There's a song by Costeau called "The last good day of the year", and I guess that's today isn't it? But somehow it feels odd to celebrate the end of the year, what with the tsunami disaster death toll rising all the time. Tens of thousands die everyday from the time we wake till the time we sleep. Now I've just checked that it's 116,000. 116,000! How could so many people die? This is ridiculously sad. Everyone I know is doing some donation but really, it doesn't even come close.

Don't let this be the way the world ends. Please.

The day before the day before New Year.
I'm desperately seeking Quarksland, an album by german duo Quark (who still sings in German instead of caving in to croon in English). Yesterday I stood next to a HMV staff as we tried different permutations in vain to hunt this album down. Nada.

A friend emailed that 2 yrs ago, she was caught in a bottle-throwing fight simply cos boy X stared at boy Y. She wrote: boys with big eyes + alcohol = bad. When I read that, I laughed as I wondered what it will be for girls with big eyes + alcohol.

I can't take a day off work without being flooded by work-related calls but at least I'm still alive. Thank you.

Where it is a duty to worship the sun, it is pretty sure to be a crime to examine the laws of heat.
- John Morley, statesman and writer (1838-1923)

Download a lovely pick of top 10 songs this year as chosen by Rub.

The music picks of 2004 in haiku

There is no competition assessing intelligence or character worth. There is no cross to bear. There is no victim. There is no righteous martyr. At most, this is fitting for a schoolyard squabble.

I've blogged once that the awful thing about life is that everyone has their reasons. That's not it. The awful thing about life is when you believe your reason supercede someone else's and act accordingly.

My last take on this issue. No response needed. Let's see to the bigger things in life.

There are more important things in life. Don't just lament, do something to help.

[Information courtesy of Dave]
If you wish to help raise funds for the Tsunami disaster, you can donate to the Red Cross by sending a cheque to:

Red Cross House
15 Penang Lane
Singapore 238486

Address cheque to "Singapore Red Cross Society", and at the back of the cheque, write "Tidal Waves". You can write your name, address and contact number there too.

I've checked that the entire amount donated (either cash or cheque) will be forwarded to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent for further distribution.

You do not force someone to speak for you. Not for your burning truths.

Best moment today: Left leg still trembled but after some tries, it stopped and I managed to climb up my first wall today. I didn't have to wait for another 27 rock climbing trips!

Worst moment today: Being put on the spot. No matter how forgiving I try to be, I fucking hate that. Luckily I wasn't scaling the wall when the phone call came. The strange thing is: why would you phone someone whom you knew was rock climbing? So what was more important, your idea of ethics or someone else's life?

While some people have natural coordination skills for sports and other activities, I unfortunately need to think it through and practise lots to learn. I especially suck at activities which need interaction with other people. So after taking up (and dropping) salsa class with the girls, I've found myself embarking on indoor rock climbing.

To be frank, I've never climbed anything when I was young and I don't really know how my body will react. So it was with amazement that I found out, while clinging a few metres up a wall, that I was afraid of heights. My left leg began trembling violently, visible even to my rock climbing partner and instructor on the floor. Everyone started yelling at me to climb up but I simply froze. The body refused to obey, so they had to let me come down.

The thing is I've never had any problem with heights before. I've leaned over balconies on top of skyscrapers and towers to marvel at the view below without much anxiety. But being who I am, I went to buy a pair of $140 rock climbing shoes a few days later, just to make sure I will go back and assess my true feelings about heights.

My uk travelmate told me I would need to climb at least 28 times to fully depreciate the shoes (cos it's $5 for rental). So maybe that's how I'll be starting my new year.. with 28 attempts to overcome my fear of height.

I don't care what consequence it brings
I have been a fool for lesser things
I want you so bad, I think you ought to know that
I intend to hold you for the longest time
- Billy Joel, For the Longest Time

Meltdown before Christmas. Christmas eve in the office with lots of work but we're in no mood to do it. Instead, folks sat around idly in the meeting room waiting for others to appear. Someone started humming Billy Joel's For the Longest Time and I chimed in. A colleague high-5'd the overhead projector rather than use the remote controller, and we counted down to Christmas with the countdown screen flashed by the overhead projector.

