The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
- Bertrand Russell

I watched my first music documentary tonight, which is Wim Wenders' The Soul of a Man. I was supposed to catch Mike Figgis' Red, White and Blues on Tues night, but I watched Gozu before that and it lasted 129 minutes, leaving me with barely 3 minutes for dinner inbetween. So. I fed my stomach instead of my ears, and skipped Red, White and Blues. This only made me more determined to catch The Soul of a Man just now.

The Soul of a Man focused on some relatively unknown blues musicians like Skip James (he's got a great lyric that goes: "I'll rather be the Devil than be that woman's man") and J.B. Lenoir (whose death was lamented in John Mayall's tribute song The Death of J.B. Lenoir). Watched this with a friend whom I didn't realise enjoys the blues, and who didn't have enough legroom for his long legs. The film wasn't as much a documentary as a means to introduce the songs and their covers by current acclaimed musicians, but it was good music.

After the screening, we went off for supper where I had my first ever cheese and mushroom prata. There, my friend turned into a human radio and tuned into music only he could hear in his head. "It's Eric Clapton now," he said, as he hummed the line "Before you accuse me". And then Crowded House hijacked his frequency, followed by Roy Orbinson. All the while I sat opposite him in my music-less state, listening to his second-hand relay of music only audible to him, and wondering why music wasn't broadcasting in my world.

It's rare and amusing for me to be the less musical one.

I realise I've become a certain sort of person.
I won't cut myself or hurl myself off a building impulsively. In this respect, I've the instincts of an animal. You don't see a bird fold its wings in mid-flight and plung to its death in a suicide attempt, do you?
Whatever I love, I will love passionately. A friend described this trait of mine as "rejection is not an option". On the other hand, whatever I don't love, I won't try.
I won't get bored listening to a song on auto-repeat for days on end, or tire of eating the same favourite food.
I've remarkable self-discipline to force myself to go running though I'm exhausted to the brink of tears.
But I also procrastinate on things I should do but don't.
People sms me math problems which I can solve quickly. And yet I can only complete 2 faces of the Rubik cube.
Like the Devil, I dwell on details. Sometimes to the point of being anal-retentive.
Eating vegetables is a conscious effort for me, and I sleep much less than I should.
I'm able to attract the most wonderful friends whom I hope to have for keeps.

I realise there's room for improvement. But I'm not unhappy with what I am now.

Everyone is tired. When commuting between meetings, we will be dozing in backseats, our slumped forms held in place by the restraining seatbelts.

Time does not respect what we can do without it.
- Rene Laloux

Besides the music, I like the name of music group Godspeed You Black Emperor! cos it sounds like a swear complete with exclamation mark, but in an inoffensive whimsical way. Like:

"I can't take this anymore!"
"Oh yeah? Godspeed You Black Emperor!"

Today has been a Godspeed You Black Emperor! sort of day.

Impossible is just a big word thrown around by small men who find it easier to live in the world they've been given than to explore the power they have to change it. Impossible is not a fact. It's an opinion. Impossible is not a declaration. It's a dare. Impossible is potential. Impossible is temporary.

Impossible is nothing.
- extract from BigO e-newsletter about the decision not to continue searching for people in the Nicoll Highway collapse

Today, I was mulling over the latest Charlie Kaufman-scripted movie called Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. The premise is interesting: guy meets girl; they fall in love but break up within a year; girl hires high-tech company to wipe off her memories of him; guy decides to do the same for his memories of her. Directed by Michel Gondry too. Should be a riot!

Today, I broke my 10km record by shaving 90 seconds off my runtime, while running to Sia's The Church of What's Happening Now on auto-repeat. I started running at 10.2km/h and pushed it to just under 11km/h. Don't think I'm repeating this stunt any time soon but it felt great.

Today, I bought 3 more halterneck tops (cyan, red, beige) on top of the brown one I've just bought, and they're all of the same design and without prints. Yay, adventurous me. The last time I bought 4 tops of the same design but in different colours is for gym, and yes there are no prints on them too. I think my maximum limit for clothes of the same design in different colours IS 4. Good grief, I think I know exactly what kind of functional wardrobe I'd have if I were a guy. I'm going to blame the halterneck tops on this stupid self-combusting weather.

Today, I lack sleep again.

Music that cannot be heard doesn't mean it cannot be felt. Or what was told to me today, to explain why we shouldn't remove the sound frequencies we cannot hear because we can still feel the vibrations they generate.

You need to know where music's been to know where it's at.

I went to bed and woke in the same clothes and strange listless mood. I slept way too little and lay in bed hoping to drift back to sleep again. Instead I thought about beer.. Kilkenny beer to be exact. I remembered da mouse's comment that Kilkenny shouldn't be drunk from the can, but should be poured into a glass while the can's held vertical over the glass. This way the widget in the can aerates the beer to give the best head of foam. I asked, what if we drink the beer from the can while we hold it vertically? He replied no one does that, and I mused about why it's Kilkenny I prefer to the rest. Would it be because it's a "difficult" beer? Then I pulled myself out of bed, looked out at the bright intense morning blaze, blanched at running in this heat, and knew I would do it anyway.

