After nearly half a year of absence, the latest issue of Sight & Sound magazine has mysteriously resurfaced on my doorstep. Finally!

I'm currently rotating between 7 active watches, among which there's one I wear daily. The thing is, that one I only wear to sleep. It's a watch with dual clock faces which acts as my designated travel watch (one clock face to indicate Singapore time, and the other to indicate local time wherever I am). I sleep wearing it so I don't have to prop myself up to tell time if I wake in the middle of the night, and I've done this for so long I hardly remember a time when I've not worn a watch to sleep. The strange thing is this watch doesn't glow in the dark, and telling time still requires approximation in the dark. I guess old habits die hard.

Today I chatted with the gym attendant in the shower stalls as I was preparing to shower and she was filling up the shower creme in the dispensers. I asked her if she could tell me which shower stall has the hottest water. This is cos I only take hot (not just lukewarm) showers. What I normally do is peek around the empty stalls to check the shower temperature valves, to pick the one with the temperature valve set to the coldest. This probably means that the water is so hot the previous person taking the shower had to lower the temperature of the water. Once I've found a shower stall with proven hot water, I'll home in on the same shower stall unless it's already occupied. And when that happens, I'll find the next shower stall with the same methodology and memorise its location as well. Anyway, the gym attendant told me that she found all the shower stalls have the same hot water 'cept for one which she pointed out to me. She could always tell the water's heat cos she had to wipe down the shower curtains. Hmm.

Another stranger I spoke with today was at the counter at my hairdresser's. I nipped by for a quick trim and was just paying up when a girl came in. She explained to the counter staff that she has never been to that hair salon before and would like them to recommend one of their hair stylists. I turned to her and recommended mine instinctively. She smiled and said ok. I guess my hair wasn't looking too bad today then. lol.

I had a strange dream early this morning. I dreamt that I was in a car with a friend and leaving some place, when I caught sight of you. I could have kept quiet and left, but that look of you all upset and distraught stopped me and in turn, I stopped the car. I walked over to you. You were standing with bags of books all around you. Library books. I looked quizzically at you, and you said you kept borrowing books without returning them. You didn't know what to do. You just kept on doing it. So you and I stood surrounded by all these books in a state of helplessness.

I woke all drained and weak. I think my body has finally protested and caved in. I need a doctor. I need rest. I need the world to ignore me a while, and let me sleep.

The most interesting encounter I had with a stranger was today, with an ice-cream vendor on his ice-cream motorbike-stand along Orchard road. It was nearly 8pm and no one else was queuing up, so I decided to get it for dinner (no, getting a trainer hasn't made me eat healthy yet). By default I'll get chocolate chip biscuit (which is a slab of ice-cream between 2 thin waffles). It's just like ice-cream back when I was young, when there's nothing fancy like rum & raisin, tiramisu or cookies & creme. Back then, no one would ever tilt ice-cream upside down to prove to me its consistency before handing it over either.

Anyway, the ice-cream vendor held my ice-cream for me while I pocketed my change, and he started telling me he was watching TV. I looked puzzled, so he pulled a mobile TV from under his ice-cream stand for me to see. The TV was the size of a small transistor radio, and I've never actually seen something that size before. So there we were peering intently into the tiny fuzzy TV screen opposite Hereen, and he commented that the reception there was among the worst along Orchard Road. I asked which channel it was and the ice-cream vendor replied it's Channel U. Since I don't watch TV, I haven't the faintest idea what to expect from this channel.

I just know it's a nice respite to stand in a busy street with ice-cream and TV, while the whole world passed us by.

More and more I wish unnecessary time can be pared down. Like commuting time (1 minute); shower time (10 seconds); dealing with people who repeat themselves (1 nanosecond). Life is too short for this.

This may not make sense, but if you had asked me to stick a noun after a swear, like "fuck you xxx", the first noun I'd think of isn't something like bitch or bastard. Rather, it's sweetheart. To lessen the sting? I don't know. But this is how my mind works.

