Girl in Bionic Suit 2005

I wish I may, I wish I might

2005-12-21T19:00:00.000+08:00

3 days before the big celebratory hoo-ha, my wishlist is out.

Buy to your hearts' content, dears.

Have a blessed blessed Christmas !

Blog crush

2005-12-05T00:58:00.000+08:00

Hat is witty, takes fun pics and is my big+only link to the place where i came (back) from. I know more about Seminoles' wins and losses, and places in and around Tally where students hang out, than i ever knew when i was there myself (irony irony).

On Sat morning, while waiting to use the bathroom, i clicked on Hat's site and found two pics of himself at the site. There he was with shorts on, but also with his manhood hanging out.

I was too groggy to be shocked really. But when i checked out the site again later in the evening, the pics were taken down and i was laughing at one of the dude, sorry that happened to you comments.

Hat apologized for the now-infamous pics before writing about an unexpected FSU victory over VT in football on Sat. Today, a new entry was posted that went

hey guys..

it's (hat's) gf updating. sorry about that "incident", we got into an argument and i was really pissed and did somehting i shouldn't have done. so to those who saw it, sorry! and those who didn't, stop asking what. go mind ur own business. we made up. so it's all good in the hood. hehehe.

love ya,
EL

So Hat hasn't been psychotic enough to post his own xxx pics online so suddenly and without rhyme or reason.

And also, Hat has a gf.

Boo.

Selected

2005-11-30T01:33:00.000+08:00

LC wrote about an interesting happening, where “this Asian girl was just standing near my (her) tube station (in London), doing nothing until I(she) walked by and then selected me to hand out a pamphlet for 'The Tanning Centre and Beauty'?

What is she implying?”

I’ll be lazy, do some substitutions and let you know a similar experience of my own:

Interesting that this man was just standing outside the overcrowded CentrePoint on a Sunday, doing nothing until I walked by and then selected me to hand out a pamphlet for A Slimming Program.

Then I saw him handing out another one to a plump man pushing a baby stroller.

His wife took a look at the pamphlet and laughed out loud.

I knew exactly what he was implying.

Which’s the Prettiest Heels of Them All ?

2005-11-30T01:05:00.000+08:00

Last week when I saw the heels, they were on sale, $15 per pair. I pointed out to Purple and said, pweety heels for only $15 ! In your favorite colors too ! She laughed and replied in her usual flamboyant style, I’m gonna get those.

Today when we passed by the little shop, a small cardboard announced the new price - $10.

What a steal. Purple was so excited. So was I. Before we knew it, we were walking out of the little shop with three boxes of cream and pink/purple heels. That was 18 inches of heels in there for you.

*

I wore my creamy little heels after I got them and ended up with the usual new-heels/shoes bites.

The lady bosses of the shop not only expanded the front of them for me, but also gave me tips on how to avoid the abrasions that come with wearing new shoes.

“Wax the edges of the shoes/heels. At the same time put lots of lotion on your feet and in between your toes. That’ll reduce a whole lot of unwanted friction”

Added bonus: they also waxed the heels for me, and offered me a tubba lotion to put on my feet.

Now who say charming services have to come with hefty price tags ?

Remember

2005-11-29T01:30:00.000+08:00

.. the 'fame' after the tears, during thanksgiving break '03
- where "rubber is your best friend.."

r u smiling yet ?

Wanting

2005-11-29T00:02:00.000+08:00

This Christmas, I would like to ..

… write again.

… pick up the camera again.

… smile more often and laugh more freely.

… be back there where I belong.

Because

2005-11-28T18:15:00.000+08:00

People fall out of love. Outgrow each other. Make mistakes. Don't crucify them for changing their minds or taking the roads less traveled. Two days, two weeks, two years from now, who knows what you'll outgrow, what mistakes you'll make and when the fork in your road will appear ?

*

Breathe. Your next breath is a whole hell of a lot to look forward to.

What should I do with the X'mas playlist in the iPod ?

2005-11-20T00:42:00.000+08:00

I really do not think I should be listening to any more Christmas songs; they make me so miss my home, at the other side of the globe.

A conversation between Queenpin and Blackeye

2005-11-10T01:26:00.000+08:00

"How do you teach someone without common sense?"

"By beatin' the sense into 'er."

My new favorite page: DHL tracking page

2005-10-31T16:03:00.000+08:00

When it comes to shopping, I like to take my time to browse the items, go home, rest on the choices for more than a couple of days, and decide if I really want get them at all.