I woke up today expecting to watch only 1 film, but ended up watching 3 as well as a handful of local shorts (for which I had to stand 1.5 hours at the back of a stuffy room). I love the Hungarian film Hukkle, which had zero dialogue except for 2 songs near the end. This film appealed cos I'm all zeroes and ones in my attention to detail, and this film has nothing but details.

After the films, I decided to cancel tomorrow's early morning gym and went instead to a pub to watch the Man U vs Liverpool match, more for the beer than the game. It was boring, and I amused myself by occasionally looking up in the sky to track the movement of a speck of light. It didn't blink so it should have been a satellite, and it was a fast moving one at that. During the game, I just sat and twiddled my thumbs slowly, tracing the circumference of my thumb ring again and again. The times I was following the game, I was just amazed at how the guys could divide their attention between the 2 screens in front (one for the Man U vs Liverpool match; the other for Manchester City vs Leicester). And then I remembered how you're a big fan of Man U too, but we've never watched a single match together. I figured you were probably watching this match too, and would be devastated that Man U lost.

At the end of it all, I'm glad to have a friend who can give me a ride home, with whom I don't need to make conversation, and who can tolerate my offtune and offkey singing. So I sang offtune and offkey to Sia all the way back, and now I'm home, it's late, I lack sleep, haven't read today's papers, haven't showered, feel like finishing Aimee Bender's book, and want to blog about needing music like an asthma inhaler to prevent the onset of an attack. But I do none of these things yet and I space out a little. Just because.

After watching 11 films over a week, I am experiencing film fatigue. In 2 screenings, I've yawned fitfully and fallen asleep on the shoulders of different friends, and luckily the guys were nice and suitably bemused to let me be. Due to this, da mouse has nicknamed me shoulder slut, and I still have at least 8 more films to go. Hohoho.

On the taxi home tonight, I encountered a taxi driver who watches TV but hasn't watched a movie for about 30 years. He couldn't understand how I could be the reverse: just watching movies and passing up on TV. Anyway, he started telling me he has mastered the art of being a voice soprano, and gamely burst into song when I asked him for a demo. This is the first time I've ever been serenaded in a taxi. lol.

..music is just math in its best dress
- Aimee Bender, An Invisible Sign of my Own

In An Invisible Sign of my Own, the first time he and she had a private encounter was when she spotted him in the playground one night. He had a bubble wand made of string in his right hand and a cigarette in his left. He dipped the wand into a bucket of soapy water, lifted it up and pulled back on the string to form a bubble. Then, he sucked on the cigarette and blew smoke inside the bubble, and tried to seal it up. He failed repeatedly. She asked if she could try and he let her, and in her first attempt she knew she could make it: that perfect pearl of smoke-filled bubble. But somehow she felt him waiting for her to do just that, so she wrecked the bubble. He asked if she deliberately broke the bubble and it was then she left.

I know why she did what she did. I would have done exactly the same.

There is practically nothing in the world as beautiful and simple as running, she said.
- Aimee Bender, An Invisible Sign of my Own

This woman writes my mind!

Too many films, too little sleep and it's only Thursday!

I used to think death might be hidden somewhere on our bodies. Tucked behind the pupil like a coin, slid beneath the thumbnail, ribbon-wrapped around a wrist bone. A sharp, dark sliver; a loose, pale pellet. Each person different. Each lifespan set. On the day of your death, it melts out through your entire body, a warm, broken bath bead. Until then, it waits - sealed and silent. If you knew where to look, you could find it, resting in the curve of your ear, waiting patiently for its right day.
- Aimee Bender, An Invisible sign of my Own

I like that last line. If death were hidden on my body, I'd like to think that my ear would be a good place for it too.

I realise some people are still trying to reconcile the real-life me with my blog. Just like a fortune teller who's been reading my palm and examining the whirls on my fingerprints, before frowning into my eyes and telling me, "This can't be your hand". Well, it is. This is all me. Like the sun, I am nothing but constant, but somehow a more reticent moon is expected. To answer a friend who couldn't understand why I've a thing for difficult men: it's not that they were difficult, but rather that they could peer into my hand and recognise me for who I am.

To prevent myself from saying something I may regret, I pinch my ear. Or rather, I place my index finger and thumb on the front and back of my ear stud and press tightly. Not hard enough to draw blood, but just enough to leave a sharp pinprick indentation in my thumb. I don't think anyone around me thinks this is anything but an absentminded gesture. They don't realise this is the only move that saves my sanity right there and then.