I had a bad day at the office, which ended up with me solving an unrelated issue rather than deal with the work I have on hand. After 8, I was too upset and tired to carry on and came home instead. On my way home, I phoned da mouse in his office to complain. He started laughing after a while and I stopped and asked him what's up. Turned out he was eating dinner and put me on speaker phone, and his colleague found our exchange amusing. Like the boy said, he's still having dinner in the office at 8.30pm, so what sympathy could I expect from him? Somehow that puts things in perspective for me.

I hope things work out for you at work, you definitely need it more. And here's a hug for everyone feeling drained. Let's not let work turn us into demons!

My mood is getting more foul as work piles up. I've been writing recipes instead of baking the past week, and I need to get back to baking as soon as possible cos I've got a quota to hit. Inbetween, I've been excusing myself from meetings which I don't have time to attend, and if I did, I know I'd have gotten into terrible arguments in my current state cos I won't bother to be Politically Correct.

I absolutely hate people who ask if I still want business when I cannot give them what they want, especially when it's colleagues who are pre-empting the customer's needs even before the customer asks for something. If the customer wants icing, let him ask me! I don't expect colleagues to create unnecessary work internally! Wilful demands will only undermine your credibility. You have a brain, damn well go use it.

Everything I wanted to blog about today I emailed instead to a friend. So there's nothing else to tell, 'cept I can't find any albums by Michael Gordon or Laura Veirs; tried running at 10.5km/h for the first time on Monday and lasted only 5.4km; and am feeling dead tired.

Everything else will and must take precedence over blogging!

Love of colour, sound and words
Is it a blessing or a curse?
- Laura Veirs, from her album Carbon Glacier

I was told before that my obsessive interests won't help me get along with the rest of the world. But what you didn't understand was this has nothing to do with the rest of the world. I have no choice, this is the only way I can function. These are the things that hold me close. These are the loves that keep me safe.

A word is not the same with one writer as with another. One tears it from his guts. The other pulls it out of his overcoat pocket.
- Charles Peguy

Well, my words are taking a backseat at the moment. Now I'm busier at work than I've ever been for a long while. In fact, I just got home from my office. Yes, on a Sunday. And starting March, I'm running another new project on top of my current one. Coupled with my gym and film activities, I don't have much time left to spare. Woohoo.

What else is new?
Somehow I've accumulated 6 bottles of nail polish but have no time to paint my nails.
Lifting free weights has strangely become a means to destress for me, right up there with plucking eyebrows and playing pool. I want my arms to be strong enough to haul myself up on the monkey bars, but I think that's going to take a long while yet.
I'm sad that the Leni Riefenstahl retrospective held here in early March will not include Olympia.
I'm still a time-warp girl. I don't seem to move on to other stages in life like my peers do.
I will not propose to William Hung, even though he made me laugh.

I've listened to Tinge at least another 50 times today. I realise that except for the violins, this could have been a pleasant but non-descript Cuban jazz track. I like the way the violins introduce discord to the song.. as if they were desperately try to escape, and yet not upsetting the relaxed laidback attitude of the other instruments. I don't think my explanations do this song any justice.

What's on auto-repeat in my Discman now is an instrumental track by Michael Gordon called Tinge. Imagine shrill frantic violins hitting the high notes lovingly accompanied by the piano, bass and drums. The way my life is hurtling along now I know exactly how the violins feel. Will run to this song tomorrow. Found out Michael Gordon has an 8 minute song entitled Light is Calling which has been set to music in a short film. Curious about how it'll look like.

That last post sounded bad on re-reading but what the heck. Anyway, got that out of the way and I can move on to more important things. Like sleep.