So shopping becomes a lengthy affair, and pushy and overly enthusiastic sales persons always make me abort my shopping at their shops faster than they can mumble their well-memorized tankyouandseayouahain.

But now that I hardly get to see even the sun (because I am out of the house early, in the office throughout the day, and back home late), shopping’s become quite a huge luxury.

So as all good Internet people do, I turn to shopping online. Open 24/7 ! With no sales persons hovering around you ! And most importantly, I can return to the sites to look at the items as many times as I want !

Then last week, after more than a dozen enquiry emails, I bought two beautiful MJ pieces for the masquerade ball this weekend. They will be delivered this week.

I hope they’re as gorgeous as they look online ! For now I am refreshing the DHL tracking page as obsessively as I am allowed to. Heh heh.

*

I received the loveliest bouquet of flowers last wed. Oh how beautiful they were !

*

Men who play tennis are deadly sexy. Heh heh.

The tears were late

2005-10-13T03:50:00.000+08:00

She couldn’t stop crying. That night, she cried all the lost tears she never knew were there.

*

What mattered when there was nothing valuable to begin with ?

*

How smart she thought she was ! Hiding darkness in a corner, locked in a room that was erased from her memory. But one night it became so full, the seal was broken, and the darkness overwhelmed her.

She could no longer lie to herself that she knew what she was fighting for. There was neither hope nor motivation. The vault was emptied a long time ago.

That night, she sat there, holding on to the phone and weeping to no one in particular, for nothing in particular.

Right then, she felt like … dying, and she really was.

Dream of a thousand tears (2)

2005-10-08T14:30:00.000+08:00

The bad dreams continued. They were a sticky pack, chasing the tails of my sleeping hours and then invading them like cruel gang of bandits.

They haunted me with scenes built on my deepest worries, feeding on my vulnerabilities. I was in there, in those dreams which were so much larger than life and yet seemed so real that I didn’t know what to believe anymore.

I woke up every morning, helpless and slightly depressed. I hate that ! Why don't they just go away already !

Dream of a thousand tears

2005-10-03T10:57:00.000+08:00

They died. I seemed to be the cause of it, the start of the strange disease that spread quickly to the people around me. I tried desperately to cling on to the little that was left. I was forced to make difficult choices.

For them to live, I had to abandon them.

I couldn’t stop weeping.

This weekend in short paragraphs

2005-10-02T09:57:00.000+08:00

I’ve had it with ironing !

Some women love it, most hate it, and I just never do well at it. But that doesn’t give me an excuse to skip it, not when I have to iron more than half a dozen of shirts and pants each week. It’s worse when my favorite pieces ended up being the hardest to iron. Urgh.

*

I’d wanted to watch one movie dvd this weekend. I ended up watching half movies. Two halves to be exact; two different dvds were rejected by the player. Actually I wasn't sure if it was the player that was rejected by both discs (poor thing!) or the other way round.

Either way, my appetite was deviously whetted and then left hanging (2x!), just coz the player and discs had issues with each other.

Much like how the puppy always get stabbed in his sleep (poor puppy!), just coz Dee couldn't get along with his stacks and stacks of reading materials. Haha.

*

It’s weird but I think it’s cool when us girls jet off to different lands at the same time, and talk to each other online like it’s just another day when we were all on the same island.

*

Corpse Bride is finally opening in three days’ time ! I can hardly wait.

The sun and the rain

2005-09-20T02:25:00.000+08:00

Good things come in threes. We saved a tiny bit of money, got certain errors (not ours!) corrected, and an unexpected, excellent position for one of us. It was such a fruitful day. It’d been a while, when things fell into places without much hitches. The sense of gaiety was making my steps lighter than they were in months.

So it was a letdown, when a day or two later, the bad came back in full force (or so I thought). The disappointments were made huger after the seventh heaven less than a while ago.

Before I could recover from feeling like shit, the real shit decided to pay me a small visit. Not me, actually. I was not the main lead but I felt it. I’d since been living out of my backpack, and rest was elusive.

But I am home now. It does seem to be such a long time since I sit down here and type something to post in the blog. It feels weird.

Or maybe I am just tired. I am going to bed.

*

To the J & B boys,

I got the email. I’m sorry I haven’t had the time to reply to you. As you can see, I am quite maxed out now. I would get back to you boys soon, after everything goes back on track.

Thanks for being so patient.

2005-09-05T15:36:00.000+08:00

"They will rebuild as they have after storms of the past; and they will stay in New Orleans because it is where they have always lived, where their mothers and their fathers lived, where their churches were built by their ancestors, where their family graves carry names that go back 200 years. They will stay in New Orleans where they can enjoy a sweetness of family life that other communities lost long ago.