I had a perfect moment on my way home, listening to Sia sing while jumping the gun and reading the last bit of An Invisible Sign of my Own. I was feeling content cos the ending would grant me piece of mind. I knew the protagonist would fall in love, and I knew she would relate the eternal life story again, but this time with a better ending. And then I suddenly thought about you. It wasn't an associative memory; I didn't chance upon anything to remind me of you. Instead, it was random madness as I wondered about how you are, and mused that someone who once lost sleep over me could be wiped out of my life just like that. You once wrote that there was no stare like mine, if almonds could be called eyes. Well, these almonds stared at the cinema screen instead tonight and would be looking forward to a break from movies tomorrow.

Be happy. I know I am.

Numbers are friends for me, more or less. It doesn't mean the same to you, does it - 3844? For you, it's just a three and an eight and a four and a four. But I say, "Hi! 62 squared."
- Wim Klein, mathematician

I've finally finished Cosmopolis and started on Aimee Bender's An Invisible Sign of my Own. This book starts with a story the protagonist was told by her father. It's about a kingdom where everyone found eternal life, and the population got overcrowded cos no one died. So there came a decree that each household would volunteer someone to die for martyrdom. And people were curious about dying since no one had experienced it. They wondered if it was like taking a trip to somewhere exotic and well, just staying there. So when it came time for the great sacrifice, every household volunteered someone but one household couldn't decide. This household wanted to volunteer every member. This idea was vetoed by the rest, and so they decided to offer a piece of each of their bodies, to make up one person. The father would give up his nose and arm, the mother her leg, the daughter her ear and the son his foot and hair. Everyone agreed and this was what they did. But then afterwards, no one could look at this family cos they were no longer whole, and they felt compelled to move to another town where no one knew what they looked like before.

This was a bedtime story to the protagonist on her 10th birthday, and this story is what made me buy the book.

Someone who has started reading Cosmopolis after me has finished it ahead of me. Reading quotes of the book in his blog gives me a false sense of familiarity or deja vu by the time I come across the same lines. Then I realise I can't quote some bits cos they have already been quoted and I don't feel like repeating. Odd. lol.

Yesterday my watch was 10 minutes late. My friend tried to coax me to enter the cinema but I thought we still had time, and he referred to his watch and mobile phone, as well as another passing acquaintance's watch, to convince us he had the right time. I've been the punctual one for so long that it seemed implausible that my timing was wrong. But it was. Never believe so much in your own judgement that you refuse to listen.

"...I'll tell you what the problem is. I don't know how to be indifferent. I can't master this. And it makes me susceptible to pain. In other words it hurts."
"This is good. We're like people talking. Isn't this how they talk?"
"How would I know?"
- Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis

I'm now reading the saddest dialogue before a breakup.

Today.
I was intoxicated with Sia's "The Church of What's Happening Now", my auto-repeat song of the day. I listened to it throughout my morning run in the sun, while commuting to and from the Film Fest, and during the break inbetween which I caught up on reading Cosmopolis. There's a catchy refrain "Throw away yesterday/ Today's a brand new day" which kept popping up in my head. I've heard it so often today I half expected friends to break out and sing these lines to me too when they spoke.

I watched 4 Film Fest movies, all of which were enjoyable. My only grouse is they don't seem to turn on the lights when the end credits roll now, and as a result, people have to stumble out of the cinema hall in the dark. What's that about?

Sayew is a comedy about a Thai girl porn writer's rites of passage. The Thai directors were present to do a Q&A after the screening, and they were humble and funny. One of them mentioned that they used to buy lots of porn magazines together. They would go back to their room (each to a corner) and laugh over the magazines. He said when guys read porn together, it's funny; but when they read it alone, it's serious.

The Barbarian Invasions wasn't as controversial as I thought it would be, what with the heroin and euthanasia. Still it's irreverent and made me laugh, and that's more than enough.

The Fog of War related 11 lessons from the life of Robert Strange McNamara (yes, I didn't know till today that his middle name was literally Strange either). I took out my ticket stubs to scribble his rules on in the darkened cinema hall, and my journalist friend chuckled and told me now I should know how he felt jotting down review notes in the dark. It felt surreal, writing without seeing. When we left the screening later, I found I've written over lines as well. The only line that stood out was this, and it's not any of McNamara's 11 lessons. He said: "Never answer the question that is asked of you, but the question you wished had been asked of you."

Uzak (Distant) had the most beautiful cinematography of the lot, but by this time I had a sensory overload and was drained. I slumped in my seat and would have given anything to lean and rest my head quietly a while, but I hung on.

