Another interesting conversation with Tweewo. One thing we discussed about was language. I said Mandarin was economical (with the use of 4 tones to distinguish between words with the same "spelling", and even then the same tone can represent different words). Tweewo thought that spoken Mandarin was economical at the expense of sounding beautiful. Then we went on to compare language with women as an analogy. So French was like Ms Universe (stunningly gorgeous); English was like your older sister (pretty but not stunning); Spanish and other assorted European languages were like the girl next door (charming in their own way); while Mandarin was well, like your teacher (functional and well, older). lol.

Despite this, I still think that Mandarin is a beautiful language, especially when sung. :)

Coincidentally at a film screening, I bumped into a friend who had the same ear treatment as I had. Except that he was advised to apply eardrops for 2 weeks to his ear, to soften the wax before the procedure could be done (though he only did it for a week). And we supposedly bypassed the procedure to wash out the wax using a syringe cos our cases were more severe. Though I only talked to him after the event, this conversation did quite a fair bit to calm me.

It's wonderful to be able to sleep without creating a mini-vacuum everytime I sleep on my side and turn the blocked ear on the pillow.

They used a vacuum machine with a long thin rod to suck out my ear wax at the hospital, but somehow that sounded much milder than it was. What it was was damn painful (high pressure & high pitched whines), and I shed tears automatically and continuously like a leaking faucet. Idiot.

Reason #254 why I love the library:
Though I couldn't find a copy of Cortázar's Hopscotch in Borders, I managed to find it 20 minutes later after crossing over to the Orchard library.

In exchange for not being tasked to cook for the girls (don't ask), I've followed them to sign up for salsa class, and today we did our first 2 hours. The travelmates were hollering for beer (both BEFORE and AFTER dance class) cos my US travelmate can't dance when sober. And I'm not used to reacting directly to a dance partner or having structured dance steps, and I fear I've caught the teacher's eye for being the troublesome one. Oops. I guess we're all in for some interesting times.

I woke up in the middle of the night with persistent ringing in my right ear and muffled hearing. I guess you probably know by now I get paranoid with any ear problems, so I went off to consult on it early morning. Seemed like ear wax has compacted against my right eardrum and they'll need to syringe it out. Unfortunately, they can't do this till Monday so can I please wait? So I wait.

Otherwise, today isn't half bad (though somehow all my meals today were at MacDonald's, and I didn't get any Incredible toys either).

Mobile phone resolutions:
1. No more sending of sms that goes 'K'. People have got to read my mind that I've replied in the affirmative.
2. No more sending of sms when I'm running late. Despite everyone's abhorance to speak on the phone when they can send a sms instead, I'm going to terrorise folks by calling now.
3. No more sending of sms to colleagues in the same meeting. Everyone's got to login to yahoo! messenger to be privy to my thoughts on who's the wanker in the meeting.
4. Sms the girls less. NO! NO! NO!

Dang. Just when I've gotten an idea to pass around and continue a story via sms.

My mobile phone bills are getting ridiculous. I'm on a corporate plan with lots of talk time and only 300 sms, but I've gotten 926 sms last month alone with more leeway on my talk time. The problem is: I'm not allowed to switch to a plan with more sms without downgrading my plan, and this isn't allowed for the corporate scheme. Urgh.

Conversation with Tweewo was like racing cars switching lanes rather than switching gears. We had fun and never set off the airbags. lol.

Topics I can remember ranged from:
programming languages (C, C++, C# and the latest one called Python. But why Python?);
guerilla programming (Tweewo's knack to learn up a new programming language by just getting a book and CD ROM on it);
scientists (Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Stephen Hawking.. I remembered Tweewo once stumbled upon a music group that sampled Stephen Hawking's distorted electronic voice);
the Segway Human Transporter and South Park's parody of it;
Terry Pratchett and Douglas Adams;
hand-rolled cigarettes (strangely where Tweewo came from, this was called a shag);
work (I realise Tweewo sells his brains while I only sell my skills);
music (the Pixies have regrouped, and PJ Harvey's latest album is just Buy Buy! rather than Buy Buy Buy!);
and the urban myth that 25% of people in meetings are thinking about sex.