If only we could leave this place.

Getting to know someone the high-tech way.

Me: "What's up with this new guy you met?"
Girlfriend: "I've got his MSN and Yahoo IDs, email addresses, mobile phone numbers and website. I just did a google on him and he could have been a senior mechanical engineer in Taiwan, a radiologist in UK or a sales representative in China. I've not hooked up to his Friendster yet to search through his friends."
Me: "So do you like him?"
Girlfriend: "I don't know enough about him to decide."

Other people's advice is never right.
- namelessnumberheadman, Punch Hung-over

I heard your voice repeating on long, dark boards and stairs.
A static, buzzing beating
We'll force ourselves to care that time has pulled away.
- namelessnumberheadman, Time has Pulled Away

namelessnumberheadman, a band named after Steven Soderbergh's film Schizopolis, is keeping me company tonight after I've watched a DVD of Eric Rohmer's film Boyfriends and Girlfriends. I guess this is what contentment is.

You are not the most good-looking girl but your interests mixed with your bubbly personality creates a They-might-be-giants kind of poppy-yet-entirely-indie mystique. This category appeals for two chief reasons.
First, many of us are alternative-nirvana wanna-bes and we need to be guided into the alter-shrine with a more poppy preacher.
Second, there are many hardcore-undergrounds who have since gotten tired of looking melancholic or lifeless, and clearly want some happiness intoxication.
- my best friend's analysis of me. lol.

This morning I woke up to an email invite from a girlfriend to travel to Brazil next year, and I guess there's where I'm going then. :)

10 things we learnt about blogs.

Mixed bag of thoughts before sleeping:
I've received more Christmas cards from recruitment agencies than from anybody else. Sad.

For me, having permed hair is equivalent to being blonde.

Anarchy doesn't like watching films with best acting awards cos he believes it's the sad films which get these awards. Can't say he's wrong.

Many sms messages vied for top spot today but the winner is this one which went: "Us men. We are all bastards. Remember that. Always." Yes of course.

There is only air where I used to care
- The Owls, Air

Right-click above link to get the song.

Strangest thought today. I was listening to the Owls' song Air, and out of the blue, I suddenly figured out the best way someone could go about breaking up with me (yes, it is an odd thought but then this is absolutely true to how I think). Anyway, this is what he could do.. he could make a Breakup compilation CD to leave behind.

The trick is to include music I would like, but the bulk of them should be new songs I've never heard before. The lyrics would convey everything that needed to be said without actually saying it to me. Since I don't reject music I like, I would be listening involuntarily to the compilation repeatedly. Then I could be buoyed by the same music which would at the same time be letting me down.

Fucked up thought isn't it?

Pumpkin gave me a book of 101 poems to keep me sane: it's a compilation entitled Emergency Rations for the Seriously Stressed. I honestly didn't expect it but then it's just like him to be thoughtful, so thank you. I randomly flipped to a poem which I'll quote here before going to bed. It's been a long but fruitful day.

++

Lots of Things by Eric Fried

Lots of things
can be laughable
such as
kissing my phone
when I have heard
your voice in it.

Not to kiss my phone
when I cannot kiss you
would be
still more laughable
and sadder.

Baking analogy at work today. If you're a new baker visiting a customer's bakery, isn't it common sense to inform the customer beforehand, rather than just appear and start baking without the customer knowing who you are?

As if work's not enough, I've just been given idiot vendors.

Dear friend, I haven't seen you in a while. Tonight our ripples intersected and you passed me some DVDs and CDs you've copied for me. We didn't speak much, but I saw her with you and was glad.