Tomorrow another movie, but tonight I'll dream of the questions I wish had been asked of me.

you don't, know me
you can't hold me
i'll slip through your hands
i am, one single grain of sand

you are free to love
happily received
you are free to love
if that is all you need

i'm an, empty space
i can't, be replaced
so when, you're finished with all this dream
delete, begin to rewrite me
- Sia, Rewrite

Today I bought 2 albums: Sia's Colour the Small One and the Scissor Sisters album (with a cover of Pink Floyd's Comfortably Numb). Sia sang on Zero 7's Simple Things, and Colour the Small One is about loss. She travelled round the world and "agreed to meet up in London with the man she describes as her 'first true love'. A week before she arrived, he was run down and killed by a black cab on Kensington High Street." Knowing this makes it more painful to listen to her sing achingly.

Today I sat in 2 different cars which played good music. One driver played Calexico's 1998 album The Black Light (which one reviewer described as "the perfect soundtrack for a summer roadtrip in an old car across Death Valley"), while the other played a Best of Siouxsie & the Banshees compilation (to be cranked up to maximum volume while cruising). How wonderful it is to be in good company, and how much better to do so cocooned in beautiful music.

The night didn't end the way I thought it would. Da mouse phoned me up just past midnight to ask if I'd like to attend what we thought would be a drum & bass event, so I went. Let's say the music in his car was much better than that played at the event (which was more chill-out bossa nova than drum & bass). We didn't stay long and on our way back, da mouse had the bright idea to call lainey out to meet up. Just after 2am in the morning. Well.

SORRY TO WAKE YOU PUMPKIN! IT WASN'T MY IDEA! I HOPE YOU MANAGED TO GET BACK TO SLEEP QUICKLY!

And then we had milo (his hot mine cold) just a day after our exchange on the phone and our blogs. What a difference a day makes. Tomorrow, or technically speaking today, I'm going to attend Film Fest screenings, one of which I suspect I'll know at least 5% of the attendees. Woohoo.

Now I'm finally going to shower and sleep, and think about a beautiful song by the Ronettes entitled I Wish I Never Saw the Sunshine ("Baby, do you know what you took away? You took the blue out of the sky"). Hearing da mouse singing slightly offkey but in his heckcare way to this song while driving was quite fun. lol.

Thank goodness for weekends.

Dinner and drinks with both travelmates at UK travelmate's home. Just 3 women snacking on green peas and chips, sipping vodka ribena and feeding the dog anything but dog biscuits. It's strange how familiar we are with one another now. The girls know if I'm tasked to buy chips, I'll end up getting Pringles' sour cream and onion flavoured chips which neither of them will get. Both prefer Lay's though the UK travelmate likes sour cream and onion too, while the US travelmate will rather original flavoured for Pringles. I watched TV for the first time in ages: a chinese quiz game show where losers fell through a trapdoor in the floor was quite amusing; the finale for a local chinese drama on 3 women and their quest for love was not. But it was nice just hanging out with the girls and dog.

I spent an hour walking to and fro my UK travelmate's place while listening to the entire Kings of Convenience album. I like this auto-pilot mode with zero thoughts in my head and just my heart responding to music. Ever seen me dance? Not pretty, but same principle.

My UK travelmate commented that I've a bigger built now, and have harder muscles than she does though she's always been the sportier one. Freaky that I'm turning into an Amazon just to satisfy my wish to pull myself up on the monkey bars. I'm just on the assisted chin-up machine in the gym now, and there's still a long way to go. But I'm getting there.

I'll leave the phone on though I'm going to sleep. Take care you. Go home soon.

Da mouse has declared over the phone that he refuses to comment on my blog entry. And we're still on the phone. What else happened today? I've only run 6km, and discovered that there is a phrase called "fuckcare", to be used when it's more severe than "heckcare", but less personal than "fuck".

Da mouse and I are BOTH online, on the phone with each other, reading each other's blog, blogging about each other, as well as reading out loud what we're blogging at the same time. We are lame. Except one of us is in the office and lamer. And the lame boy in the office is accusing me of trying to increase my hit rate by making him refresh my blog continuously till I publish. Muahahaha.

Somehow I woke with lyrics running through my head ("Sunny, thank you for the gleam that shows its grace"), and a burning question just after 4am and what else is there to do but to log on and ask someone. So I chanced upon leslie on the other side of the world, and asked him, "How close can you get to the Sun?". He thought it was about 8 light years, and then I came across this FAQ.

Then I came across da mouse's blog and realised he slept very late after our tea session just now, just before I woke. It reminded me of jc school days when my classmates would take turns to study. One person would study till about 2am, and call the next one to wake before going to sleep. Then the next one would study till a certain time and call another person, somewhat like passing the baton to study. And now we're passing the baton to blog. lol. So who should I wake now?

Today I learnt something new about film integrity. I was taught the importance of preserving original aspect ratio, which is the shape the director intended the film to be viewed in. I was watching a 1:37 aspect film accidentally projected as 1:85, but I didn't know the difference at first. Yet after it was highlighted to me, my eyes kept skirting the boundaries of the screen to check what was missing. What I couldn't see wasn't obvious or essential to the plot, but I know I'll try to see the film again in the correct aspect ratio. Just because.