But to my country I want to say this: During this crisis you failed us. You looked down on us; you dismissed our victims; you dismissed us. You want our Jazz Fest, you want our Mardi Gras, you want our cooking and our music. Then when you saw us in real trouble, when you saw a tiny minority preying on the weak among us, you called us "Sin City," and turned your backs.

Well, we are a lot more than all that. And though we may seem the most exotic, the most atmospheric and, at times, the most downtrodden part of this land, we are still part of it. We are Americans. We are you."

-Anne Rice, in The New York Times
Do You Know What It Means to Lose New Orleans?

Last night in town

2005-09-03T11:33:00.000+08:00

I met up with the girls in black for an impromptu nightcap at breko's, where at least 70% of the population were wearing the same color. I called the color, the uniform.

It was fun. We laughed at everything and everyone and not sparing even ourselves. My cheek and abdominal muscles were thoroughly exhausted. We built up quite an archive of favorite jokes and phrases (“I am torn between two choices..”) by the end of the night. It was all good.

*

“Coach seemed to be disappointed with me (us); why, I was disappointed with me.
Pop seemed to be ashamed of me; I was feeling ashamed of me.
PurpleKnight seemed to look down on me; I was not proud of myself either.”

When the feeling of aloneness is matched by the want to be left alone.

Crazy times on boring days

2005-08-31T02:32:00.000+08:00

We’re officially fridgeless. Our faithful old fridge in the corner finally gave up the fight after several near fatal chokes in recent months. Rest in peace, metal. This evening, we went down to Courts and signed the papers for a shinier icebox. It is to be the first new fridge I ever know in this household. It will be delivered on Thu. Till then, take-outs for all !

I finally subdued the whor--rible online library, which has a coy attitude towards Macs, with several plugins. Who’s your daddy now eh ! I also completed a couple of cumbersome online forms, which I probably should have completed a long time ago, if I’d not been sooo lazy, and if the widely-used-but-extremely-technologically-backward website had accepted browsers other than Interfag Explorer running on Win-fcuking-dows platforms. The information that I painstakingly filled in, got eaten up by dontknowwhatfcuk IE / Win errors, thrice. But did I give up ? No ! So now, two (completed) forms, half a day, a rusty penknife and a dead dog in a pool of blood later (had to vent my frustrations somehow, ok), I was finally done. DONE, I say !

Tennis bumper

2005-08-20T03:07:00.000+08:00

In one freak move, I bumped my knees and twisted my ankle during tennis practice yesterday.

I must have been too jumpy, literally, when I fell while trying to hit the ball. Coach made me rest at the side bench (woot ! no need to retrieve balls ! ), where I watched him bounce the balls to the girls to test their forehands.

I must have watched at least six of them had their go. It turned out to be quite an experience of some sort. It was one of the few times when I actually learnt something while doing nothing.

As I sat on my ass while the rest of them tried to strike the balls over the net as successfully as they could, I saw an assortment of awkward beginners’ moves that were, well, too obvious not to be noticed (by a spectator).

Coaches and teachers must have had it hard, when students just don’t get it, even after all the repeated instructions. I caught myself grimacing at the recurring mistakes and thinking, did I twist my shoulders like that too ? Or swing my bat like I was handling a 10-pound sack of rice ? Darn, no wonder I was not hitting the balls right !

Before my practice, I suggested to Dee (who hadn’t touched tennis for quite a while), booking a court and practicing a couple of rounds.

He looked me, horrified, and exclaimed how one of the most painful things in the world (of sports) was to watch amateur players (like us) on the court. I laughed. After the injury time-out at the bench, I had to agree with that.

I’m gonna book a practice wall instead.

Spoken like a novice

2005-08-12T17:25:00.000+08:00

I was excited. After days of anticipation, I had my -first- formal lesson for a racket sport yesterday.

I’m officially a tennis novice !

Even the bad start couldn’t dampen it; I was caught in the mad evening jam, and when I got to the courts, Coach was already teaching the rest of the peeps the basic footwork.

We had nine girls (including me) in the class and only one boy. One of them girls was decked out in pro tennis apparel – all Nike, by the way – complete with a beautiful Wilson racket and thermoguard bag.

I was carrying a droopy backpack, wearing my old-school running shorts and using a borrowed Head racket sizes too big for my hands. Haha. I found the contrast amusing.

Coach was good. He was absolutely serious in what he did without being all stiffed up like an old headmaster. I liked him almost immediately. Of course, I loved his Wilson nCode cap even more. In fact, Coach had had so much pretty Wilson stuff on him I was beginning to think that he must be a sponsored athlete or coach or something. Haha.