Later I found a song on one of the discs. It was the last song on your compilation: an instrumental piece by Mystic Chords of Memory called "Pi and a Bee". On it, a scratchy piano tune loops through harp strings and violins. It was a joke we shared. You were the social butterfly who knew everyone; and I was the busy bee, the bumble bee. I could tell you saw the title and knew immediately this was my song. Until I heard it, I didn't know how much I needed this song today of all days, but there it was. It arrived in the nick of time.

Thank you.

How to amuse yourself at work #241:
1. Choose a mp3 on your laptop and play it audibly on auto-repeat.
2. Wander from one meeting to another with your laptop still playing music.
3. Step into a lift with only one other occupant. Lift should preferably have a) no piped-in music, and b) a mirrored surface to check out other occupant.
4. Look nonchalant and stifle laughter as the other occupant looks more and more bewildered but is of course, too polite to remark on the sudden soundtrack in his/ her life.
5. Step out of lift trailed by faint notes.

Just had a talk which kinda crushed me. I thought I've done a lot for my team but it seems like I've done good, but not enough. Me and my work have been taken for granted.

Today someone asked me casually if I was happy at work. To be frank, I'm too busy to feel anything but little pockets of happiness, and even then I suspect it's cos I'm easily contented and amused. I mean, if I wake up and my curls stay in place, I'm tickled. If I've got an opportunity to run, I've lucked out. And if I learn something new, I'm amazed (even if it's worthless information like where the nearest HSBC ATM outlet is in Raffles City area, and especially when I don't have a bank account there). It doesn't take much to make me smile, and it sure as hell isn't money.

Sometimes, I don't even understand how I progressed in my career since I'm essentially not career-minded at all. I'm just people-centric. I care about my team and I'm responsible about my work. And so now I'm buried in it. A long time ago, I broke up with an ex partly cos of my work and what it has made of me. Now, I'm still in the same boat (actually a much bigger boat) minus the upset ex.

I just wish I can get rid of the unexpected moments, where in the midst of a pause, my heart becomes an anxious clenched fist. Where I look at people during meetings and will myself not to walk past them, out the door and hurl myself down the corridor. These moments.. they are gathering momentum.

Random thought #112: When I play pool on a continuous stretch, I tend to develop a tiny callus at the base of my right index finger. I wonder if I'm gripping the cue stick wrongly since no one else seems to have this problem. On the flipside (and luckily for my pool partners), I've lost the habit to kiss the pool ball for good luck everytime I have a ball in hand.

While chatting to a colleague, I said that we could try to plan for a reduced work week with 3 days (at 12 hrs/ day), a day (at 10 hrs/ day) and a final day (at 8 hrs/ day). Then we looked at each other, realised how insane we sounded, and started to giggle.

I'm not asking for much. Just give me enough time to run.

I don't know if I was more aghast that someone I knew was warded in hospital, or that he brought his office laptop along so he could work. Then I put myself in his position and realised that I could be worse.. I would bring both my office and home laptops along.

Met girlfriends I've not seen for at least 10 years over lunch yesterday. I spotted the group, plopped myself unceremoniously down in a seat and went "hi!", before I realised that except for a closer friend, no one else really recognised me. After much gaping, someone said she would have walked past me along the streets without any sign of recognition. Everyone else could wear their school uniform and look more or less the same. Well, except for me. They didn't understand how I could've morphed into a "wild-child" who bother more about clubbing and playing pool than nursing babies. But once we settled down, people started recalling my past weird antics in school and felt relieved.

Somehow I feel that the present me is a little disappointing to them.

Lesson learnt today:
No matter how short of time you are to handle the tasks at hand, something more urgent and important will crop up to take precedence.

If Assholes Could Fly This Place Would Be An Airport
- EP title by Manitoba (who incidentally, is forced by a law suit to rename Manitoba to Caribou)

The only time I've ever permed my hair was when I was 5 years old, and that was against my will. I remembered wailing throughout cos I couldn't bear the heat generated by the dome-thing which was placed just above my head. I emerged with what my mum thought were cute girlish curls and a firm resolution not to go through that ordeal again. Till now anyway.