I read a post from re-minisce's blog where he quoted a question "What happens when there are no more questions?". And this is what I've replied in his comments:
if there are no more qns, that either means u already know everything (which i doubt is possible for anyone), or indicates a lack of interest in the subject matter.

like i've quoted before, there are no uninteresting things, only uninterested people. uninterested people have no more questions.

Me. I believe in asking.

"I think I'm a Boeing 747," confessed Elephant Boy to the Magician's Assistant.
"Nah, not enough baggage. You just remember too much," replied the Magician's Assistant.
"At least if I've had given someone a knife before, I'd have remembered it," Elephant Boy said. "I mean, how many people do you give knives to anyway?"
"So I've monumental memory lapses," the Magician's Assistant looked sheepish and laughed. "Here, take this. It may help."
"What's that?" Elephant Boy looked quizzically at the book in her hand. The title read: Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear.

Heya. You can't be a plane or an elephant forever.

From Whatis.com:
Anthropomorphism is the tendency for people to think of inanimate objects as having human-like characteristics. If you have ever named your car, talked to your computer or begged your printer to work, you are guilty of assigning anthropomorphic characteristics to a machine.

Just emailed someone this line and I think it bears repeating:
I'm in love with life, just not specific people.
I run and I'm in love. I listen to a song and I'm in love. I watch a film and I'm in love. I read a book and I'm in love. I see a whimsical toy and I'm in love. If there's something that makes me laugh, I'm in love. If I've had a good night's sleep, I'm in love. Give me ice-cream and I'm in love.
How is it possible not to love everyday then?

I woke up this morning to find that I'm read by lainey's friend Silenus, and my blog entries have actually influenced him to go out and get DeLillo's Cosmopolis after a year's hiatus from reading. And he has quoted passages I've not yet read. Wow. I'm glad you've started reading again, and with this book too. :)

Now, if only I can influence people the same way for music.. here goes:

Things seem so much better when
they're not a part of your close surroundings.
Like words in a letter sent..
amplified by the distance.
Possibilities and the sweeter dreams,
sights and sounds calling from far away.
I didn't know you then, now did I girl?
I couldn't hear you singing softly to me.
I didn't see the brave girl so near me.
I wanted a mystery that couldn't be solved,
I wanted a puzzle with pieces missing.
I wanted a story that couldn't be told,
only the fishing part of fishing.

And now I find
It was you all the time.
I'm in love again -
It's too late now.
- Kings of Convenience, Singing Softly to me

I've typed out the entire lyrics rather than google for it and paste it here. I guess this approximate sincerity of typing out everything will move someone to get a copy of Kings of Convenience's album Quiet is the new Loud from 3-4 years years back. If you've distanced yourself from music, I think you can't do better than this album. The first line I've ever blogged is from this album. lol.

Yesterday, I had a short funny phone conversation with my best friend and M. We were all in town but the 2 of them were shopping in Toys R Us. They stumbled across a talking soap dispenser, and I asked what it sounded like. So they activated it for me to listen to over the phone. I don't know if that's why it sounded distorted, like a joking clown who turned out to be the Devil's Incarnate in a slasher flick. I laughed and told them if they got the talking dispenser, it'd take years of therapy for their kid to get over it. That voice would put me off wanting to wash my hands. lol.

My best friend, his wife and a talking soap dispenser. It almost sounds like an indie movie title doesn't it? :)

On missing clothing. My jc girlfriend was trying to explain to me the hazards of living in a 4-women household where all of them own similar clothes. After sorting through laundry, their clothes will end up in one another's closets before someone realises that it's not theirs. For example, if her black cardigan gets washed, it'll take about 3-4 weeks for it to find its roundabout way back into her closet. lol.

My jc girlfriend and I are highly susceptible to caffeine.
We both drank coffee unwittingly yesterday just after 6pm.
I stayed awake till 2 and craved running.
She stayed awake till 3, and got up to drink half a can of beer to neutralise the caffeine so that she could sleep.

The only good side (if any) is I've thought previously that caffeine can keep me awake for 12 hour cycles, and it's actually only 8 hours this time. lol. Surely I've improved!

Information is not knowledge. Knowledge is not wisdom. Wisdom is not truth. Truth is not beauty. Beauty is not love. Love is not music. Music is best.
- Frank Zappa

Well. Got the issue of Word with the 110 songs you have to hear, and as expected, I've only heard a handful (or exactly 10%). While going through the list with my jc girlfriend, I found I could hum nearly every song I know though, but then I guess they're quite common. What I know boiled down to:

1) Stevie Wonder's My Cherie Amour
Picked by George Michael because "in some perverse way, because he can't see, he can hear God better."

2) Kate Bush's Cloudbusting
Picked by Alison Goldfrapp. Interestingly, the song seemed to be inspired by A Book of Dreams by Peter Reich, on life with his father (the infamous psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich). Wilhelm Reich had wild theories on sexual energy and invented a rain-making machine which he and his son operated (and worked apparently).

