Oh yes, bed will be nice just about now too.

Today at a badly attended israeli film screening, I found myself sitting next to clouds by sheer coincidence. I've booked my tickets about 2 weeks in advance while she decided to watch this film on the spur of the moment just this morning. lol. Amazing isn't it?

Today on the way to the office from my customer's, the cab driver (who was probably fasting) told me to love everyone and everything. I've just finished a call with a colleague regarding work when he started spreading his fortune cookie messages like the Oracle, but it was quite uplifting to listen to him.

To wit, it is better to love than be loved, cos to love someone improves you, but to be loved is mere acceptance.
You should not compare if you love others more than they love you, cos then love won't be unconditional. If love is conditional, you're taking advantage of love instead. Then you will never be happy.
On a parting note, he told me he may not have the best wife and children in the world, but they are the best wife and children in his world.

How lovely that God often chooses to speak to me in the backseat of taxis.

10 hours after his "to hell with women" sms, my guy fren's seen his dream girl again and has finally gotten her phone number. Good boy! We know who's sleeping with a smile on his face tonight. :)

Was telling da mouse that if we're feeling down, there're other people who're worse off. And he replied: shit still smells regardless of ingredient. Ain't that the truth.

Today I feel broken. For some time I've woken from my sleep cos of a strange sense of inbalance in my head, like air's sucked out from my ear everytime I toss my head on the pillow. Turned out my right nostril and ear are blocked. The doctor gave me olive oil to soften the ear wax that's built up in my right ear, and if that fails, she'll syringe it out for me. Great. Have I ever mentioned my fear of the ear thermometer?

Funniest sms exchange today with a guy friend:
Him: To hell with women, they're all the same creature.
Me: Ditto men.

Today HP sms'd me that he's started on his blog again and I'm glad for him. You know those times you're online and wondering why no one's written anything and there's nothing for you to read? Those are the exact times you should write.

I believe that what separates humanity from everything else in this world - spaghetti, binder paper, deep-sea creatures, edelweiss and Mount McKinley - is that humanity alone has the capacity at any given moment to commit all possible sins.
- Douglas Coupland, Hey Nostradamus!

Random fact #118: I don't think I've ever been to a gay bar.

I'm borderline drunk and my left hand is numb, and the taxi driver just tried matchmaking me with his son. Woohoo.

Seems like I'm the only person who can't read my latest blog posts. I've wasted an hour deleting cache files, reinstalling IE, rebooting my laptop.. but nothing works. I give up. Blogging blind is ok for the moment.

Lesson today: Either I can do something about it and I do, or there's nothing I can do about it and I don't. In any case, I shouldn't spend too much time bothering. Life is still too fucking short.

Weird, new post doesn't appear for me.

Whenever I think I won't be blogging for some time, I still end up coming back. I guess blogging is too much a routine to ditch.

Random bits of my life:
Hot humid hot humid. I'm almost hallucinating in this heat now. Shouldn't the weather be cooler near the end of the year?

I went to my UK travelmate's place 2 nights back, and stroked her 2 cats while purring with them and sipping red wine. The girls were lying in bed and giggling while blogging online, and I cuddled on the floor next to them feeling content. At that instant, I had an urge to make wrong things right.

Had an impromptu dinner last night rounding up different friends and it was fun. Talk turned to Friendster.com and 6 degrees of separation. Someone at the table knew an acquaintance of Stephen Hawkins, while another knew an acquaintance of Einstein, so I'm now actually 3 degrees of separation away from these folks. lol.

After this blog I'm going offline to watch the dvd of Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure, and then I'll nip out to catch Kill Bill. Today seems to be designated for screwball flicks.

And yes, happy birthday to the friend I've yet to meet. :)

What's on my mind now?
I'm looking for an album by Elephant Micah entitled Your Dreams are Feeding Back but can't locate it in Gramaphone, HMV or Borders. Downloaded instead his rambling banjo-indie cover of Sophie B Hawkins' Damn I wish I was your Lover.
Truffaut's 400 Blows is too heavy-going for Sunday morning viewing so it's shelved again.
I've got 2 days' backlog of newspapers to read.
UNKLE still takes my breath away.
Today is beautiful.

Today I went to the gym and ran my usual 6km. Then I popped over to HMV to sample music and stumbled upon UNKLE's latest album Never, Never, Land, where the cover is an illustration of slanty-eyed rocket-head aliens. Beautiful title don't you think? Not the Peter Pan fairyplace, but a caution to never touch down. I bought it of cos and beamed while listening to it at the Borders' Bistro continuously for 2+ hours. In fact, I was so engrossed I didn't even take off my earphones to order a drink. I simply scribbled "Earl Grey pls" on a napkin and placed it in front of me, till a passing staff noticed and picked it up. I made my way through 3 magazines and part of a book while listening to UNKLE and it was a good break from all those art films.