It's wonderful to nearly start the weekend with good company and conversation.

Most embarrassing moment today. I received a call on my mobile phone just now before I was due to step into the lift. A friend was asking me if I remembered which song Bridget Jones was leading the other girls to sing in the latest Bridget Jones movie. She went: "It's not Material Girl. What is it?" and I replied: "Like a Virgin" just as I got into the lift and faced a whole bunch of strangers. Yes, I have good enunciation and a voice that carries, especially when no one else was speaking. Woohoo.

Music right up da mouse's alley, and an amusing album title too. lol.
Blanche: "If We can't Trust the Doctors.."

I like my hair most when it's just been washed after I've had a run. When I've not blown dry it and it hangs like limp seaweed and pretends to wave; and if I duck my head a little, the seaweed will engulf my face.

Today I was the only baker in a meeting with oven folks. I still haven't a clue why I was there, but everyone was debating on how to size an oven accurately to accomodate the desired cake. The oven builders from competiting companies were sharing ideas freely, while the oven sellers were more dodgy. I've often been told I have an aptitude for sales, but my nature votes strongly against it. I choose to stand by the techies everytime.

No one can retell the plot of a Cortázar story; each one consists of determined words in a determined order. If we try to summarize them, we realize that something precious has been lost.
- Jorge Luis Borges

Courtesy of Yoyo, who blogged first about the writings of Julio Cortázar.

+
Horacio, the moralist, fearful of passions born without some deep-water reason, disconcerted and surly in the city where love is called by all the names of all the streets, all the buildings, all the flats, all the rooms, all the beds, all the dreams, all the things forgotten or remembered.

My love, I do not love you for you or for me or for the two of us together, I do not love you because my blood tells me to love you, I love you because you are not mine, because you are from the other side, from there where you invite me to jump and I cannot make the jump, because in the deepest moment of possession you are not in me, I cannot reach you, I cannot get beyond your body, your laugh, there are times when it torments me that you love me (how you like to use the verb to love, with that vulgarity you toss it around among plates and sheets and buses), I’m tormented by your love because I cannot use it as a bridge because a bridge can’t be supported by just one side, and don’t look at me with those bird’s eyes, for you the operation of love is so simple, you’ll be cured before me even if you love me as I do not love you. Of course you’ll be cured, because you are living in health, after me it’ll be someone else, you can change things the way you do a blouse. So sad to listen to Horacio the cynic who wants a passport-love, a mountain pass-love, a key-love, a revolver-love, a love that will give him the thousand eyes of Argos, ubiquity, the silence out of which music is possible, the root out of which language can be woven. And it’s foolish because all that is sleeping a little in you, all you would have to do is submerge yourself in a glass of water like a Japanese flower and little by little colored petals would begin to bloom, the bent forms would puff up, beauty would grow. Infinite giver, I do not know how to take, forgive me. You are offering me an apple and I’ve left my teeth on the night-table. Stop, it’s fine that way. I can also be rude, take note of that. But take good note because it’s not gratuitous.

Why stop? For fear of starting fabrications, they’re so easy. You get an idea from there, a feeling from the other shelf, you tie them together with the help of words, black bitches, and it turns out that I want you. Partial total: I want you. General total: I love you. That’s the way a lot of my friends live, not to mention an uncle and two cousins convinced of the love-they-feel-for-their-wives. From words to deeds, hey; in general without the verba there isn’t any res. What a lot of people call loving consists of picking out a woman and marrying her. They pick her out, I swear, I’ve seen them. As if you could pick in love, as if it were not a lightning bolt that splits your bones and leaves you stalked out in the middle of the courtyard. You’ll probably say that they pick her out because-they-love-her. I think it's just the siteoppo. Beatrice wasn’t picked out, Juliet wasn’t picked out. You don’t pick out the rain that soaks you to the skin when you come out of a concert. But I’m alone in my room now, I’m falling into tricks of writing, the black bitches get their vengeance any way they can, they’re biting me from underneath the table. Do you say underneath or under? They bite you just the same. Why, why, pour quoi, por que, warum, perche this horror of the words, those black bitches?