3) Black's Wonderful Life
Picked by a TV producer because it was showcased in a TV campaign in the 90's. Eh. Nice song, bad reason.

4) Nina Simone's My Baby Just Cares for Me
Picked by Bryan Adams(!) cos "this is the marriage of a great voice and a simple song."

5) John Coltrane's cover of My Favourite Things
Picked by Felix Buxton of Basement Jaxx, who also mentioned the drum & bass cover of this by Outkast (which I've heard and adore).

6) Jackie DeShannon's Needles and Pins
The only song of the lot I can't hum. Strangely my last memory of this is either hearing it requested at a karaoke lounge or a pub, or maybe it's both.

7) Screaming Jay Hawkins' cover of I Put a Spell on You
Actually I only remember Nina Simone or Ella Fitzgerald's take on this song.

8) Dionne Warwick's Say a Little Prayer
I've heard this in quite a few movies.

9) Al Green's cover of I Wanna Hold Your Hand
Hmm, I've not heard this cover either.

10) Stina Nordenstam's Little Star
Stina Nordenstam described this song as about "a suicide with a confession in Latin performed by a boys' choir". lol. I think she's got a brilliant breathy child-woman voice, like she grew up but her voice never did.

11) The Beach Boys' God Only Knows
Yes, my favourite Beach Boys' song too.

The rest of the songs were a mixed bag ranging from Ken Nordine's I Used to Think my Right Hand was Uglier than my Left to Racing Cars' They Shoot Horses Don't They. Won't hurt to bring the list down to Borders for a long lazy afternoon and sample through the lot.

I've slept less than 6 hours for the second night in a row, and I've wanted to run since just after 1am this morning. But my gym wasn't open then and unlike lainey, I don't think I could have summoned anyone to come out and keep me safe while I ran outdoors. lol. Come to think of it, I've never had those running shoes with pin-prick alert lights before either.

Still I need to maximise usage of time. What if we have audio blogs? Everyone could narrate their own blog entries, and I could listen while sleeping. I could imagine da mouse swearing already, his wtf tone would be hilarious! But then again, too scary by far. :)

There's an issue of Word magazine out which lists the 110 songs you have to hear. Why 110 instead of 100, what are these songs, why is there no list on the internet, and most importantly, how many of those have I heard already? I suspect I won't fare well in this poll, what with my perversion for unloveable beeps and whirls. I'm going to hunt down and buy this issue, and I hope the songs are diversified across genres.

It's time to go running. The best part of today has just arrived.

Random memory #6581. Of all the past you's, there's only one whom I don't have a picture of. It's not deliberate, but the closest approximation is probably an outline of your left hand which you've traced on a piece of white paper for me a long time back.

Remember that bright sunny day when the rest of the world was at work and we were just lazing after katong laksa? I was playing with my camera phone when your face swam into focus. You tried to duck a bit and I told you to relax cos I wouldn't snap your picture. And I didn't. After that we got up to leave and passed by that bogus fortune-telling stand, and the girl manning it promised to tell our fortunes by scanning our hands electronically. We laughed and thought why not, and she took down our birth years and horoscopes. I went first, sticking my right hand into that scanning box. It was like photostating my hand actually, with the image projected onto a screen just beside the scanner. Then it was your turn to stick your left hand in the scanner, and it looked so weird I took a picture of your hand projected on the screen. 'Cept your whole hand didn't appear due to the flickers on the cathode ray tube while it was refreshing the image. I've caught your palm, your ring and the bits of your fingers near the knuckles, but a silhouette outline of me appeared on the top part of the screen instead. Then the girl gave us our fortune slips and fake golden coins in satchels to keep for good luck, and we stood by the path reading our fortunes incredulously. Strangely there were 4D numbers on our fortune slips too.

That was a lovely day.

You live your day old and become young after then. I live my day old and become older.

And maybe you're right. I seem to be living life in reverse.

The oldest of stories. She was sitting there talking to me, but I knew she just wanted to sms him. Any gibberish because my presence made no difference. She started a few sms and wiped them out before she could send any of them. But finally she caved in and sent one to him for real. He replied after a while with "Huh?", she looked crestfallen, and I felt bad.

After throwing away the pens that don't work anymore, an inventory of my office stationery revealed the following:
6 mechanical pencils (though I don't use pencils and don't own pencil lead)
3 wooden pencils (worse cos I don't own any pencil sharpener; should be discarded yet I can't bear to)
1 yellow scaly fish pen (inherited from a close ex-colleague, so it's irrelevant if it still works)
1 flower pen (looks like a huge lavender flower blooming out between my thumb and forefinger when I clutch it to write; to perk me up during meetings but I've yet to use it)
1 Indonesian figurine pen and
1 Korean figurine pen (souvenirs from co-workers' overseas trips; to remind me I've not yet visited either country)
1 torch pen (not functional since there's no battery in it)
2 highlighters (1 green and 1 yellow)
3 pairs of chopsticks (to seek donations to help others have the means to feed themselves)
1 green pen (why?)
1 red pen (from whom?)
and finally,
8 normal pens.