He was checking out our forehand grips one by one and when he came around to me, he told me instantly that my racket’s grip was too big for my hands. I laughed and yelled I know ! I’m gonna change that soon ! When we got down to serving the shots, he took a look at my huge racket again, and swapped it with his own.

So I ended up swinging a battered Wilson Hammer for the rest of my strokes.

It was awesome. I loved it more than the borrowed Head racket. It weighed like a baby after the Head ‘ket.

But it was only when I got home did I realize, the Hyper Hammer 6.3 I was using was the famous racket that Wilson designed for Serena Williams after they signed up the Williams sisters right before the ’99 U.S Open.

Serena then went on to win the Open (and more ! ) with the racket.

How cool is that ??

She turns 40

2005-08-09T12:05:00.000+08:00

Happy National Holiday, peeps.

No fireworks for us, so Lecter and me are gonna be off to catch some fireflies elsewhere instead !

*

PS : I caught the MTV for James Blunt’s You’re Beautiful. It was weird. Blunt standing there, peeling off his sweater then tee, then sitting down, and emptying his pockets and taking off his shoes, before jumping into the sea ?

Must be the most incomprehensible and unrelated MTV I’ve seen in a while.

It’s a warm up

2005-08-07T02:34:00.000+08:00

It’s been a while, so well … let’s see, if I can start up the writing engine again. Let’s begin with something small.

Okay, I’m picking up aerobics. Coupla of weeks back, I shopped ‘ard online for a course, called the sports center, spoke to a good lady called HS, asked a few questions and generally assumed that that she would be my instructor.

Turned out I got a tall, dark, hunky male instructor instead.

Sure, he may be a tanned Vin Diesel who dances well and all. But really, I’m not sure if it’s any big bonus.

He’s almost always late for classes, never makes up for lost time, and often lets us off early. I seldom catch the instructions that he shouts out in class because his words stick together; I’ve to take to mimicking the steps of the experienced ones in front of me for weeks. Gets pretty frustrating sometimes, I tell yer.

When I took up my place at the extreme right side of the class, I always get pushed to the corner. Oh how I hated that.

Few could see me in the enormous mirror right at the front of the dance studio, even though it covers nearly the length of the studio. You see, I actually had to do my stuff facing THE DOOR.

And right besides the blasting speakers too. By the end of 40 min, I was usually quite deaf.

So I switched position and migrated to the left of the class.

Where, for some mysterious reasons, they don’t do as much squeezing-dancers-to-a-corner. There, I get space, and rendezvous with the mirror from time to time (since I am still at the back). I don’t get eaten up by the booming music (fresh new experience). And I make acquaintance with a friendly lady who, like me, is a novice (yeahh).

Yes, my handsome instructor is still late for classes, and shouts mashed up strings of instructions. But now, I am removed from where the deafening music makes my head spin. I have room. I am catching up on the moves. I get to know someone new. So yeah, I am good.

*

PS : If you know any good aerobics titles on books or discs, tell me. I would love to check them out.

R We D8ting? by Sandra Barron

2005-07-30T01:38:00.000+08:00

(... sandra is so carrie bradshaw in the article, she makes me laugh. go on, read it, but only coz it's irresistibly entertaining, in a girly gossipy way haha)

I'd gone through all the stages of an actual relationship almost solely via text message.

THE orange message light on my cellphone started blinking as I was getting ready for bed. Barely an hour had passed since our quick kiss goodnight at the subway, and I was surprised to see the screen light up with the initials I'd just entered into my phone. It wasn't voice mail; it was a text message, and it made me smile.

U miss me? ;-)

I'd met him a week before at my usual Wednesday night hangout. He was alone but gregarious, and he seemed to be pals with the female bartender - a tacit vote of confidence. He chatted with my friends and me and then left with a wave from the door, and when my friend Kate and I ordered our next drinks, the bartender said this round was on the guy we'd been talking to.

Surprised, we debated his motivations. I insisted that perfectly normal people sometimes buy strangers drinks just to be nice. Kate thought he was way too aggressive.

When I saw him at the bar the next Wednesday, I thanked him for the drink. He asked if he could take me to dinner sometime; I said I'd think about it. He walked me to the subway and we exchanged numbers, but I thought it would be days before I heard from him, if ever, making this late-night text message all the more unexpected.

I like text messages. They fill an ever-narrowing gap in modern communication tools, combining the immediacy of a phone call with the convenience of an answering machine message and the premeditation of e-mail. And if they happen to be from a crush and pop up late at night, they have the giddy re-readability of a note left on a pillow.