Baking analogy on something other than work.
Let's say I bake brownies really well and decide to bake cakes too.
However there's a guy in the cake section who doesn't want me in, though it's proven that I'm good with cakes too.
He claimed that I needed all my time to bake brownies and took me out from the cake section.
Without asking me.
Though the other people in the cake section wanted me in.
Maybe because he had a thing for me less than a year ago and the answer was no.
Anyway, the result is I'm deeply offended, or rather, pissed off today.

I knew there's a reason why I couldn't fall for you, asshole!

Copying da mouse, I decided to ask the Magic Cactus the same question he did.

I asked the Magic Magic Cactus: when will i fall in love again? And the Cactus said to me; I am tired and need rest. Even Cacti must sleep. I suggect you do the same, for you are mortal too. Not that i'm mortal, but that just makes it all the more important that you go to sleep. Now. Oh - and it's because there is a small eskimo child trying to curse you. [click here to ask the cactus a question]

Had to read the newspapers in the cab to the customer's this morning cos there's no time to read it over breakfast. This reminded me of my work stint in Bangkok, where project meetings were held in the one hour it took to commute to work while bogged down by traffic. At least today's cab driver was better. The one I had yesterday was digging ear wax out of his right ear with a thin pick WHILE driving. That was way too scary.

Had a productive day at work solving problems and hit the gym. Ran 10km to the auto-repeat tune of Morrissey's Southpaw, followed by another hour of weights training. Came home to clear emails, and then it's the usual lack-sleep, lack-time yada yada nonsense.

It's good to be me if there's only more time.

Something you didn't know about me.
Nobody in my family knows my mum's birthdate. Somehow her birth records were lost and the authorities only listed the month and year, but left out the day. My mum thinks her birthday is 1 January cos that's the default date for everyone who's lost their birth records, but strangely her birth month wasn't registered as January. Anyway, this resulted in us not celebrating mum's birthday, and mum's vagueness about my bro and my birthdays (I guess it's harder to remember other people's birthdays when you don't have one yourself).

What irks me.. people who're
a) slow at work
b) but still find time to joke around rather than concentrate on the task at hand, and
c) need help last minute.

To me, you have to work hard to earn the right to play.

I took a cab home on Saturday night. When the cab stopped at my place, I rummaged through my bag to get my wallet in the dark. My hand closed on a yoyo ball which I've somehow left in the bag, and I remembered I've not swung any yoyo ball for a long time. Not since you. For the briefest moment, I forgot I was in the cab with a cab driver waiting patiently for his fare. Instead I remembered you searching in the grass in pitch darkness that one time we lost a yoyo ball. I told you not to bother, that I've got more. But you didn't listen, cos you couldn't bear to lose that one. So you carried on searching and found it (though your friend broke it accidentally later on, but that's another story). Then the cab driver swam into focus, I paid up and got home, and took that yoyo ball right out of my bag and sight.

Odd how insignificant objects trigger memories.

The Valentine's girls' night out became just a two-women crusade, and even then Fate tried to stop us. We started hunting for a drinking hole after 9pm and tried to check out Lola, only to realise it opens at 10pm. Then we wandered over from Fullerton to Esplanade, to listen to some jazz at Harry's. The problem is Harry's was taken over tonight for a singles' event, and the place was packed with awkward folks who've got their names taped to their upper arms. Brilliant. We walked back to Fullerton to hit Embargo, but a queue has started forming and we weren't that keen to wait. At this stage, a drink was essential. We figured we could wait another 15 minutes for Lola to open and went there. 'Cept we got lured by the music upstairs and found ourselves at Centro.

To sum it up: There was an event there. People were made to go up on stage to play games, one of which involved blindfolding participants and making them move their arms to simulate a jackpot (hilarious!). Started dancing after midnight and the music was quite good. Stopped about 2am to retire to the bar and watch the bartenders do their juggling bottles act. Came home and yeah, it's past 3am now isn't it?

I'm going to shower and sleep, but before that here's random fact #423:
There's a movie called "Those who love me can take the train".
What, so those who hate me can take the bus? What is it with these whimsical movie titles anyway, and why am I such a sucker for them? lol.