Of the lot, the only item I've actually paid for is the flower pen. Maybe I should bite the stem between my teeth, or tuck it behind my ear at the next meeting.

Normally I'll let the junior bakers have their way cos I'm easy going. Today one of them tried to barter with me and what irked me was her confidence that I'll cave in. So I didn't. Hohoho.

I'm tired today and I went to watch Hellboy alone to cheer myself up. It didn't work. Though it's a special effects action movie, seeing Hellboy file down his horns in a bid to fit in made me sad. Keep the horns boy! KEEP THE HORNS! And then I got home and am in no mood to shatter the world with quotes from Don DeLillo (so please do yourselves a favour and go buy/ borrow his books).

Right at this moment I'm sneezing a little, my lips are parched, I haven't showered and all I really long for is music.

The Elephant in our living room, nobody mentions it, because it's just so enormous.
- Bernard Maclaverty

I'm thinking about the other Elephant, Alan Clarke's Elephant.

Cosmopolis has surprised me. It's now made me reflect on elevator muzak, and how my penchant for auto-repeat wrap-around songs could probably drive passengers crazy. lol.

"I have two private elevators now. One is programmed to play Satie's piano pieces and to move at one-quarter normal speed. This is right for Satie and this is the elevator I take when I'm in a certain, let's say, unsettled mood. Calms me, makes me whole."
"Who's the other elevator?"
"Brutha Fez."
"Who's that?"
"The Sufi rap star. You don't know this?"
"I miss things."
"Cost me major money and made me an enemy of the people, requisitioning that second elevator."
- Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis

What I learnt today: while I prefer open-toe heels, the women at my new workplace all wear proper closed heels. Dang. I hope this doesn't mean an entire footwear revamp.

Yesterday.
I received a pair of painted chopsticks in the mail asking for donations.
Work was described to me as an emotional journey. I hoped I didn't look too incredulous.
I finished my 2nd book within a week, which was only the 6th since the start of this year. Sometimes there is no time to read and then sometimes the floodgates open.

Today.
I read Cosmopolis while commuting to work. The protagonist in the book is on his way to a haircut, and before that he meets his wife of 22 days, who realises there and then that he is blue-eyed. He stands on the sidewalk looking at people, and this is what he thinks.

People hurried past, the others of the street, endless anonymous, twenty-one lives per second, race-walking in their faces and pigments, sprays of fleetest being. They were here to make the point that you did not have to look at them.

And I looked up and did precisely that.

He tried to read his way into sleep but only grew more wakeful. He read science and poetry. He liked spare poems sited minutely in white space, ranks of alphabetic strokes burnt into paper. Poems made him conscious of his breathing. A poem bared the moment to things he was not normally prepared to notice. This was the nuance of every poem, at least for him, at night, these long weeks, one breath after another, in the rotating room at the top of the triplex.
- Don DeLillo, Cosmopolis

Extract from WhatIs.com which will amuse da mouse:

A FlashMob supercomputer is a group of computer enthusiasts who gather together in one physical location for a brief time period in order to function as a supercomputer and work on a single problem. Modeled after the flash mob fad that was popular during the summer of 2003, FlashMob supercomputing involves gathering together interested participants who are willing to bring their laptops and PCs to a pre-determined location.

The first FlashMob supercomputing event will be held on April 3, 2004 at the University of San Francisco and is being organized by graduate student John Witchel. As participants arrive, they will be given a FlashMob I CD-ROM; the program boots up and runs from the CD-ROM as a security precaution. The goal of the first FlashMob supercomputing event is to see whether or not an ad hoc network of combined computing power can join the elite group of the 500 most powerful supercomputers. A secondary goal is to demonstrate the viability of supercomputing outside a supercomputer center setting.

I went to the MPH book sale with my best friend and M today. I've still got a stash of unread books from previous MPH book sales, but as my best friend pointed out, the books are so cheap that you won't feel bad if you've only read half of what you've bought. Anyway, I'm glad he also owns a copy of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time now.

My mixed bag of purchases include:
1) Aimee Bender's An Invisible Sign of My Own.
About a girl who loves numbers, knocks on wood, adds her steps, and multiplies people in the park against one another.
The first time I skimmed through this book was at the old MPH Stamford branch. I guess I have an affinity for people who like numbers.

2) Don DeLillo's Cosmopolis.
About a 28 yr old billionaire asset manager who gets into his limousine to get a haircut across town, and gets stalled along the way like in a contemporary odyssey, complete with presidential motorcade, music idol's funeral and violent political demonstration.
This is the second time I've seen this book. The first time was at another book sale at Marina with da mouse, and somehow I let this book go then. Not this time.

