'm just too deadbeat. Colleagues want someone to stand in for me during my absence but no one wants to be held accountable. So in the meanwhile, I'm rushing work so a stand-in isn't necessary while I'm gone. Urgh. I wasn't trained to write proposals! Anyone who is careful, logical and has an average grasp of the language can do it!

I'm the sort who always buy a Hard Rock or Planet Hollywood T-shirt wherever I go. But it's actually my bro (who hasn't been to these places) who'll have the more extensive T-shirt collection. The special country-specific edition T-shirts normally come in huge sizes which I can't wear, so my bro becomes my surrogate clothes-hanger. He often wears these T-shirts when we meet up over the weekends, and I'll muse about where I was travelling to when I see him. Though it's a darn touristy thing to do, I'm glad Hard Rock exists.

Over the weekend I dropped by the $1.99 shop to buy little knick-knacks for my trip to Japan. Got a mini-calculator, a luggage tag and a file folder for travel documents. Got the mini-calculator cos I won't be bringing my cell phone or Palm V along, and these gadgets normally function as a calculator for me. Got the luggage tag cos I don't want people to claim my backpack accidentally (like what happened to da mouse recently). Got the file folder so I won't have to stuff all my travel documents (passport, plane ticket, boarding pass, travel visa etc) into my cargo pants pockets. I often get the evil eye from the air stewardess when my boarding pass can't be swiped anymore cos it's so bent.

I hope I've got everything I need.

Baking analogy at work today. A team member insinuated that I was a control freak for not letting another baker have a chance to write recipes. The strange thing is that I did ask, but the other baker preferred to bake and said so on numerous occasions. When I mentioned this, the team member hinted that I was too soft not to force the baker to write recipes.

Some things you do will never please some people, and I'm not going to try.

The most useful phrase one can learn in Russian (after "Ya loobloo peat vodku" - I love to drink vodka) has to be "Nyet, Ya koshka" or "No I'm a cat." It provides an excellent answer to almost any question asked of you....Do you know where the kiosk is? No, I'm a cat. Would you give me the pleasure of joining me for dinner tonight? No, I'm a cat. Did you remember to do the dishes? No, I'm a cat.

Try it out for a few days and I promise you'll get asked less questions!
- Andrea Balboa, a reader's comment in Wordsmith.org

When I was younger, I had a vision of what I'd become when I hit my current age. Now that I'm here, nothing is as I thought. It's like everyone is blindfolded and walking from room to room, but as time passes on, you realise that you're probably lagging behind cos the voices around you seem fewer... There's nothing to do but hope you know where you are and try to figure out as best as you can. Then maybe one day the blindfold would come off, and you'd see that you were never enclosed in a room and it's all just boundless space.

4 more days till I depart for Japan but I don't really feel it. 9 days alone with myself... I wonder if I'll drive myself nuts.

I find there's something quirky about the phrase Safety in numbers. I know what it means but choose to read it obtusely.. I wonder what sort of security numbers can guarantee. Like does reciting Pi count as a blessing to save our souls?

Picture this. 2 women drank Heineken and Guinness before they ended up with Kilkenny, their default choice of beer for the night. It's conclusive to say that if ever they make a trip to Ireland, Kilkenny is definitely on a must-visit list. They were munching on potato crisps while they drank, and after they finished, one of them went off to buy ice-cream. While waiting, the other sms'd a friend, "I must fall in love again!". He replied "yes yes join the queue". Then ice-cream arrived and both women ate before sleepwalking their way home.

Watched Jules et Jim at the film society screening. It's about 2 good friends Jules and Jim, and their turbulent love with Catherine. To explain it in mathematical terms... Catherine is an irrational number, Jim is an integer, and Jules is a square. :) That sums it up pretty well.

On programming. My best friend and I were talking about programming 2 days ago, and I told him that I've got a baker who's technically good in programming but just careless. My best friend disagreed that he can be a good programmer then cos a good programmer should be concerned about program integrity.

Today, someone told me she's a good programmer so I asked her why. She disappointed me cos she couldn't answer. I think I agree with my best friend. Writing a program needs TLC.