Ok, I'm outta here.

15 minutes till I'm out the door, listening to Morrissey's "Boy Racer" on auto-repeat. Who can say life isn't good to me?

Today was spent watching 2 DVDs, both about relationships breaking down. One is Michael Haneke's "Code Unknown", and the other, Jean Luc Goddard's "Le Mepris" (meaning contempt). I've always had a very definite attitude towards Goddard films: I either love them or hate them (especially the too experimental ones), but never any inbetween. Well, this one's about a couple whose marriage disintegrates quickly beyond their comprehension and this one I love. In it, the wife told her husband she hates him because he's incapable of moving her. His dysfunctional reply was he can, cos she's on the verge of tears.

To quote the blurb for "Code Unknown":
"Love has a language all its own".

Not going to wish everyone a good Valentine's day, but I'll rather wish you all a good day, everyday.

Lazy breakfast this morning with the guys. I ordered my usual garlic bagel, Dave's still addicted to his Eggs Benedict, and my best friend got a cranberry muffin (cranberry cos M has influenced him about its health value). It was nice just sitting around chatting and when Dave left, my best friend and I moved off to have drinks outside Burger King's.

You can't miss noting that it's Valentine's today cos there was lots of human traffic to and from the flower shop in Holland V. Guys scurrying by clutching bouquets of red roses; young girls carrying pink and red heart-shaped balloons. But meanwhile in my world, it's enough just to hear my best friend's deduction about why the cat sharing our table was probably pregnant, and watch her chew grass. Life was so simple that moment.

Afterwards, we dropped by the sports store where I bought a pair of 4kg vinyl dumbbells to replace my current lightweight aerobics ones. Then we went over to the supermarket. I mused on how domesticated he's gotten, when he phoned his wife about whether they should switch brands for cranberry juice (they reached a compromise and he got both brands). So he brought cranberry juice home on Valentine's Day rather than a bouquet of roses, but isn't that better somehow?

On the walk back, he pointed out a pink London cab to me and said that's the one and only one in the whole country. It was the first time either of us had seen it. I told him then I'd rather see a rare book or film or CD than this cab, but now I think about it, perhaps it's a fitting highlight to today.

So thanks for your company, and I'm so glad you've found love.

I slept nearly 10 hours last night cos I was too exhausted. I'm still tired now but there's lots to do. Just wanted to do a quick post.. I absolutely cannot tolerate ungracious young people who are supposedly smarter and think the world owe them something because of that. You've got a high IQ? Good for you, but that doesn't mean anything for anyone else.

After this stint, it better be rock and roll.
- sms from my best friend today

Well, this week has already been rock and roll. I'm actually looking forward to a lullaby.

How do I always end up here? Tired, not showered, way past my bedtime on a weekday night? Not to mention biting off more than I can chew, and still left with too much on my plate?

Stop. I need time for myself.

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday I was on top of the world cos something nice wouldn't have happened but for my intervention, and today 2 separate acquaintances asked me to please, smile.

The first was my customer, who commented that everyone was concentrating so hard in the project room that we all didn't smile. He asked if he drove us too hard and we all burst into nervous laughter. Hohoho.

The other was my gym instructor, who told me he's seldom seen me smile in the 3 sessions we've done together. I told him I smile while I'm running, and that's in the hour of cardiovascular workout I do before the personal training session with him. And besides, I'm a kilo heavier which I hope is just muscle.

Geez, and I always thought I was sunny.

Learn why, before how.

While looking at earrings with my JC girlfriend, she pointed out a pair of pierced earrings which I previously had as a pair of clip-ons. I told her I wouldn't buy this pierced pair, though I wouldn't revert back to wearing clip-ons again. To explain, clip-ons are to pierced earrings what cassettes are to CDs. There are some albums you have on cassette which you won't buy again in the CD format. Does that make sense? lol.