3) Steve Kemper's Code Name Ginger.
The only scientific book of the lot. This one traces the project developing the Segway Human Transporter by inventor Dean Kamen.

4) Chuck Palahniuk's Diary.
I have a thing for Chuck Palahniuk ever since Fight Club, and this was before it got made into a movie. I own or have read nearly every Chuck Palahniuk book already. Reading him is an instinct, just like it is with Douglas Coupland and Haruki Murakami. There isn't a choice.

5) Christopher Locke's Gonzo Marketing (Winning Through Worst Practices).
The only marketing book of the lot. Locke is a co-author of Cluetrain Manifesto, another radical and hilarious marketing book I own but haven't finished reading.

6) The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Dating & Sex.
Has many valuable tips like one how to escape from a bad date, determine if your date is married, and determine the gender of your date.

7) Tama Janowitz's The Male Cross-Dresser Support Group.
Cos I own her other book Slaves of New York and her characters are dysfunctional and whacky.

8) Scott Adams' Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel.
Cos every IT geek (yes I am one) worships Scott Adams.

9) Tony Peake's biography of Derek Jarman.
Jarman was a controversial film-maker, author, painter and gay activist. Have I watched/ read or seen any of his works? Not at all. But the idea of his super-8 films intrigues me.

I guess the above (besides 4 boxes of unread books) helps answer Spacefan's question of why I don't watch TV. lol.
And now there is more reason to read blogs less and books more.

A diver friend once told me that he felt invincible after he's mastered diving, like the whole world's at his feet and there's nothing he can't do. This is how I feel about film sourcing. So thank you for giving me this film after all.

Prime numbers are what is left when you have taken all the pattens away. I think prime numbers are like life. They are very logical but you could never work out the rules, even if you spent all your life thinking about them.
- Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

Over banana and ice-cream pratas early this morning, a book was described briefly to me. It's Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a murder mystery about an autistic boy who knows a great deal about maths and very little about human beings. This book stayed lodged in my mind the whole day cos I felt a strange affinity to it. The great deal about maths reminded me of my best friend's fascination with maths and his axiom that "God exists if parallel lines exist". The very little about human beings reminded me of my own oblivion to people, just like the autistic boy needed to show people pictures of different smileys to ascertain their moods.

So though I'm going to hit the book sale tomorrow with my best friend, I dropped by a bookstore this evening to check it out anyway. I guess you can tell I seldom exercise any self-restraint when it comes to buying books and I didn't this time either. Happy.

What made me smile today: an audacious tongue-in-cheek 17 second song by Jazzanova entitled E-Ovation, which layers the sounds of people clapping. It starts with slow staccato claps before more and more faster and discordant clapping rhythms are introduced. At the end of it, it becomes a thunderous applause.

I would like to be this song, personified.

Today some of the other bakers told me that if I considered starting my own bakery, they would join me. It was said in a joking manner but they really meant it. They thought I could work, would work, and most of all, could forgive wrongdoings.

Once I asked a friend if he could only choose one quality for his Significant Other, what would it be? He answered without hesitation, the capacity to forgive. Not intelligence. Not humour. Not beauty. I didn't understand till later that it takes a lot of heart to forgive, and somehow along the way, I'd learn to forgive relatively well.

Maybe it helps to devote more memory to music and less for grudges.

Good morning, night.

Thanks to the company for pool and supper, I'm feeling better. Saw Dave online and made plans to meet for breakfast in oh, 7 hours? I've been slacking at the project when he was out of the country, but it's time to pick up the pace again. We will do this even if it kills us!

Updated my blog links to be more current. If you're listed but don't wish to be, sorry, just let me know so I can remove the reference. I doubt I'll blog about the One, or if I'm a Cat or Dog person. The truth is I'm running short of time to do all the things I love, and blogging is eating into that tiny reserve of time. Everything else will be given top priority because life is too damn short.

Be happy to be alive won't you.

How can anyone gain and lose and gain and maybe still lose a film within 4 hours? Urgh. I hate myself. I thought I tried so hard but somehow it wasn't enough. And if finally I do get it after all, I fear there may be this peculiar frustration that I was given a pardon though I didn't deserve it.

Dinner and the chat were lovely. Somehow I'm basking in a rosy afterglow now and think I'm too content to blog. If you were there, thanks for your company!

A friend's first and last trip to the National Library is the only memory of it. Mine dated back to a secondary school field trip there, on an assignment to check out the newspaper archives on the day we were born. I half expected to see newspaper as old as I was, in its yellow and tattered glory. Instead, I had to scroll through microfilm. It turned out that day was the day of the greatest flood that year; and somehow after that, the National Library always seemed to me like a lost Atlantis, with its treasures hidden in deep waters from men.