Horacio, Horacio.

Merde, alors. Why not? We looked at each other and I think we began to desire each other (but that was later on, on the Rue Reamur) and a memorable dialogue resulted, clothed from head to toe in misunderstandings, maladjustments that dissolved into vague moments of silence, until our hands began to chat, it was sweet stroking hands while we looked at each other’s mouth, we rubbed each other with our eyes as we smiled, we were so much in agreement of everything that it was shameful, Paris was dancing there outside waiting for us, we’d barely disembarked, we were barely alive, everything was there without a name and without a history. When we said goodbye we were like two children who have suddenly become friends at a birthday party and keep looking at one another while their parents take them by the hand and lead them off, and it’s a sweet pain and a hope, and you know the name of one is Tony and the other one Lulu, and that’s all that’s needed for the heart to become a little piece of fruit, and…

Strangest band and album title of the day:
Chin Up Chin Up's album We Should Never Have Lived Like We Were Skyscrapers.

And how did it feel to live like skyscrapers? Rooted and immobile? Packed in like sardines? Filled with insignificant people? And too full of our invulnerability to wonder about falling, but not tall enough to kiss the sky?

Had a nice dinner with my US travelmate just now, during which conversation didn't revolve round girl chat but instead, focused on workgroup dynamics. I'm glad we had the discussion cos I wasn't able to adopt a neutral stance, so thank you dear.

If life is like groundhog day, it doesn't make sense even if we were some other groundhog. Time to break some rules.

Today in monotonous summary:
Watched the quirky movie Hidden Track, which was about a girl searching for a copy of the hidden track played 7 minutes after the last song on 500 of Jay Chou's albums. Why? Cos this was the song which reminded her of her lost love. Afterwards, this led me to buy Jay Chou's album Fantasy, making Jay the only other Chinese musician I listen to besides Faye Wong.

We spent 3 hours browsing through the audio fair and:
- found the same scene in The House of Flying Daggers was used repeatedly by a few different vendors to showcase their home theatre products, and I've still not seen the show.
- bumped into a friend of b12's accidentally at a magazine launch.
- discovered that plants are a cheaper and prettier noise absorption option than a bare mattress.
- I took pictures of albums which interested me.

Today I've also received a yellow flash lomolito camera from K and M (thanks!) and bought the latest DJ Shadow concert DVD.

All in all, a pretty good day.

Today Anarchy took pictures of nearly every drink we had (except the Bei Song canned drinks, and I've drunk all their flavours by now). He took pictures of our milk tea and jelly drinks and included a profile shot of me (with my face hidden by my hair and only the tip of my nose showing cos I'm photophobic), and labelled the drinks installation art and me situational art. Eh ok. And he turned out to be a better radio control car driver than I am too. lol.

Anyway, he also asked the question of the day, which is: if DVDs are the same size as CDs, why are DVD jewel cases not the same as CDs but so space consuming instead? I could only answer feebly that it's to differentiate them from CDs, but as he rightly pointed out, there are other ways to do that. So if you know the answer, do let me know ok?

Last night I watched Tommy, the zero-dialogue all-music movie based on the Who's rock opera. It garnered 2 Oscar nominations in 1975 but I have no idea why, cos it's just a big budget piece of shit (yes, really). It was so bad I couldn't stop watching; I couldn't believe it could get any worse (and of cos it did). The lead character Tommy was 6 yrs old when he witnessed his mother and her lover murder his father; thereafter he was so traumatised he became a self-imposed deaf and blind mute even till he grew up. He was abused in all manners as an excuse to save him, but nothing worked. Finally he found he was a champion at pinball (despite being deaf, blind and mute), and became a pinball messiah worshipped by the masses. Riight. I don't think I'm going to listen to the Who's music in a hurry.

I think they're giving away the plastic figurine of Elastigirl from the Incredibles with every Happy Meal purchased from Mac's from today onwards.
Be forewarned: one of you out there is doomed to eat junk food with me this weekend.