So did I miss him? Certainly not yet. But I was flying from New York to West Virginia in the morning for work; maybe I'd miss him while I was away? I could already hear my friends citing his enthusiasm as evidence he was coming on too strong, but I'd had enough of aloof. I found his boldness refreshing.

Before I turned out the light and snapped the phone into its charger, I allowed myself one more grin at his message and a grimace at his middle-school style ("U"? A winking smiley face?). Then I deleted it.

He called the next afternoon while I was grounded in Pittsburgh between flights. He kept me company while I ambled down moving walkways and wandered through a loop of food courts. We talked about work for the first time; he said he worked intense hours as a freelancer so he could take months off at a time to travel, and he showed he had been paying attention by asking me about things we had discussed at the bar. He asked if we could have dinner when I got back to town, and I said sure.

A few hours later, as the prop plane taxied toward the gate in West Virginia, I turned on my phone and an animated lighthouse beacon indicated that it was searching for a signal. For three days, the light swept the dark cartoon sea in vain. Every time I saw "no signal" on the screen I felt unmoored and isolated. But as soon as the signal bars sprang to life on my trip home on Monday, that orange light flashed on and, sure enough, it was him.

Miss me now?

I'd missed having cellphone service, and my mind had indeed wandered at times to our airport conversation. But that degree of nuance was too much for the 12-button keypad, so I wrote, Hi! Sure. Talk when I get back.

This set off a volley of texts. Where did I live? What day is good? What about tonight? Tomorrow? We decided on dinner that Thursday and I finally signed off, thumb sore and eyes tired.

At the office on Tuesday, as the light blinked on again (Din in SoHo then drinks in the E Vil, and maybe a kiss), I wondered, Just who is this guy?

Google failed me. One time, armed with only a guy's first name and the fact that he sold sneakers, I had found his full details and photos online. But all I had here was a cellphone number and initials, and Friendster, MySpace and Technorati - the entire digital detective squad of the modern dater - were stumped.

I would actually have to learn about him the old-fashioned way, in person. Which is partly why, on a slushy, windy Wednesday afternoon, I liked his next message:

Dinner @ Raoul's 2morrow, I just made reservations 4 7:30.

I couldn't remember the last time I'd gone out with someone who'd made reservations.

Sounds good! I replied.

A message came back as I was leaving the office: Its better than good - u r with me! Maybe I'll stop by the bar 2nite.

So he remembered I usually went on Wednesdays.

On the way over, feet soaked and fingers numb, I knew that I didn't want him to brave the sleet just to see me, especially since it would be awkward trying to get to know him better while hanging out with people he had never met. And after all, we had reservations for the next night.

Don't come out in this weather! I wrote. Can't really hang out anyway, see you tomorrow.

His reply was impossibly swift for its length: I live 45 seconds from there and I would be doing my own thing. I am not leachy. Very independent boy I am. I may or may not, depends where the wind takes me.

Was it just me, or had things just taken a hairpin turn for the hostile? My message was meant to be friendly. Had it come out that way? Or was I reading him wrong? I needed to find a way to respond that was light, in case I was only imagining he was angry, but not flippant, in case he actually was.

I swallowed my distaste for cutesy abbreviations and tried: LOL! As you like, then. :-) I cringed slightly as I hit send; this suddenly seemed like a dangerously clumsy way of communicating.

Minutes later: Would u like me 2 stay away?

Oh, dear. At this point, yes. Wires were crossing that would probably be best untangled in person, the next day.

Entering the bar, I waved to my friends in their booth and, before joining them, whipped off a quick response, attempting to be polite and clear: Yeah, I guess that'd be better; you'd distract me if you were here.

A minute later, after I'd settled in with my friends, the orange light looked like a warning: 2 late, im here.

I looked up. Sure enough, there he was, talking to two girls at the bar. He drifted closer and hovered nearby but didn't make eye contact. By the time he came over and sat down, a full hour had passed.

He'd clearly had a few drinks, and our conversation went downhill as fast as it had on our phone screens. He said that I'd tried to "control" him by saying he shouldn't come to the bar and added that he hadn't come to see me but to see other people. After going on in this vein for a while, he suddenly softened and asked me to "promise one thing": a kiss before the night was over.

I stammered that I couldn't make any promises. He shook his head and stormed off, sloshing the beers on the table and sending a pool cue clattering to the floor.

