They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.
- Andy Warhol

Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.
- Washington Irving

Recently, the muscle under my left eye will make tiny involuntary twitches randomly. I don't really understand why and sometimes I'll place my finger gently on the twitch to silence it. Is there a message I'm not reading?

Understanding is but the sum of our misunderstandings.
- Haruki Murakami, Sputnik Sweetheart

How apt.

My UK travelmate. The whimsical sort of girl who'd take a carrot and 2 sticks of celery on a 4 hour drive up the mountains, cos these items might be expensive there. But would forget the more important cooking ingredients like garlic, which she ended up buying there anyway. And she'd come back and recount the above unabashedly while giggling.

I've finally removed the sms notification for my emails. Must find cheap thrills by other means.

Another report on Singlish.

Today I was struggling to squeeze toothpaste out of the tube, and suddenly recalled that you never liked the way I squeezed the tube randomly, rather than roll the end up systematically. You couldn't understand why a logical person like me could tackle toothpaste all wrong. Well, you'd be tickled to know that all these years later, I still wrestle with toothpaste.

Someone let me sleep please.

And the Greek Chorus celebrates his birthday today. :) Hope everything works out for you.

Yesterday mum and I went shopping after dim sum. I got myself a dress (white sleeveless slip with huge red lotus prints) and she got a toy from Monsters Inc (the one-eyed mouthy one she calls Dai An Zai, which is cantonese for Big Eyed Boy). What a whimsical reversal of roles. Mum also has a thing for action toy figurines. Once, I remember her talking to a little girl (who's probably 10 years old), and comparing the merits of the different toy figurines they were looking at. It's kinda cute to see my mum reliving her youth. Maybe one day I'll be the one hankering for the toys.

Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. What a goddess.

Woken up by construction noise, more sleep debt. Lazy Saturday morning after playing pool. Rotating between reading Robert Olen Butler's Tabloid Dreams, Murakami's Sputnik Sweetheart and Hunter S Thompson's Hell's Angels now. Contented.

What obscure band are you?

But I don't own any of their albums.

Nothing much happened today. Just daydreaming about the asteroid, while lipsynching to Pet Shop Boys.
I hope it's gonna be alright... I hope the music plays forever.

There is no disguise that can for long conceal love where it exists or simulate it where it does not.
- Francois de La Rochefoucauld

What if forever turns out to be only 17 more years?

System Admin gets his day.

When you're young you find inspiration
In anyone who's ever gone
And opened up a closing door
- Pet Shop Boys, Being Boring

Next Monday night concert. Woohoo! :)

She told me she renamed him in his phone number entry in her cell phone. To stop herself calling him impulsively while waiting for his call. If he calls. She hadn't memorized his phone number, but she didn't want to delete it so she can identify him in case he does call. She gave him a fake name instead in her cell phone.
What name? I asked.
Dork, she answered. It's stupid, but you understand don't you?

Reading email notifications via sms is pretty much a guessing game. You see the sender and subject heading and infer everything else. There's no perk to check emails cos you already know what you'll be getting. Trying to limit the notifications but I've run out of space to add new filters already.

Drivin n Cryin (or the album which disappointed me so much I need to blog to make up for buying it). There's a band called Drivin n Cryin whose albums I've noticed before but never bought. Somehow their name conjures up such a sad vulnerable image. Lonely girl speeding down a deserted highway. Mascara streaked face. Vision blurred by tears, in no fit condition to drive. All she wants to do is to curl up and die, but somehow she can't stop. No idea where she'll end up, just anywhere else will do. The saddest girl in a car, just driving and crying. And something plays on the car radio, some music forlorn with an element of danger. The soundtrack of her life. This is what I was looking for.

This album however, sounds like a road trip with your beer buddies, just bonding with the guys.

Having sms notifications of my private emails has made me realised how many junk mailing lists I've actually subscribed to. Now I'm on a vendetta to unsubscribe from as many as I can, as well as to filter off those I don't want to unsubscribe from. Though it's only 10 cents per sms notification, at this rate it's turning out to be quite an expensive experiment.

Baking analogy at work today. Young new baker was eager to put his cake mixture into the oven and I kept stopping him to examine it to remove egg shells and what nots. I don't like doing this cos it's demoralizing, but I don't understand why baking faster can override the importance of an edible cake.

Baking an edible cake is the most important thing a baker must remember, but it also seems to be the first thing to forget.

Things I don't understand. How to read people. My ear infection. Why some folks go and some folks stay. My inertia. How to improve cake sales and if selling pizza is viable. If parallel lines exist. Why I'm not happier than I am.