The only advice my hairdresser gave was 1) I don't need a comb anymore ("Your fingers are your comb now dear"), and 2) to practise twirling hair round my finger to form curls. Woohoo.

Another baking analogy at work.
One of the customer's people decided to quit. Before he left, he scribbed a note to the customer to say that he has left a slice of the cake in the fridge. However, the customer buried the note on his desk and didn't see it. Hence there was an alarm raised when it was discovered that part of the cake was missing. A baker and I were summoned to examine the oven inside out to locate the missing cake. Obviously we found nothing. Finally we got suspicious and asked the customer to check the fridge.

Even now I never cease to get amazed by stupidity.

While trudging back to my office building after a late evening meeting, I desperately needed music but I didn't have my Discman on me. However, I had my laptop. So I decided to play music on my laptop and turned the volume up as I took the relative long walk back. Who will believe that a sleek top-of-the-range laptop can been relegated to the role of a ghetto blaster? I got quite a few puzzled glances along the way too. lol.

Baking analogy at work today.
Colleague: "The customer has a problem."
Me: "What problem? They have the cake and can eat it too."
Colleague: "That's precisely it."
Me: "What?"
Colleague: "They need help on how to eat it."
Me: "You mean they need me to teach them table etiquette, even though it's not in the baker's job scope."
Colleague: "Bingo."

"God, dwelling in my soul, affects only my consciousness. He never extends beyond me to the outer world, to the course of things. My heart is heavy from such imperfection."
- Aleksandr Sokurov's Mother and Son

Aleksandr Sokurov's Mother and Son is barely over an hour but it's probably the slowest film I've ever watched. There are only 2 people in it: a dying mother and her loving middle-aged son. You never know what happened to the father, or if there were other siblings.

The son cradles the deeply ill mother in bed, and they speak of the strange dreams they've had. The mother wishes to walk and the son asks gently if she is just pretending to be ill. She says yes she is pretending, and he carries her carefully in his arms around the countryside viewed through dreamscape angles. You understand that this is their last hour together and there won't be another such moment.

Later the son says: "People live for no particular reason but they die for a reason." I wish that isn't true for me but I can't really be sure.

Today a colleague fell ill and I did double duty while I found solace in an apple, dried seaweed and too many cups of milo. Someone bought lunch back for me and I've not stepped out of the office longer than 5 minutes at a stretch. (Incidentally, lunch was fishball noodles and a foreign co-worker commented that he won't ever eat fishballs cos they're so.. synthetic. It's like if you place a fishball and a fish side by side, you won't be able to tell that they're related right? Lucky for me, my body wasn't programmed to reject fishballs.)

Last one in the office again and feeling low when I came across this blog linked from Dave's. I cried reading through it and I realise how good it is to be alive. I can do little inconsequential things like wonder when my girlfriend and I should go visit the hairdresser's. I have time to listen to the same song again and again on auto-repeat. I can run (who cares if the distance is shorter and it gets less frequent). I can watch films, even the bad ones which I'm too stunned to walk out of. I can think about anything (information entropy leads the pack in practice and theory). I can complain about work and dream about quitting. I can spend Christmas with my family and friends.

I don't know you but I hope there's music where you are now.

Information entropy, or what leslie was commenting about that made Tweewo offer to clean leslie's laundry.

I don't want to end today with that sad post about work, so I'll write this instead. It's 10pm and I'm finally home. I'v got Marguerite Duras' The Lover to read. A friend is helping me download the New Orders original version of Shell Shock. B12 sent me a cartoon quiz to evaluate my character and I turned out like he did to be SpongeBob SquarePants, who is supposedly everyone's best friend. (Predictably, b12 emailed me an explanation and a picture of SBSP, just in case I'm not tuned into kiddie culture. But guess what? I am. lol.) And Pumpkin boy sms'd me not to let work get me down.

I know I'm going to be alright.