I knew I'd hate COBOL the moment I saw they'd used 'perform' instead of 'do'.
- Larry Wall, programmer, creator of Perl programming language

It's possible for me to be too tired to hold conversations with taxi drivers. I dashed to and from my customer's within 3 hours today and didn't chat with the taxi driver on either trip. Only 10 minutes after I've reached the customer's, I was summoned away with the rest to attend a fire drill. Bad timing, but at least I phoned with 3 colleagues regarding work in the interim.
Yes I know, it's time for me to re-evaluate my life.

+
Seen on the back of a jersey worn by the girl in front of me on an escalator:
"Help love triumph over the might of the Sinistrals!" I snapped a picture of the jersey cos I had no idea who the Sinistrals are. Well I still have no idea, but at least I've blogged about it and I figure someone else is going to find out for me. It's good to have inquisitive friends.

+
And: "The only constant in everything wrong with your life is you."
But: "The only constant in everything right with your life is you too."
So don't sweat it.

In a bid for my blog to load faster, I've removed the tagboard and changed to archiving entries by month. I guess since I write such short snippets, loading a month at a go won't be that taxing. I hope I don't have to resort to posting one long joint entry per day yet.

Courtesy of Anarchy.
Road trip across America on a Segway.

Well, a road trip across Singapore will be pretty quick.

On strange herbal concoctions. Quest and I were standing next to a herbal drink dispenser at the Takashimaya basement food court when we noticed the sign over it. It translated roughly into: "24 blah-blah herbs/ 26 blah-blah herbs" where "blah-blah" could be substituted for all manners of key words like nutritious/ potent/ healthy. But since there was only one dispenser, where could the extra 2 herbs come from if a customer chose the 26 herb mixture? We pondered briefly over this, and Quest finally remarked that they probably had to put the 2 extra herbs into the cup before pouring in the 24 herb mixture, somewhat like a tea bag concept. Hmm.

On the other hand, I'm falling in love with this soybean canned drink called "Bu Shuang", or "Bei Song" (in Hokkien). The name roughly means "not happy or contented", and there is nothing flashy on the can except the name written boldly along it. This is really reverse advertising at its cleverest. What do you mean you won't feel happy after drinking this? What do you mean you won't fall in love, make lots of money, get your dream job and look gorgeous after drinking this? How dare they make a drink just a drink?! That really makes me smile.

There was a talk I attended where we were recommended to calm down by thinking sad thoughts. That's when I closed my eyes and tried to picture the planes crashing into the Twin Towers in New York. I saw the first plane crashing into the first twin tower, followed by the second plane crashing into the other one. The problem was: I couldn't summmon the sadness because I wasn't sure if the crash sequence was correct. I ran this image by one friend, and he thought that there was only one plane crashing into the twin towers. Then I related this to another friend, who thought that there were two planes, except both were aiming at the same twin tower.

I think I need a new sad thought.

Another reason why life is like an iPod:
(Battery) life is too short.

I lent my iPod to a friend and got it back recently. It left me with 10+ GB of songs and came back with an extra 2 GB he's transferred in. That really thrilled me cos I'm looking forward to listening to new music, but the problem is the songs he's uploaded aren't readily identifiable. This means I've got to scroll through the list of artistes or albums for the unfamiliar ones. It doesn't help that my friend and I have similar music tastes, so I'm not too sure which are the ones he's added. But it's an adventure anyway, like a treasure hunt without clues.

So today I was walking down Orchard Road on my way to meet a friend, and I started scrolling through my iPod list. Just then I saw the song you've recorded for me, and I've forgotten about it cos it's been a while. You were always one for extravagance... others gave me songs, but you had to sing them too. Playing your song was almost an automatic reflex. This was how you started. You said, "Dear invisible" and rattled off with your intro, while you plucked your new guitar strings melodramatically. All the while you switched between your speaking (American) and singing (British) accents, and tried to act campy though in truth, you did sing well.

And you were so funny I listened to you from start till end with this huge grin on my face. I guess it must have looked really weird to other passerbys but I didn't really give a damn. It was a spontaneous memory of you and a wonderful one, and I realise it was more than enough.