I think I've lost the third earhole. A colleague comforted me that her daughter had to pierce the same ear 3 times before it didn't get infected and close up. I'm not sure I'd do that. Ears are not made for earrings. But still I feel bad.

Cheap thrill of the day. Configured my ISP email settings to send sms notification of incoming emails to my cell phone. This is different from the email address of my cell phone, which is a long string of numbers no one will email to anyway. These notifications are probably going to burst my sms quota, so much so I'll need to disable them. But till then, I'm enjoying the novelty.

My left earlobe is infected. Saw the doctor, nothing serious but need to stop wearing earrings for some time. :(

I feel like a Murakami character. Murakami's characters often read and listen to music a lot, aren't very ambitious, and have surreal experiences.

I don't think I've ever watched a Jean-Luc Godard movie but ironically I've learnt about Godard moments from other sources. Like when someone told me a certain movie scene resembled a Godard moment cos of the still focus on a wall and the abstract painting hung on it. And in Murakami's latest novel Sputnik Sweetheart, one of the characters said "After all this, don't start to hate me, OK?" like a line from an old black-and-white Jean-Luc Godard movie.

Maybe everything has a Godard moment in some way or other.

Feel derailed and it's manifesting in me feeling a loss in appetite.
Need to regain my routine. Need constancy. Need sleep.

It's the boring stuff I can talk about. How my office email server is acting up, swallowing emails selectively today. How I pulled a back muscle just now: ironically not due to sports, but simply by straightening up too quickly. How today is a slow lazy day at work. How I'm not really here but have no firm grasp of where it is I should be. How it's only Monday.

Bought Aphrodite's latest album Aftershock yesterday. A friend sampled it briefly and asked well, if it all sounds like this, ie. lots of repetition. I guess drum & bass is like that, looping the same bits again and again, but it did teach me patience to wait for the built-up. I enjoy anticipating the introduction of new voices/ instruments, for the subtle progression, for the urgency in the beats.

But before I sleep, here's the song the singer didn't sing cos it didn't seem like she knew Portishead, and we couldn't be sure if the title's Summer Time, Strange Times or Sour Times though I bet at least 3 of us own the album. Maybe someday we'll request this song again and someone will know how to sing it.

To pretend no one can find
The fallacies of morning rose
Forbidden fruit, hidden eyes
Curtsies that I despise in me
Take a ride, take a shot now

Cos nobody loves me
It's true
Not like you do

Covered by the blind belief
That fantasies of sinful screens
Bear the facts, assume the dye
End the vows no need to lie, enjoy
Take a ride, take a shot now

Cos nobody loves me
It's true
Not like you do

Who am I, what and why
Cos all I have left is my memories of yesterday
Ohh these sour times

Cos nobody loves me
It's true
Not like you do

After time the bitter taste
Of innocence decent or race
Scattered seeds, buried lives
Mysteries of our disguise revolve
Circumstance will decide ....

Cos nobody loves me
It's true
Not like you do
- Portishead, Sour Times

Note to the best friend: Bruce Springsteen's song I'm on Fire is track 6 on the album Born in the USA. And the album was released in the 80s, not the 70s. Muahahaha!

We all had fun and I won't even try to blog about it. Besides, I'm running up on my sleep debt and haven't even had time to read today's newspapers. Well actually yesterday's. Woohoo! Someone give me a pillow!

6 years ago while strolling along the banks in Venice, I spotted a pair of dangling earrings which looked like tiny grey half-masks. Bought them on impulse though I didn't have pierced ears then. Didn't give them away. Didn't convert them to clip-ons. In fact I promptly forgot about them. And now I've rediscovered them all these years later. Delayed gratification again.

More and more I seem to find, there's always something more interesting to do than blogging.

I put on my contact lens without looking into a mirror but I can't do that for my ear studs. Like I can't braid my hair into a single plait when I had long hair. I rely a lot on vision.

Don't Think, Just Shoot. It's been a while since I last played with my lomo.

Blogger has haywired on me.

I call architecture frozen music.
- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Hmm, will the government housing here be elevator muzak then?

I didn't remember how comforting it is to sleep without my ear studs till last night. Couldn't stop fingering my earlobes. And I smiled to myself as I crushed a ear deeper into the pillow, without feeling any resisting tug.

Just one of the small realities that matter.

One of these days I'll start forgetting birthdays... in fact I already have. Hope you have a good birthday though. A prime number is always a good age to be.

For the first time in more than 6 months, I'm removing all 3 ear studs before I sleep. Hopefully I don't have trouble putting them back on in the morning. There's no end to the mundane, is there?