Before I could process what had happened, he looked over from his perch on a nearby barstool and smiled, winked and waved over his shoulder as if we'd never met. My friends, wide-eyed, asked what was going on. I wasn't sure, but I did know one thing: reservations or not, tomorrow's date was off.

Not so that evil blinking light. Only half an hour later, with both of us still in the bar, no, was it possible? Another message?

What was that all about? he'd written. R we still on 4 2morrow?

I deleted the message and put my phone away, hoping to erase the whole encounter. Soon he seemed to have left, and as long as my phone stayed in the dark recesses of my purse, I believed that he was powerless to bother me.

But suddenly there he was again, standing a few feet from our booth, smiling and crooking his finger at me.

I shook my head.

"I need to talk to you," he said.

I told him we had nothing to talk about.

Turns out I wasn't the only person who found him menacing; within minutes the bartender took the stocky wine glass out of his hand and told him to leave.

I hoped he would be so embarrassed that he wouldn't dream of contacting me again. But the next morning the blinking orange light seemed louder than my bleating alarm clock. Three new messages. Mailbox full.

From 6:30 a.m.: I am done boozing for a while!! ;-)

From 6:38 a.m.: What did I do 2 upset u? Do u not want to have dinner?

At 6:45, as if he had waited long enough for a reply: Anyway, 2 bad, I would have liked 2 have gotten 2 know u.

I liked the finality of that one.

But had he really given up, or was there simply no more room in the inbox? I deleted those three and got on the subway. I emerged to find: Pls forgive me and join me 4 dinner. ;-(

We are not going out, I wrote.

What did I do?

I'm at work and we're not discussing this.

Whatever, he wrote. U don't have 2 b ignorant. Peace.

I turned off the phone, dumbfounded. How had this happened? How had we managed to speed through all the stages of an actual relationship almost solely via text message? I'd gone from butterflies to doubt to anger at his name on the screen, before we even knew each other.

That was it, I decided: no more text-message flirtations for me. From now on I'd stick to more old-fashioned ways of getting to know a guy. Like e-mail.

[NYT]

Virtual Trading, by Steve Ellison

2005-07-29T00:40:00.000+08:00

(... posted up here because I used to be a fanatic Neopets player, and because it gave me a strange sense of familiarity when I read it in the suffocating blanket of heat and humidity in a US$0.25/hour Internet cafe, more than a thousand miles away from home)

My children, ages 12 and 10, are devoted to interactive online games such as Neopets and Runescape. These games have elaborate imaginary worlds. In Neopets, a player can earn units of an imaginary currency, Neopoints, by playing games. Using Neopoints, players can buy and sell imaginary items within the game. The items may rise or fall in value over time. Interestingly, the trading of items does not always remain virtual. Some items are sold on eBay for real money. As Edward Castronova explains in the Harvard Business Review:

Say one player needs a breastplate, but the game's developer has made this armor difficult to obtain within the virtual world. The player can go to an auction site, find someone selling a breastplate, and send that person a check for $50. Then the two meet online and simply click 'trade'. EBay category 1654, 'Internet Games', comprises thousands of auctions for digital gold pieces, daggers, ray guns, and robots--accounting for $30 million worth of business in the U.S. alone. In Asia, the real-cash virtual-item market exceeds $100 million annually.

Neopets itself was recently sold by its founders for $160 million to Viacom.

[dailyspeculations]

If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution

2005-07-28T04:00:00.000+08:00

I saw the aftermath of the July 7 London bombings on CNN barely an hour or two after it happened. It was unreal. The injured and the chaos and the unbelief of the witnesses at the horror in the heart of their beloved city; my heart went out to them.

That night I fell asleep with the TV news on. When I woke up, the death tolls and the number of injured were still climbing steadily.

-So now every Muslim living in Western society suddenly becomes suspect after the jihadist-style bombings, and Western countries are going to be tempted to crack down even harder on their own Muslim populations. This could further alienate already alienated Muslim youths and fulfill Osama bin Laden's dream of creating gulf between Muslim world and globalizing West.

It is essential that Muslim world wake up to fact that there is jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim relations with the rest of the world everywhere.-

*

If It's a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution
by Thomas L. Friedman

Yesterday's bombings in downtown London are profoundly disturbing. In part, that is because a bombing in our mother country and closest ally, England, is almost like a bombing in our own country. In part, it's because one assault may have involved a suicide bomber, bringing this terrible jihadist weapon into the heart of a major Western capital. That would be deeply troubling because open societies depend on trust - on trusting that the person sitting next to you on the bus or subway is not wearing dynamite.