Googlewhacking is the challenging pursuit of searching the popular Google search engine with a two-word or more search argument that will produce exactly (no less and no more than) one result. That is, only one Web page in the world (at least as indexed by Google) will happen to have the combination of words you've entered in the search box.
- excerpt from WhatIs.com's Word-of-the-Day.

Thought this can apply to searching for a soulmate too, as in "Are you still googlewhacking for Mr Right?".
TGIF.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.
- Thomas Carlyle

Tell me about it.

I took the online quiz from M's blog asking "which body part are you?". I really wanted to be ears but I ended up being a heart. Meow.

Where is the telephone service guy? I want to go catch the movie Ice Age, damn it.

I've never had an answering machine. I've got voice mail for my mobile phone yes, but no answering machine. I've never left a flaky message for my voice mail before since work calls get routed to my mobile phone too. Wonder if I should pick up an answering machine for my new phone line and fool around with the voice message. It'll probably be my reminder service and I'll end up calling myself most often, just for the heck of it. If I really bother about the answering machine.

Supposed to clear leave tomorrow to have a long weekend, but unfortunately meetings have been scheduled that day. So here I am home on a Thursday, waiting for the telephone service guy to come and install my new phone line for me. It was too hot to run this morning, so I packed a bit of my room instead. Found a stockpile of about 40 disposable pens which I've collected from all those hotels and seminars I've been been to. Sat down and actually tested every pen to find out if it's still working. Was quite amazed that some pens I picked up from travelling a few years back still function. I chucked the pens which don't work anymore but kept the rest. Don't know why since I seldom use them and don't need so many. It's just one of those things.

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
- Robert Frost

Strange thought for today. Every day is different so the slate is wiped clean every morning. Financially speaking, this operates like Profit/ Loss items where values are not carried forward. Memory however is a Balance Sheet item, a Retained Earnings of previous experiences.

I've bought a VCD of Edward Yang's movie Yi Yi some weeks back but somehow I kept delaying watching it. I know it's good but I was procrastinating against it cos it'd make me damn moody. And I was right. It did. The characters in the movie are ordinary everyday folks shrink-wrapped in grief. Every scene is memorable... from the awkward piano rendition of Summertime a granddaughter played for her comatose grandmother, to another character's musings that "music can make me believe that life is beautiful".

As it goes in the movie, since we never live the same day twice, why are we so afraid of trying something new for the first time? Isn't every day a first time?

Discovered that the author Kurt Vonnegut was the one who did the opening speech for track 16 (1 Giant Leap's song Racing Away). Though I've read his books before, I realised that I've never heard his voice till now.

Headline: Gallant young man buys Film Fest tickets for stuck-in-office womenfolk.
Thanks Bucky :)

TV is enough. It's providing artificial friends and relatives to lonely people. What it is, is a recurrent family: the same friends and families come back week after week after week after week. And they're wittier and they're better looking and they're much more interesting and they're richer than your real friends and families.
- opening speech to track 16 of April's Uncut give-away CD.

I don't have the CD cover with me and I have no idea who did this song. But it's real catchy.

I'm going to sleep now and I hope I'd dream a good one. Technicolour not compulsory but surround-sound is a must. Preferably not in a foreign tongue, minus aliens and please let me remember it when I wake up!

Though I'm determined to be happy, I'm getting down cos of work among other reasons. I really won't mind retiring right here right now. At least there're still the little things that perk me up like watching a movie, reading while commuting, receiving the April issue of Uncut magazine in the mail and friends friends friends.

Freak phone incident. My home phone died this morning and I had to send a service technician to my place to fix it. Seems like I damaged the line by plugging in a phone extension to my laptop modem all the time. Heh? Mum is asking me to get another data line for my internet connection when I return from my Japan trip. Maybe this is a divine sign for me to go broadband?

Went with my family to my first circus performance and it was awesome. :) Everybody should go to the circus at least once! But one thing really pissed me off. Before the show started, the audience was requested not to take photos (especially not with a flash) since this could distract and endanger the performers. Then lo and behold, some asshole took a pic with a flash when the flame thrower was engrossed in tossing burning batons. Luckily no harm was caused but this kind of stupid inconsideration is unjustifiable. Is that picture really worth it?