Life is like an iPod. You never know what song you're gonna get.

If we all take the backseat, who's gonna drive?

On how a friend tried to use film to explain to me the difference between the driving speed of a Peugeot and an Evo-8.

Him: "Look, let's do this in terms of films. Think of Peugeot like a film by Cocteau."
Me: "I don't remember any films by Cocteau. Is he the director of Beauty & the Beast? That old black and white version?"
Him: "I don't know, was that him?"
Me: "Can't we compare with another director then?"
Him: "Well, it's got to be french like the car."
Me: "How about Goddard?"
Him: "No, Goddard is too much."
Me: "Too avant garde? I mean, either you love or hate french cinema."
Him: "Ok, think of it this way. If you did know Cocteau, then Peugeot is like Cocteau coming up against a Japanese film like Zatoichi. Bam! There's just no competition."

And strangely I got him.

There was something about having intervened at the exact moment of heartbreak that evoked a deepening melancholy.
- Steve Martin, The Pleasure of my Company

Been out for at least 14 hours today and somewhere along the way, I persuaded Quest to buy a car. In fact, we both bought them in the same colour. lol. Actually, they're micro-radio control toy cars from the toy fair at the Takashimaya basement. I had this idea we could buy and race our toy cars on the spot, but it failed because a) you need a screwdriver to open the lid to place the batteries in and I only had a tiny swiss army knife without the screwdriver function, and b) even if we had inserted the batteries, both toy cars are the same colour and well, identifying the winner will be challenging won't it? What resulted was we took our toy cars and headed for the motor show to see real cars with our friends instead.

I think that could have been the first and last motor show I'm ever attending. We walked around for 3 hours, during which the guys were amused by my lack of interest and know-how in cars. Every technical detail was met with a glazed-over look, and I would reply gamely with: "So, what colour is the car?" It was fun though just to hang out and bump into people Quest knows.

Quest once mentioned that there are very few people he'll bother to go out of his way to meet just for an hour, and that I'm one of them. Thank you. If I've never replied properly, I'll gladly do that for you too.

Today was spent borrowing DVDs, shopping and hanging out with Yoyo. Well, I only bought Manic Street Preachers' latest album Lifeblood and a cheap $8 multi-colour beaded ring (I took one look at it and thought that it would amuse me at least 8 minutes so that's $1 per minute of entertainment.. very worth it). I tried to engage in more retail therapy, but Yoyo understandably didn't have much spirit for it. lol.

The strangest incident today was when I bumped into a girlfriend I've not met since we've graduated from secondary school. We squealed and talked a mile a minute and made promises to catch up again, together with another 2 ex-classmates of ours. Later over dinner, I was still musing over this with Yoyo.

Me: "I can't imagine that one of my ex-classmates already has a husband and 3 kids!"
Him: "While you only have a $8 ring?"

That certainly puts things into perspective doesn't it?

I forgot the witch's hat. I've never had one before. There was a time just after junior college when I was obsessed with all sorts of caps, and I would wear one with my long hair tucked under it. I looked like a boy and that was fine. I wore a cap everywhere I went and there was once I bought a delicately embroidered lilac skull cap. A friend who saw me wearing it told me bluntly I looked like a cancer patient who had undergone chemotherapy. Since then I've lost the friend but not the skull cap, and no one has seen me wear any headgear again.

Somewhere along the way I've lost my voice. Or rather, I've lost the inclination to speak. In company, odd memories will be zapping through my brain at warp speed but nothing trips off my tongue. Yet when I'm alone, all the words will come rushing back. Like how I remembered jotting down song titles sorted alphabetically in scrap books when I was a child, and how different songs with the same titles would throw me out of whack. And how I thought that though my #1 dream job was to be a librarian, I wouldn't mind directing music videos either.

I envy the ease with which Ethan Hawke and Julie Delphy's characters conversed in Before Sunset. That was a good line wasn't it, when she said, "Memories is a good thing if you don't have to deal with the past"? The screenplay for that movie was written by both actors and the director. Perhaps they sat around, drank lots and talked on and on. Or perhaps they listened to music lazily and read books, and looked up occasionally to comment on a lovely line. I want to do what they did.