The attacks are also deeply disturbing because when jihadist bombers take their madness into the heart of our open societies, our societies are never again quite as open. Indeed, we all just lost a little freedom yesterday.

But maybe the most important aspect of the London bombings is this: When jihadist-style bombings happen in Riyadh, that is a Muslim-Muslim problem. That is a police problem for Saudi Arabia. But when Al-Qaeda-like bombings come to the London Underground, that becomes a civilizational problem. Every Muslim living in a Western society suddenly becomes a suspect, becomes a potential walking bomb. And when that happens, it means Western countries are going to be tempted to crack down even harder on their own Muslim populations.

That, too, is deeply troubling. The more Western societies - particularly the big European societies, which have much larger Muslim populations than America - look on their own Muslims with suspicion, the more internal tensions this creates, and the more alienated their already alienated Muslim youth become. This is exactly what Osama bin Laden dreamed of with 9/11: to create a great gulf between the Muslim world and the globalizing West.

So this is a critical moment. We must do all we can to limit the civilizational fallout from this bombing. But this is not going to be easy. Why? Because unlike after 9/11, there is no obvious, easy target to retaliate against for bombings like those in London. There are no obvious terrorist headquarters and training camps in Afghanistan that we can hit with cruise missiles. The Al Qaeda threat has metastasized and become franchised. It is no longer vertical, something that we can punch in the face. It is now horizontal, flat and widely distributed, operating through the Internet and tiny cells.

Because there is no obvious target to retaliate against, and because there are not enough police to police every opening in an open society, either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings - or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.

And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village.

What do I mean? I mean that the greatest restraint on human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard. The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the village and its religious and political elders say is wrong or not allowed. Many people said Palestinian suicide bombing was the spontaneous reaction of frustrated Palestinian youth. But when Palestinians decided that it was in their interest to have a cease-fire with Israel, those bombings stopped cold. The village said enough was enough.

The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.

Some Muslim leaders have taken up this challenge. This past week in Jordan, King Abdullah II hosted an impressive conference in Amman for moderate Muslim thinkers and clerics who want to take back their faith from those who have tried to hijack it. But this has to go further and wider.

The double-decker buses of London and the subways of Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim village and elders do not take on, delegitimize, condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst.

[NYT]

The manager girlfriend

2005-07-27T05:06:00.000+08:00

During the Wimbledon Cup, the TV camera zoomed in on the girlfriend of one of the tennis players, Federer. The commentator (who was British) introduced her as the gf of Federer who was also Federer’s agent AND manager. He ended off by saying “As such, she manages his pennies.”

There was nothing wrong with this statement. After all, in the UK, currency is measured in pounds and pennies. But his co-host, who was American, must have been thinking of something else when he heard the word ‘pennies’, for I heard a soft laugh before they quickly changed topic.

The pain is fresh

2005-07-18T00:42:00.000+08:00

“I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.” John 11:25-26

We love you, Granddad. We miss you so much.

Granddad passed away on Thursday morning. It happened so fast; when the ambulance came, the medic told us that he was brain dead for ten minutes. When I touched him, he was cold. I knelt down by his side. I held his hand and kissed his forehead. I didn’t really know what to do next. He was there, but he was gone.

Everything after passed in a blur. There were so many things to do and settle; by evening, the wake was already set up. I was kept busy. I saw to everything else that my parents and aunts had not done. I kept vigil at nights. I refused to think of anything else other than the things that needed to be done.

But when I was alone, I thought of Granddad and I cried. I hated the tears, because I didn’t cry, and I didn’t want to.

I’m so guilty I didn’t accompany him more often. And now, I miss him so much.

The dictator

2005-06-22T09:55:00.000+08:00

Lecter the lean meat machine is the king of random aimless walks. He takes me for my daily walks, and makes sure I go his way, or none. If I wanna go left, and Lecter the walker decides no, he makes sure it stays his way. Should I be foolish enough to insist otherwise, the scruffy walker would promptly plant his big butt firmly on the ground and howl like a drama mama. Well not really. He just sits there, and refuses to move. Furry piece of rock. Sheesh. I wish he wouldn’t do that, because now I’m probably known in the estate as that girl with the leashed rock.

This morning, I heard something on the radio that made me go what the hell ? A lady had called in to *complain* politely that Singapore should not have any kind of late hours entertainment because, guess what, it keeps her daughter (and all young people) out late. Which is, of course, really bad for them, and it is all the nation's fault because *if only everything closes shop at 5 pm in the evening, all youngsters would flock home by 6 pm (the lady didn't actually quote this 5 pm, 6 pm e.g. but it sounded like what she would have said if not for the time limit/call). If late hours entertainment = daughter stays out late, then logically speaking, no late hours entertainment = daughter returning home early. Sure thing, lady.