Today I remembered why I love music the most. When I listen to music, there is no emergency in my world.

When I was a child I had a fever.
My hands felt just like two balloons.
Now I got that feeling once again.
I can’t explain, you would not understand.
This is not how I am.
I have become comfortably numb.
- Pink Floyd, Comfortably Numb

My colleague told me I looked like I've lost the jackpot.
I pretended to sleep in my colleague's car to and from meetings so I didn't need to make small talk.
I played pool (something which I haven't done in ages) but I couldn't concentrate.
I keep phoning friends to talk to them but when I'm in their company, my mind wanders.
I guess I'm not really ok huh.

10 second snapshot of my life today. I was standing in a packed meeting when suddenly I wanted to see a testimonial of love. I leaned over and whispered to a friend, asking him to take his left hand out of his pocket. He looked quizzically at me but did as I've requested. I knew he probably didn't understand, but I looked at the gold band glinting on his left ring finger and smiled back at him.

How can I put this? I don't want that band, but I'm glad for those who have it.

By this Sunday I'd have watched 144 films this year, and that's not the end yet. And my new year's resolution is to watch fewer than last year's 120 films? Argh.

Anyway, I realise that my favourite scenes in recent films feature running. In one Czech film Divided We Fall, there's a tracking shot where a Jew was running furtively away from the Nazis. He ran along a brick wall, stumbling and looking over his shoulder with fear every other step, and the camera moved in a blur of movement with him. Sometimes the camera moved faster than he did, so you could only see the blank wall before you saw him running into the edge of the frame. Sometimes he outran the camera, and the panning shot would try to overtake him again. And he was breathing so hard.

Then I realised that I never hear myself breathe when I run. My music is too loud for that.

Friendster is a monster. I'm now connected to 76 360 people, out of which 67 are named Cindy. Hohoho.

A book is a story for the mind. A song is a story for the soul.
- Eric Pio

We've finally settled that we'll stay friends once and for all. I wanted the cooling off period where we stop seeing each other and then eventually learn to be friends again, but you wanted the ultimate win-win situation. You didn't think we need to stop seeing each other at all to remain friends. Ah well, never tried this before but I think it could work.

Feel oddly relieved now that everything's clear.

Today I learnt to differentiate between the film shot by Ozu's 50mm camera lens and Tati's 70mm ones. Muahahaha! I'm starting to sound dangerously geeky.

Ran another 10km (exactly 9.93km, 9th time) this time to Tim Hardin's How can We Hang on to a Dream?. An unconventional run at any rate cos so far, I've never run 10km on a weekend morning before, and not to a song which lasts just over 2 minutes. Maybe it's cos the girl on the next treadmill is the runner with the second longest run-time in the gym (she clocks in at around 45 minutes), so I'm in good company. Anyway, I've got time to waste.

Of cos the little girl returned the dagger to the prince without asking for anything in return. And the prince accepted the dagger but after examining it for a while, he put it away in one of his treasury rooms, never to be seen again.

This is the way the world goes.

We've hit the "I can't" moment. It came sooner than expected, but it's the weekend and I'm alive, so there's nothing really to be depressed about is there?

The mouse gig jinx. Today I've suddenly realised that the guys I've previously arranged to meet at da mouse's gigs would never turn up, and I would stay till the last moment drinking too much. And da mouse would offer to play me a tune from the stacks of CDs available, and I would pick one but the CD would be too scratched to be played, and I would end up with a substitute tune instead. Amazing.

Just spent an hour walking with the girls along the streets at Geylang (yes, the red light district). Well actually it's cos my US travelmate needs to do research into the local sex industry and the rest of us just happened to meet her for dinner tonight. Ate lots and laughed more. Definitely worth missing a movie for. :)

Dream #11. It's the prince's birthday, and from dusk till dawn, people arrived at the castle queuing to present him with magnificent gifts. There is just one small glitch, the prince already has nearly everything. So while people were presenting the gifts, he would thank them graciously and turn around to throw the gift out the castle window. The poor gathered beneath his window all day just to grab at what he has discarded.

At the very end, only a young girl was left waiting beneath the window. She was too small to contest everyone else for the gifts previously discarded, but she was patient. She wasn't really that keen to get a royal trinket, it was enough just to see the wonderful gifts the prince didn't want. An exquisite pocket watch. A handsome fur coat. An intricately engraved ebony walking cane. Every single item rejected by his Highness.