Where I used to be able to dance about 3 hours through the night, now I feel tired after 1+ hours. At least it beats working out. :)

Currently reading on the Third Culture. According to John Brockman's definition, "The Third Culture consists of those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are."

The idea stemmed from the fact that the traditional intellectual was stereotyped as more for the arts than for the sciences. You were considered educated only if you're literary (steeped in literature, philosophy and such), and science didn't count. Well it should.

Went into the music store located within Jurong East's Popular Books cos I was passing through, and I still remembered picking up that Patti Smith album for only 88 cents previously. I found they have a small collection on sale again, but nothing as cheap as before. Rummaged around and found a gem: Death in Vegas' 1997 dance album Dead Elvis for only $3.90. omg. Of cos I bought it, but I felt indignant that other bargain items (which are mostly crap) are priced higher.

I woke up with a feeling
And found me lying on the floor
I look up at the ceiling
I must be dreaming
When I get that feeling
Oh my Lord I can't take no more
You can't stop that feeling
It just goes on for evermore
What we believe in
Is just a feeling
So thank God for that feeling
Oh my lord I can't take no more
I get the feeling
That I am responding to a call
I am receiving and
I get that meaning
So hats off to that feeling
I could not ask for anymore
- the La's Feeling

Dropped by the 3-for-$46 HMV sale yesterday and bought some old albums. The La's self-titled album, Joy Division's Substance and a double CD compilation of St Etienne singles called Smash the System. Sampled all 3 albums when I woke up this morning and it felt like nothing could go wrong.

Yeah, it's a small team. The downside is, it's easy to have single-point failures. I mean, if someone gets hit by a truck, we're screwed. The upside is, we don't need a lot of meetings.
- Dave Steffy, Satellite program manager (June 1992)

My whole team is running ragged today and everyone looks so dead tired. Another colleague asked me if I had watched the movie Queen of the Damned, and all I could reply is, "Me! I'm the Queen of the Damned!". Urgh.

Odd thought today. Sometimes when I listen to a track I really like on my Discman, I'd tap my fingers to the beat of the song. If someone looked at my tapping fingers, it would be like trying to decipher morse code to have an inkling of the music I'm listening to.

Met an old friend and made a new one today. They're John Brockman's Digerati (commentaries by the cyber elite) and Gary Dorsey's Silicon Sky (about a small start-up making it in the satellite industry). Yes, these are books I bought today (from a mobile booksale *not* near my office) and they made my day. My bro behaves the same way. It's uncanny how when my bro was confronted by my sis-in-law for neglecting his sleep to read, he and I just piped up together, "But books are our friends!".

At the end of a customer meeting, a colleague was feeling work-related stress and asked if he could smoke. I quipped that I'm ok with giving him a few seconds of my life. Then we laughed at the absurdity of it all, he delayed his ciggie gratification moment, but work still loomed over us darkly.

B12's take on buying lottery tickets is that it's a small price to pay to keep someone high for a couple of days. Cos the possibility of winning isn't high but it's not nil either, a person can fantasize for a couple of days about getting rich. Comparatively, it's way cheaper than indulging in recreational drugs or drinks. And of cos drugs and drinks never had a chance of earning you money either.

DJs do their bit for charity on World DJ Day.

Busy multi-tasking at work and busy still outside the office. Every minute is crammed with things to do and yet I'm still behind, especially on my reading list. Blogging has got to take a backseat. Thank goodness I'm clearing leave this Friday! :)

2 men, 2 women and a washing machine.

When I was a child, there was once when everyone took too long to exit an elevator. So when it was my turn, the elevator doors closed on me. They clamped on my head cos I had small shoulders, and it was so painful I cried and freaked out everyone. Till now, I'm still sorta wary of stepping in and out of elevators, and I'm definitely not the gungho sort who would stretch out their hand to block closing elevator doors. Strange how little incidents have lasting impact.

While playing badminton just now, I heard a mobile phone ringing in our pile of bags. I thought it was my call but the ring tune wasn't mine. Amazingly it was the tune for Mary had a Little Lamb. Who would have that? Then I realised it's my best friend's mobile phone.