Maybe this world is another planet's Hell.
- Aldous Huxley

Blogging is on the backburner now. I'm so busy I'm happy just to remember to take my Vitamin pills; read and listen to music while commuting to and fro from work; watch films; meet up with friends. Everything else can wait.

Your prison is walking through this world all alone.
- from the Eagles' song Desperado

Now on auto-repeat: Langley School Music Project's rendition of this. Sweet solo by young girl who couldn't have reached the age of understanding this song. And that makes it all the more heartbreaking.

I've flipped and am now researching on the ingredients of my perfume. Intrigued by how people can derive the combination of the ingredients to get that unique fragrance. What I've found:

Ylang Ylang (not a solo Ylang, but a twin) affects the emotions and childhood memories, especially when abuse or some type of trauma occurred.
Guaiacwood has an odour described as "Dry Woody Spicy Sweet Pepper" and blends with hay.
Purified heliotropin crystals have been sold in stores alongside aromatic oils, but the distribution of this compound is becoming increasingly controlled because it is frequently being used to manufacture designer drugs, such as Ecstasy and methylenedioxyamphetamine (MDA).
Coumarin is also used to prepare other chemicals - in particular anticoagulants and rodent poison.
Opoponax is traditionally burnt to ward off evil influences.

How can anyone see a perfume in this mixture?

Vanilla.
Ylang.
Jasmine.
Violet.
Guaiacwood.
Heliotropin.
Coumarin.
Opoponax.

Ingredients of the retail therapy I've indulged in today.
Kenzo's perfume Flower.

BZ.

The laughing ring. Today while shopping with my UK travel mate, I tried on a chunky ring but couldn't manage to remove it cos it got stuck at my finger joint. This triggered an extensive giggling fit from us, during which two earnest shopgirls were trying to help me dislodge the ring; my UK travel mate gave up helping me to sms the US travel mate about the incident (yes, like a real-time sports caster); and I was trying to stop laughing long enough to tug off the ring. The ring finally came off and I bought a larger version of it. This was large enough to fit on my thumb but I love it.

Incidentally, the ring's made of Rhodium (Atomic Number 45, Symbol Rh), which is normally used to make headlight reflectors. :)

What we needed were not words and promises but the steady accumulation of small realities.
- Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun

Enough blogging, time for the real world!!

All women have read trash romance at some point in time. Bodice rippers, historical settings, modern urban women professionals, angsty coming-of-age love... what made you think I read serious stuff all the time? :)

Gonzo journalism and the latest book I borrowed from the library.

Yes, I've found an excuse to stop reading Fast Food Nation for a while and eat more junk food.

Nixon's spirit will be with us for the rest of our lives -- whether you're me or Bill Clinton or you or Kurt Cobain or Bishop Tutu or Keith Richards or Amy Fisher or Boris Yeltsin's daughter or your fiancee's 16-year-old beer-drunk brother with his braided goatee and his whole life like a thundercloud out in front of him. This is not a generational thing. You don't even have to know who Richard Nixon was to be a victim of his ugly, Nazi spirit.
- Hunter S. Thompson, He Was a Crook, from Rolling Stone, June 16 1994

If you've gotten a copy of the latest Oakenfold trance album Bunkka, you'd notice track 6 is a song entitled Nixon's Spirit sampling Hunter S. Thompson. Other folks have sampled Kurt Vonnegut too... who else next? Is this a way to introduce writers to the younger generation now, slyly inserting their words into songs? I doubt it works, though it's nice to put a voice to the rants.

Ever thought that if the musician Tricky were named Ricky instead, his cool factor would drop like a hot brick?

Over and over again I have said that there is no way out of the present impasse. If we were wide awake we would be instantly struck by the horrors which surround us... We would drop our tools, quit our jobs, deny our obligations, pay no taxes, observe no laws, and so on. Could the man or woman who is thoroughly awakened possibly do the crazy things which are now expected of him or her every moment of the day?
- Henry Miller, in The World of Sex

Baking analogy at work. For the past 2 days, I was attending training to sell pizzas (in addition to cakes). I'm totally lost cos everyone else seemed to know pizzas inside out. Sigh.

Watched the screening of Jun Ichikawa's Dying at the Hospital. In it, a 70+ year old man had to be admitted to a different hospital from his wife because both of them were stricken with different kinds of cancer (and the hospitals probably didn't specialise in treating both). Anyway, the old man was getting worse and it wouldn't be long before he lost the ability to walk; his wife was already bedridden. So the old man requested to visit his wife while he could still walk, and though it was hazardous, the doctor agreed.