Finally, the last guest presented the prince with a little plain silver dagger, and he instinctively turned to throw it out the window. The little girl held out her hand to catch the gift, and the unsheathed dagger cut her open palm. She gave a sharp intake of breath and dropped the dagger onto the ground. And at that instant, the prince suddenly recalled that he didn't own a silver dagger.

The prince looked out the window to see the little girl pick up the fallen dagger, and hesitated against ordering the girl to return it to him. He called out to her, and she looked up. It was the first time she has seen his Highness face to face. She was struck speechless. He looked so much younger than she had imagined. The prince said he would pay her for the dagger, if only she would sell it to him. He thought it a fair deal cos after all, it was originally his. The little girl bowed her head and peered at the dagger clenched fiercely in her wounded hand. Then she looked back up at him and said, "It's yours. You only need to ask." And waited in silence for his reply.

Stupid thoughts nowadays (when I'm free to think anyway). Wanting to know your whereabouts but not willing to ask, for fear of appearing possessive. Wondering if I'm turning possessive. Wondering if I have a right to turn possessive. Wondering if and when one of us will suddenly blurt out "I can't", and there won't be any need to elaborate. But when I next meet you, it's all bliss and I think maybe! maybe!

Need to remind myself not to think so much. One day at a time ok.

Today has been a productive day. Woke up at 5am to watch Woody Allen's Shadows and Fog on the library DVD before returning it, while deconstructing a top that my jc girlfriend has bought for me. Deconstruct means I've unstitched and removed the sleeves totally for an edgier look, and hopefully she won't be mad when she's seen what I've done to it.
Didn't eat any fruit today but I've managed to squeeze in some veges, so I guess that about covers it. Borrowed more library DVDs, finished last week's issue of 8 Days and ta dah, it's already tomorrow.

Ran another 10km (exactly 9.94km, 8th time) this time to Man or Astro-man?'s Complex 34 (think 60's sci-fi soundtrack). Haven't gone to the gym for more than a week so I didn't expect to run so long. Maybe cos I passed on dinner with you and your friend in order to go running, and you teasingly asked me to tell you later how much I've run. Yes, ego.

Today's diet is nothing to crow about either. Instant noodles for breakfast, laksa for lunch, a Breadtalk bun for dinner, and the orange consumed just now to make up for all of the above. Yoyo was telling me we'll all eat more healthy food if we're not working. There's some sense in that.

If you ask the man in the tollbooth
Well I'm sure he'd tell you
That on the highways there's a million ways
If you wanna disappear
Should you take a left or a right,
Well I'm sure I don't care
All I want out of life is to hide somewhere

Will you find me?
- American Music Club, Will you find me

My diet today consists of a curry puff for breakfast, another curry puff for lunch and fried kway teow for dinner. Doesn't sound very healthy does it? I tried to compensate by eating an apple afterwards, but I think I've a long way to go.

Oh, and I missed Oktoberfest celebrations with the girls. :( Sorry! Next time pumpkins!

Running on 4.5 hrs of sleep can't be good for me. Time to hit the sack now.

Minimalistic filming techniques of Ozu.

I particularly love the stillness of the camera shots with actors floating into and out of frame, as if they're in an animated picture. Maybe this explains why I'm not emotionally overwhelmed by the technical difficulties of long tracking shots like in Russian Ark.

Random fact #154: I'm not experimental with perfumes. I used to wear Kenzo's Flower but I'm switching back to his old l'eau par Kenzo, which I was using more than 6 years ago. After showering at the gym, I'll wear CK One. Come to think of it, besides these, I've never tried any other perfume.

A snapshot of my life now (or what you don't need to know):
Starting from today, I'm going to watch 11 films in 6 days, not to mention the 4 DVDs I've just borrowed from the library. I hope I can make it.
I bought a burnished copper thumb ring and a pair of lime green beaded slippers (even though they're hard to match).
I can only quote one English poem off the top of my head. When you prompted me for another, I had to recite the Chinese poem by Li Bai about looking at the moon and being homesick. Yes, that one.
Not only have I no time to run, I have not enough time to sleep.
I'm still missing my September issue of Sight & Sound though I've emailed customer service in UK and they promised to send it over. And the October issue is already out too.

First things first. I better go to bed.

Walking round the library shelves with you for the upteenth time hunting for DVDs to borrow.
Swapping pics via infra-red on our mobile phones.
Coercing you to share dessert while you make sure I eat salad.
Arm wrestling your left arm with mine and losing terribly though you didn't exert any strength at all.
Talking and talking and talking forever.

Being with you makes everything alright.