You are blessed with FAERY wings. Beauty,
laughter, life, magic...that's what you are all
about. You are refreshingly innocent and happy
with your life of purity and play. Life's a
game and it's a good one. In your eyes there's
no way to lose! You can be very mischeivous and
have been known to cause trouble, but it's all
in the name of fun and not meant to really harm
anyone. You like to play tricks on people who
aren't quite as bright or clever as you - which
is almost everyone. Nature is the setting you
prefer to be in - Always. Barefoot and wild you
can't be tamed. You're probably a restless
spirit who loves to travel, and quite a
dreamer. Your creativity is astounding and your
art (of whatever media - from writing to
painting to drama) is like something from
another world - ethereal and often very
fantasy-oriented. You can either be a social
butterfly or a loner with their head in the
clouds - but rarely inbetween. You stubbornly
refuse to accept responsibility or to give in
to the wishes of others - unless you feel like
it. You have a strong passion for music and
can't imagine life without it. You'll grow up
someday, but you'll always be a child at heart.
You are adventurous and love to take risks, and
feel a deep connection with the weather,
plants, and animals. You prefer sunshine to
thunder or snow, the warmth of summer to
autumn's chill, and quiet forests to suburban
backyards. Magic through and through, you are
far more powerful than you seem, and are
capable of being extremely passionate. Though
you can be childish, naive, stubborn, and
self-absorbed, one thing is certain - life with
you will never be boring!


*~*~*Claim Your Wings - Pics and Long Answers*~*~*
brought to you by Quizilla

The thing with sitting laptops side by side in the project room is that the infrared sensors haywire and start detecting file transfers left and right. We've taken to placing water bottles next to the infrared ports, to stop the enthusiastically beeping file alerts. Talk about technological hazards.

During a meeting today, I started peeling strips of transparent nail polish off my fingernails. At the end of it, my fingernails were completely nude. At least the nail polish lasted a week, which is an all-time personal record high!

The network card on my office laptop has difficulty recognising and connecting to the different networks belonging to my company and customers. As a result, my office laptop is like the shy elusive loner who's moved into a new neighbourhood but whom no one has ever met. In comparison, my colleagues' laptops are friendly outgoing folks who eagerly establish ties and knock on their neighbours' doors the instant they move in. No one could diagnose exactly why my laptop is behaving the way it is, so my only solution is to keep rebooting it till it recognises and connects to the network. Somewhat like the brute force method of repeatedly evicting the shy loner out of his home and then moving him back in, until he finally caves in and goes next door to borrow a cup of sugar and say hi.

If men could regard the events of their own lives with more open minds, they would frequently discover that they did not really desire the things they failed to obtain.
- Emile Herzog

Project room music today started with George Michael and progressed to Elton John. Then someone looked up and said, "Hey, is there a gay theme to the music?" and everyone paused to reflect. Finally the colleague playing the music mused that he's also got songs by Queen, and Freddie Mercury was the gayest of the gay. lol.

Team members vetoed me playing music in the project room cos it would probably be too different. We listened to oldies instead, but it was ok. On another note, a customer whom I've been dealing with for about 3 years forgot my name today.

Stayed late to solve a problem but didn't manage to make headway. Instead I solved a colleague's problem. By the time I decided to hit the gym, it was already quite late. Decided to go run anyway, so arrived at the gym just after 9pm and ran for 8km, to the accompaniment of the strangely addictive Air track Surfing on a Rocket. The chorus kept repeating in my head: "5-4-3-2-1-0/ No one can stop me to go/ You'll never see me again"

I realise I spend at least 6 hours in the gym per week, and I don't even read as much. No good.

And yes, blogging is eating into my sleeping time again.