At their short meeting, the old man was sitting so quietly by his wife's bedside, and he told her that in his life, that he could meet her, for that he's grateful. That was such a gut-wretching scene.

But there's too many things you don't know.
- a friend's protest when I asked to be told something else I don't know

In a movie. Someone else's story.
Boy and Girl are seated at a table. Boy loves Girl but he's leaving. Girl may love Boy but she won't ask him to stay. Boy gives Girl a parting gift.
What is it? she asks.
Mexican jumping beans. he says. They're magic beans.
She pours the beans out on the table surface and watches with amazement when they start jumping awkwardly. Boy beams.
There must be a reason for this! Girl exclaims.
They're magic. Boy repeats with a smile.
One of the beans jumps off the table and lands on the floor. A passerby crushes it. Girl leans down to pick it up, and sees a larvae crawling in the crushed shell. Girl realises why the beans jump now. She glances up and sees Boy's happy face and quickly makes up her mind. Girl discards crushed shell discreetly behind her and smiles at Boy. She will never kill the mystery for him.
Jump! Magic beans, jump! Boy is trying to coax the beans to jump higher.
Jump! Magic beans, jump! Girl echoes.

And I thought she must have loved him somehow.

International Blog Meet-up Day. Gee.

[courtesy of fluffy]
I do own some GAP clothes, but I'm really far from being a billboard ad for them, unlike my US travelmate who's a diehard Nike fan. :)

What
kind of clothes should I be wearing? by Evelyn

Too busy to blog lately. Isn't that wonderful?

maybe love is not for me
maybe lovers dream things
that I don't dream
and maybe oh maybe
maybe you were just a little boy
I stuck in you all the pride and joy
maybe I should set you free
the harder they come
the harder they fall
baby I would rather not go there at all
the harder they come
the harder they fall
baby I would rather not come here at all
- Nelly Furtado's song The Harder They Come

My life so far. I've got an elusive virus on my home laptop which keeps creating new Favourite folders on my IE but remains at large, untraceable even after I've downloaded the latest virus pattern file to scan. And I've picked up Japanese class again after an abortive start more than a year ago and hope to someday, watch Japanese anime without reading subtitles (who am I kidding?). Had a Mac's meal today for lunch cos I'm wary that I won't eat anymore after I've finished reading Fast Food Nation. There's this warped mentality I have to eat more junk food now when I'm still ignorant of the evil fast food empire. Yes, I did say it's warped. And I'm rooting for a friend to have a happy beginning to his story. :)

Is it possible to feel betrayed by fast food?

Amino acid polymers too short to fold up like proteins.
Amino acids are building blocks for proteins.
And these proteins need to fold up to fulfill its function (like sight, muscle, taste, etc)
However, if the polymer chain is too short, it becomes a peptide.
Enzyme is a protein that perform catalysis.
Polymers are large molecules in terms of number of atoms compared to say H2O.

Ramblings between my best friend and I about peptides.

It's alright for you to do what you want to do UNTIL it's the time for you to do what you're meant to do.

But what am I meant to do? Surely not what I'm doing now?

My UK, US travel mates and I did our monthly chill & chat session at NYDC last evening. I wiped out the July issues of 3 women's magazines and borrowed 2 more books from my US travel mate: Prozac Nation and Fast Food Nation. We chatted, joked and had fun. Hanging out with the girls is bliss. :)

Everything that happens stays happened.
- Terry Pratchett, in his book Thief of Time

What my horoscope read in the latest issue of IS magazine:
Until a few weeks ago, Virgo, I had reluctantly come to suspect that you might never defeat your inner saboteur. But then I had a series of prophetic visions in which I saw you summoning hidden reserves of fierce strength and practical ingenuity. As a result, I've been moved to change my opinion. I now believe you can claim the power to vanquish several of your most debilitating apprehensions: for instance, your terror of being thought a fraud; your worry that you'll never be able to be loved in the exact way you want to be; your doubt about being able to handle the responsibilities and pleasures of success; and your fear that you'll never find the answer to your life's central question.

I'm absolutely stumped cos it hit pretty close to home. But then I thought again that this'd probably apply to the other star signs too.

Today was nice. I went to watch the movie Minority Report with my family and the effects were awesome. I sympathise most with the precogs cos they were kept in the suspended state of dreaming murders again and again.. how could anyone presume to use them despite their gifts? They have rights too.

What I learnt today. Copyrights have to be paid to sing the Happy Birthday song in movies, so that's why people opt for the cheaper song For He's a Jolly Good Fellow. Geez.