I've never been to the circus and neither has my bro. This is why the whole family is going to Cirque du Soleil this weekend. I was asking around and everyone seemed to have gone to the circus when they were kids.. back when animals were still featured. Hmm, there seems to be some gap in my childhood reality.

It's strangely fitting that after hunting for Anja Garbarek's album Smiling & Waving unsuccessfully at the big chains like Borders and HMV, I've finally located it at Rhapsody Records in Holland Village, which is within walking distance of my place. Then I also bought Citizen Cope's album after sampling it at Borders, as well as the March issue of Mixmag (which comes with a Drum & Bass sampler from Kosheen). Bliss.

The worst-case cost of an optimal iterative solution to finding a soulmate is np-hard, assuming perfect matching and a strongly connected network (graph). so i got over-ambitious :)
- leslie_'s theoretical take on finding a soulmate

It's enough now
It's your loss now
It's just that I'm low
It's enough now
It's your loss now
It's just I don't know
- from Mandalay's song It's Enough now

Romance isn't dead; it's just terminally inconvenienced.
- something I read somewhere. Hmm.

Sometimes I feel like a dog in a roomful of chatting people. I'd prick up my ears listening to high-pitch sounds no one else heard, wondering if I should step out to investigate what's calling. But then I stay put and watch the folks instead, taking comfort in their presence.

Just before I went to sleep, I was rearranging my books at 2+ am to sort out those I've finished reading from the ones I haven't. In the process, I discovered 2 English-Japanese dictionaries and a Beginner's Guide to Japanese which'll come in handy for my coming trip. Then I woke up 4 hours later craving to listen to music. Rummaged through my collection, saw an old Mandalay album and popped that into my Discman. Music isn't that fabulous but the lead singer has this soothing airy fairy voice which belongs in the quiet calm of the early morning.

Tonight at my friend's wedding dinner, I finally found out: why my junior college nickname (concocted by the bridegroom and the best man) is related to the band Bananarama; and what the dessert Baked Alaska tastes like (heavenly neopolitan ice-cream covered in cream and doused with alcohol set on fire). What a night. :)

While jogging with my best friend today, he told me about a cool website which emulates how different web browsers render a URL you provide. He said this website is either Dejavu.org or .com. Well it's the former... the latter is surprisingly an adult material site. lol.

Today I chatted with a girlfriend who still believes in love at first sight. Her views are strengthened by the fact that she knows people who are fortunate enough to fall in love like that. Actually deep down inside, who doesn't want it that way?

Just got home from watching Looking for Alibrandi and Thank God he met Lizzie from the Aussie film fest. Looking for Alibrandi is a lighthearted look at a teen girl's rite of passage (based on the most stolen book in Australian schools to boot), and it's quite enjoyable. However, what set me thinking was the other movie.

Thank God he met Lizzie was edgier. It's about Guy, who meets and marries Lizzie after a whirlwind romance. But the story isn't about Lizzie really, as we can tell from the flashbacks Guy has during his wedding dinner. We see Guy with his ex-girlfriend Jenny, who's probably the love of his life but he didn't realise it when they were together. We see them fall in love and later fall apart. There's this scene where both of them were tense and tearful cos they were still in love, but their relationship seemed to have soured beyond redemption. He said, there's no more magic between us... where did the magic go? And she replied, why do we need to have it? Then he retorted angrily, cos we're alive! And they both knew they've reached the end. Somehow, that scene shook me and probably quite a few in the audience up.

To paraphrase something Guy said in the movie.. "We never know while we're happy. We only remember being happy."

Still too busy to really blog. Vendor meeting this morning and team meeting this afternoon. Checking out the Aussie film fest tonight. Visiting friend's newborn tomorrow afternoon and attending a wedding dinner tomorrow night. Hanging out with the girls on Sunday.

On another note, I've rediscovered my ears ever since my short haircut. It tickles me that my hairdresser had to cut around them, that my ears are like kids demanding playground space. This is the year for ears. Woohoo! Losing it on a Friday morning is the best way to go. :)