I said, "Clarissa, you're a desirable girl; just sit quietly and you will resurrect." But wait, I didn't say it. I only thought it.
- Steve Martin, The Pleasure of my Company

I want to say that too. Just sit quietly and you will resurrect.

Mixbag of thoughts.
Today I met my UK travelmate and Yoyo consecutively for spontaneous breakfast though I think I wasn't quite awake. Yoyo lent me a double-CD album of Glenn Gould's rendition of The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, in the sleevenotes of which Glenn Gould described a harpsipiano (a harpsipiano?!) as "a neurotic piano that thinks it's a harpsichord". I must hear this instrument.

I've been avoiding phone calls and emails from the Australian I met at Borders, who's trying to meet up with me. He's the plague, you can say. He has asked me to read the latest issue of Vanity Fair for musical inspiration. I don't mean to belittle this magazine, but it's not music fodder, no?

I've never been sent a sms message in a film screening by someone sitting just next to me. Until now that is.

Oh, and my customer just called. Time for work.

I feel like my baker and I are the 2 sleepiest people in the world now. We got called at approximately 10.15pm, 2.30am, 4.15am, 8.30am, 9am and 10.15am, and are on standby tonight again for the 4th night in a row. Basically I slept fitfully clutching my mobile phone, but it's odd how coherent I sounded when the call came in, cos I remembered bantering with the customer.

If I've got to classify my relationship with my customers, I guess it's more along the line of a tempestuous love affair. Other people may have one night stands (short interaction time) or marriages (more meaningful and long term), but mine are volatile and intense. My customers need attention right here right now and everything hinges on the moment.

Got home after 1am and managed to sleep 6 hours. Going to hit work soon but here's what I've learnt from 1 of 2 bosses.

Tip #1: What to do if you have more cakes to bake than you have bakers.

Assuming you have an ideal ratio of 1 baker: 1 cake, but are forced into a situation where 1 baker needs to bake more than 1 cake. Choose the most important cake to bake and give that your best shot. For the other cakes, throw their cake mixture into the ovens and let them bake by God's grace. If they get burnt and customers complain, well someone is bound to notice and bring in more bakers.

Tip #2: If you look hard enough, you'll find God. So never give up.

Unbelievably today is worse, if that's possible.
The grandfather of bad days:
I'm surviving on 3+ hours of sleep, am still at the customer's, and there's no end in sight.
No matter what time I sleep, I'll have to wake at 9am to make an apologetic phone call to another customer.
Tomorrow I've got 2 meetings scheduled, assuming I wrap up tonight's problem.
I'm public enemy #1 cos I'm redeploying my team all over the place to put out fires based on how critical they are. Unfortunately, this means some fires aren't attended to until some time later, and folks who get burnt are not happy.

If this carries on, tomorrow is going to be the Immortal of bad days.

The grandmother of bad days won't be satisfied until she's metamorphosised into the great-grandmother. Which meant that I got a distress call from a customer overseas just before midnight, for a technical problem I couldn't solve unless I woke up a baker. But I couldn't reach the baker, so I tried solving the problem myself to no avail. And now I'm going to try to sleep and wake up to go to the customer's in the morning.

And did I mention that these are the folks who complained about my service level just today?

Our country is a giant playground! A kiddie land where unmarried folks live with their parents and don't have to grow up! We're all molly coddled by the governmental nurse maids!

Well, come flame me. I dare you.

Yesterday, I've had another taxi driver encounter (this time he serenaded us with a song) but somehow I don't feel in the mood to blog about it. I guess that'll be a proxy blog entry elsewhere if it surfaces. :)

Today started out as the mother of all bad days, and aged rapidly to become the grandmother of all bad days. Suffice to say I was upset to the point of resigning (but I didn't). I still ended up being the last person at work, and would have slogged on through the night but for that nice gesture to wait for a late dinner with me. So thank you for the sanest moment I had today.

The song is Because I love you by Shakin' Stevens, not Cat Stevens.