I just attended my first weekly pub quiz with b12 and 2 other friends. We ended up the last of 9 teams cos I wasn't able to contribute much to the categories, namely Current Affairs, Sports, Entertainment and General Knowledge. What I had in return was access to friends who may know the answers though, so I spent half the time sms'ing them instead. My best friend knew the answer to when Titanic sank (1912); a friend knew the exact model of some airbus (A345); and another friend knew the exact Superbowl game score where the Patriots played (32-29). What I could tell for certain was probably the recent movie in which Nicole Kidman co-starred with Jude Law (Cold Mountain). I guess my niche interests haven't made me all-rounded, and b12 won't be asking me to join his team again in a hurry. lol. One of the winners dropped by to chat with our team, and he joked that all we needed was to watch TVmobile when commuting to work rather than sleep. Hmm. Wonder if that works.

Lars von Trier, the man behind DogVille, is a moviemaker who hates movies. Why else would he shoot a film on a soundstage with only black (for night) and white (for day) backdrops, chalk drawings for houses and minimal props? And why would he make this whole damnable mess about a girl victimized by smalltown ignorance and cruelty three f***ing hours long? DogVille should not be reviewed in FiRST but in some high art magazine; we smalltown Pasir Ris philistines are simple not up to the task of contemplating the giant mind of the great Lars von Trier.
- review of Dogville in FiRST magazine (Feb 2004 issue), which garnered a one-star rating when even Jerry Yen and Sammi Cheng's Magic Kitchen got a 2.5 star rating in the same issue

I don't know what irks me more: that they had to explain explicitly that black backdrops are for day and white for night; or that they are "simple not up to the task of contemplating the giant mind of the great Lars von Trier" (and SIMPLY not up to the task of being grammatically correct either). Or their claim that Lars von Trier hates movies, or their sheer ignorance which made them give the film a one-star rating, much worse than even Magic Kitchen.

I've tried to support local film publications but you know what, I'm going to hang onto my hard-earned money.

Just booked myself a personal training session. Time to concentrate on workout other than running.

Outstationed at my customer's again so I'm deprived of emails and blogs till I come home. There's a TV in the project room but the reception is so bad we can only get audio but not visual signals. There goes my fiendish hope of tuning into the Academy Awards live. Too tired to blog much, just wanna sleep.

Accepted $2 more change from the nice taxi driver yesterday which I should have returned. I should have reacted faster. Now I know how the Euro and China coins were palmed off on me without me realising it.

I think the older you get, the more you find life interesting apart from your own problems. So roll on. I can't wait.
- Katrin Cartlidge, actress [1961 - 2002]

Be well wherever you are.

More and more I want to watch Leni Riefenstahl's Olympia, regardless of whether she was sympathetic to the Nazis.

"Win over a sad heart, then only is your life worthwhile."

I was watching a short documentary on the 400+ laughing clubs in India, and this line was uttered by one of the members. It sounds odd, but these folks gather in parks and do laughing exercises to laugh at will. The rationale is this: if laughter induced by other people's actions or words is considered natural, then surely laughter that is self-invoked without external stimulus should be considered natural too? Someone enthused that laughing should be an Olympics game, but then I wonder what could be the basis for judgement then? Loudest laughter? Longest sustaining laughter? Most infectious laughter?

I don't think overheating laptops has ever popped up in any conversation I've had but recently, 3 different people talked about it on 2 consecutive days. Weird. A friend puts a thin book under her laptop to remove the laptop's contact with the table surface, and hopefully improve air circulation to cool down the machine. Another friend spoke about space balls, which I thought referred to the spoof Star Wars movie but were actually tiny spherical props (patented in Singapore too). What this boiled down to is paranoia on my part, so I'm now typing on my elevated laptop, which I'm propping up with believe it or not, pill boxes.

Courtesy of da mouse.


You're a Britpopper. The UK is your thing. The
Smiths really were 'terrif' and Blur are indie
no matter how much money they made. You could
drink all the other indie kids under the table.
You plan on moving to London someday and dream
of one day owning every Beatles release on
vinyl.


You Know Yer Indie. Let's Sub-Categorize.
brought to you by Quizilla

Someone asked about you today
but I had no idea what to say.