Another nightmare day at work. My office and mobile phones have been ringing non-stop, and inbetween I'm fielding emails and yahoo messages from colleagues. Everyone's saying: "I know you're busy, but this won't take up much of your time and I need it now". I'm so upset I'm not bothering to disguise it like I normally do. People can detect it but that doesn't stop them.

What makes it worse is that music isn't enough to make me better.

I was reading the dictionary. I thought it was a poem about everything.
- Steven Wright, comedian

I have the untiring ability to listen to one song on auto-repeat for the longest time. I can have it on my ipod, CD, office and home laptops; and as I transit from location to location, I'll listen to the song on whichever medium it is stored on. If not cos it's rude, I would have gone through my working day with one earphone plugged into the same song as I attended meetings. And if someone along the way would like to know my state of mind, I would tell them the song and immediately they would have an idea. Like when I first heard Afghan Whigs' Black Love album, I knew that everytime I broke up I would dig this album up and wallow.

Well, today I'm shell shocked.

A nice memory of John Peel and the best band in the world.

I've been good and I've been bad
But common sense I've never had
- New Order, Shell Shock

I'm listening to the Arrogants' cover of this song on auto-repeat now. I know the New Order original was featured in the movie Pretty in Pink, but I just can't seem to recall which scene that was. I just want to figure out how the movie may be altered if the Arrogants' cover was put in place of the original song.

Lots to blog but what makes me happy right this moment is:
Songs by the Arrogants.

Thought of the day: I could have paid more attention to some people if they were songs.

A good friend of mine stumbled onto my blog yesterday.
Welcome to my other world, Pumpkin.

Most of the time before film screenings, I'd be asked on how long that film would run. Last night though, not only did that not happen, everyone I asked actually told me the run-time accurately. It was 145 minutes, and I asked at least 5 people. Amazing. Suffice to say Anarchy hit the nail on the head when he described this epic movie as "Butterfly Lovers in Malaysia". lol.

I've found out today that it is possible to have sauerkraut on a pizza. Wow. I wonder how they came up with that. Did chefs sit around brainstorming in the kitchen when someone came up with the bizarre idea to marry German and Italian cuisine?

Anyway, after dinner we all gathered round a large calendar featuring different travel destinations, and tried to guess the locations by looking at the scenery (except I cheated near the end cos I discovered there were footnotes naming the places, and caught people offguard by my accurate guesses, haha! And USA was featured in 3 out of 12 months, how biased!)

There was the usual strange banter over the largest packet of dried Japanese fish b12 brought along (which we jokingly referred to as the wallpaper). We invented a new pick-up line: "Do you wanna do my laundry?" and chatted idly.

Oh, and what I've discovered about the Dutch are:
1. Dutch insults involved archaic illnesses, eg. "go get cholera!"; and severity of insults are not dependent on severity of illnesses. And that to call someone an acorn is an insult (well at least if you're Dutch).

2. I don't know any Dutch musicians except DJ Paul van Dyk and the Urban Dance Squad. Sad.

The most important question now though, is whether I can hit the office again at 7.

Got into work 7ish this morning and left 12 hours later to meet friends for dinner and drinks. Dave asked why I started work at 7 and I replied, "Cos I can't wake any earlier". He thought there's a problem with that response and upon reflection, I guess there is isn't there.

cats and dogs are coming down
14th street is gonna drown
everyone else rushing round
i’ve got blonde on blonde
on my portable stereo
it’s a lullabye
from a giant golden radio
i’ve got no time i wanna lose
to people with something to prove
what can you do but let them walk
and make your way down the block
i’ve got blonde on blonde
on my portable stereo
it’s a lullabye
from a giant golden radio
it’s a lullabye
from wonder-woman’s radio
- Nada Surf, Blonde on Blonde

Bob Dylan's Blonde on Blonde is an album title but not a song. So I guess this is another Norwegian Wood of sorts. lol.

I bought 3 CDs (Nada Surf's "Let Go", Projekt's compilation "The Arbitrary Width of Shadows" and the latest U2 album "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb") and a book at Borders just now, all within half an hour. Shopping is definitely more productive than work today.