But would she be tolerant when I started listing my peculiarities? Would she understand my need for the apartment's lightbulbs to total exactly 1125 watts when lit?
- Steve Martin, The Pleasure of my Company

Because, like the guys keep trying to tell me, we are NOT normal.

Blog snapshot.
Films watched in 6 days: Tokyo Eyes. Le Cercle Rouge. Clean. Savage Planet. Cinema Electronica. Shynola Rarities. Resfest shorts. (Even I find it amazing how I've got time to watch films no matter how busy I am.)

Books borrowed today: Steve Martin's The Pleasure of my Company (yes, another actor turned novelist) and Don DeLillo's Players.

Gig: Danny Tenaglia at Zouk. I'm definitely not into tribal house, no matter how famous or good the DJ is. Tony's breakbeats set at Phuture was much more danceable. Anyway, the dancefloor dynamics was such that I started out at Zouk with 3 guy friends, lost them one by one, got migrated slowly but surely further back from the DJ console, and ended up upstairs at Phuture.

Taxi driver conversation: The taxi driver sending me home from Zouk considered ang moh guys his worst clubbing passengers and Malay youths his best (he didn't rank Chinese women so I didn't know where I stood with him).

Screening venue with worst phone reception: Asian Civilisations museum auditorium wins, no contest. It's in the basement and at least that guarantees no annoying disruptions from mobile phones during Resfest screenings. However, there's the dash up the staircase inbetween screenings just to check for sms messages.

Resfest: Yes, tickets are steep ($15) and they start late everytime (the worst was a 30 minute delay). But the films are good and they have freebies at the Lounge (DVD, magnet, notebook, posters, festival guide). Give it a chance.

Sleep: Not enough of. So here we go.

As my colleagues are in different locations, I use Yahoo Messenger mainly to communicate with them. If you've got a Yahoo Messenger account, you'll realise it allows sending of audible messages. Now there's a range of Halloween greetings, one of which is a screaming woman. Well, that's become my symbol now. Most messages from colleagues to me will be surprise notes on more work to come my way, and in turn I'll send them back the audible of the (loud) screaming woman.

No, it's not funny.

What I've never understood #633: Why isn't Milo served on planes?

It's true. I've got 2 bosses, both stationed in the same country but not the same building as I, and whom I've not met in weeks. In fact, I could have stopped working and gone on a trip and come back without either being any wiser. Perhaps I would have a chance to meet either of them by the end of this month, but that's iffy as far as I'm concerned.

But you know, coupled with my workload, this is really no reason to want my job.

Status check on my life now.

I'm now 35 pages from finishing Paulo Coelho's novel Eleven Minutes (cos 11 minutes is supposedly how long it takes to have sex), and 77 minutes into watching Le Cercle Rouge (which I've halted to go sleep). Neither will be completed tonight but the book is definitely leading the race.

I'm drinking more coffee in a bid to stay awake but it has become less effective on me.

I miss clubbing. Or rather, I miss dancing.

I've friends who:
only hear "wa wa wa" when I talk too fast;
find the MacDonald's ad amusing, especially the part when a figure steps next to the Golden Arches and taps on it;
can find me a discount on rabbit fur coats if I ever need one; and
like me, still can't understand Americans, their president or their election results.

It's good to be me.

No matter how far you have gone on the wrong road, turn back.
- Turkish proverb

Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, drew a circle with a piece of red chalk and said: "When men, even unknowingly, are to meet one day, whatever may befall each, whatever their diverging paths, on the said day, they will inevitably come together in the red circle.

Le Cercle Rouge is a film inspired by the above line. It was directed by Jean-Pierre Melville, who changed his last name to Melville out of admiration for Herman Melville (author of "Moby Dick"). I've had a picture of this movie poster for the longest time but I've never caught this french heist film till now. It's films like this that redeems french cinema for me.

resfest digital film festival this weekend. What are you waiting for?

Thought of the day is on breaking someone's finger. The middle finger to be precise. What should be the best way to break it? Does that mean the middle finger will be in a cast, and the person will be giving everyone else the finger perpetually? And is it possible to insure a finger and not the whole hand? Or at least one hand and not both?