I'm still very ignorant when it comes to film appreciation. I can't recognise names or scenes or techniques. I wish I know movies as well as I do books, music and travelling. I hate being ignorant.

I was watching Malaysian director James Lee's movie Ah Beng Returns this afternoon and dozed off cos the auditorium was so cold. I woke up to this surreal dream sequence in the movie where for about 3 minutes, a woman was dance-hopping happy quirky steps around the room like the dancing dwarf in David Lynch's Twin Peaks, while a man stood in the corner smoking moodily. Later I found that the movie went mostly unscripted, and the director told the 2 actors that they were breaking up in this scene and to act out how they felt. The actress said she would be so happy she felt like dancing. So she did.

This is my favourite scene.

Conversation that probably won't take place with a man. Upon seeing a girlfriend wear a top with sleeves that stop at her elbows, I asked her why she wore that despite the humid air. She replied nonchalantly that she forgot to shave her armpit hair. lol.

Forgot who but someone said before that unless we can learn to stop hurting others, we'll remain savages. Well, if we do stop hurting others, we'll be saints already. Or does it mean it's ok if we only hurt ourselves? I think I'm doomed to be a savage.

First in the office this morning at 6.45am before the building's air-con was on. Forgot it's casual Friday and missed the chance to wear jeans to work. Other bakers started trickling in around 7am and I tackled programming. Progress isn't bad and I feel at peace cos there's no customer call yet. So far so good.

Bone weary. Gotta be in the office tomorrow morning at 7am. Need to hang on to the good things. An ex-colleague sms'd me to say a permutation of my Identity Card Number won third prize at the lottery yesterday (though both of us didn't buy it). Had my weekly family dinner. Finished reading my 31st book. Weekend is coming. Just need to hang on.

This morning I woke up and switched on my mobile phone to find an agitated voice mail from a customer. My bakers didn't deliver what was promised. Oh boy. Dashed to work and made calls along the way to do damage control, inbetween listening to the latest Doves album and reading a short story by Banana Yoshimoto. The short story started at a father's funeral and I thought about dad. Cos it's today isn't it? Got to the office and didn't lash out at anyone, but promised the customer I'll be personally responsible for future occurrences.

Another early morning of my life, dad. Hope things are calmer where you are.

Your namesake looks nothing like you. I wasn't affected at all, 'cept for the little surreal moment when I greeted him by your name (and suppressed a laugh to myself). Like Shakespeare's Juliet, I'm not bothered with names.

This afternoon I've got a meeting with someone who has the exact full name as one of my ex's. I know it's not the ex cos he emailed me to confirm the meeting without betraying any recognition at my name. His name isn't too common or uncommon... in fact I should be surprised I haven't bumped into someone with that name sooner. Interesting to note, I haven't been in a relationship with anyone who has christian names before. Oh well. Busy day ahead and the only blip on the horizon is me meeting your namesake.

Baking analogy at work today. It's been a long while since I've baked, cos I've been helping to sell cakes instead. But due to a temporary shortage of bakers, I was enlisted to do "reverse engineering" baking. Basically, a previous baker baked a cake the customer likes, but didn't leave any recipe for it. Then the baker's gone and the customer wishes to eat a similar cake. So I'm supposed to nibble at their existing cake, figure out what went in there, and try to bake something like it. Good grief.

Yesterday it didn't only rain cats and dogs. It rained whales and elephants. Unicorns and dragons. You get the idea. And today it's all clear skies again, as if yesterday never happened.

Somehow blogger seemed to have swallowed my nick after "posted by". Odd.

My jc girlfriend is leaving for Italy tomorrow night for a vacation. Here's wishing her bon voyage. :)

My bro emailed me this URL with the cheeky subject title Mum will love this one. :)

My personal email account has either been hacked or suffered a virus attack. I can't tell till I go home and scan my laptop, or my ISP replies me on the status. Either way I'm distressed. Having porn sent out from my own email account to goodness knows who is really upsetting.

I want God, I want poetry,
I want danger, I want freedom,
I want goodness, I want sin.
- Aldous Huxley

The thing I remember most about the Brazil vs Germany match at Dave's place is actually the frozen beer. We left the cans of beer in the freezer compartment of his fridge 9 days ago during the USA vs Germany match, cos there wasn't any other space in the fridge then and we also wanted to cool the beer prompto. Well, the beer got frozen solid in the cans like popsicles now and any attempts to open the cans before the beer properly "defroze" resulted in lots of overrunning fizz. :) It was fun though, thanks for having us over Dave!