Third time running

2005-06-16T23:37:00.000+08:00

My run / walk distance tonight was the lowest since I starting going to the tracks last week. I covered just a little over a km (0.62 mi). But I threw in 50 sit-ups as well, so I guess that kinda made up for the difference between the previous sessions and this latest one eh. Heh heh.

A family in the neighbourhood bought a really tiny Jack Russell. He was snow white with a mini brown patch over one of its eyes, and a short little tail. He was hopping around like a pocket-sized Energizer bunny when I saw him on my way home from the run. That made me laugh. He reminded me tremendously of Lecter when we just got him, when he was so tiny he was just the size of Dee's hand. Gosh was he totally totally irresistible then. I giggled every time our little Shih Tzu strutted around, chest puffed out like he was the king of the living room.

The boy I love

... lustful for the bacon strip I held in my other hand.

Second score card

2005-06-14T23:21:00.000+08:00

700 m (0.44 mi) of run today .. that’s what, 75 % progression from my virgin run okay. I hope that translates to some effective improvement of my (previously non-existent) stamina. I have such poor stamina that I can only walk this much, before every subsequent step seems to expend a thousand miles’ worth of energy.

On the side note, the vending machine ate my coins (again) and that isotonic drink which could have been mine, along with it. One day I’m gonna knock the machine apart, and take back all the money that it ate from me all these years.

First fitness report card of an extremely unhealthy person

2005-06-13T11:49:00.000+08:00

Distance walked : 1000 m
Distance ran : 400 m
Immediate aftereffects : Felt like puking my frigging lungs out.

Totally inglorious.

Get lost

2005-06-10T00:06:00.000+08:00

"Lost" premiered on 5 today. As usual we have it late (by a season ! ), but better than never. I was totally consumed by it, and now I.. can't ... stop ...... reading... the spoilers......

Sauce not included

2005-06-05T23:51:00.000+08:00

US$200 bucks for ONE (1) french fry ?

Man, it better be made of something else besides potato.

Good things come in small bites

2005-06-02T23:25:00.000+08:00

I didn't actually have them all recently. A couple of them shots were from the archives. Above: some egg pudding at a small desert shop at Liang Seah Street, Hong Kong style. The place was cool, and the food delightful. I would love to go back there again.

Hello, again

2005-06-01T07:19:00.000+08:00

It has been a while, oh yes it has.

So much has come to pass between my last entry and this. Yet I can only recall so much. But what I do remember, I’ll probably remember for a long time to come.

Grandma Gambit has passed on in an unexpected turn of things. Death has such a grip; it’s hard not to bleed when it happens. We miss her so dearly.

Lecter came down with a serious bout of diarrhea and vomiting. But the boy was upbeat even in a distressing state of discomfit, and rapid weight loss (think: more than a couple of pounds in three days). His optimism is, as usual, deadly contagious. I’m just happy to say that he’s currently as good as new.

A recent case of badly managed crisis left me pretty hollowed out; I felt so numb and dead inside, I surprised myself. It was weird, like I could never be cheerful again.

The rest of them stories, I’m gonna give them a pass. Partly coz they come in such splinters, it’s hard to reassemble them to blog them down. Perhaps in due time I might just write about them, but for now, yes, it’s time to move on.

When I get blind and a little lost in life, I trust you with my leash.

Animal Spirits, by Phil McDonnell

2005-04-18T19:24:00.000+08:00

A study I did recently showed that my trading profits increased five-fold on libidinous days as opposed to celibate days. Turning this information to good use remained problematic even after I had completed the study.

Finally I resolved to show the study to my wife. Since then the results have been most satisfactory.

via Daily Speculations

No joke

2005-04-14T08:23:00.000+08:00

I didn’t see the item photo first, so I laughed when I read that half a piece of a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich was up for bids on eBay, with a US$3,000 starting bid. Then I saw the posted image. It has a face emblazoned on it.
Its owner says it’s the Virgin Mary.

I laughed even harder.

But what a fool I was ! The sandwich is no ordinary sandwich. It’s a lucky sandwich, a piece of fortune bread that has made its owner US$70,000 richer on different occasions, at a casino near her house !

Major media networks clambered to interview the woman and her precious. By the end of it everyone knew that grilled cheese. That half a sandwich with a bite and the face with not a spore of mould on it. The 10-year-old grilled cheese that was going to cost a brand new car.

The auction closed with an impressive US$28,000.

By then I had, of course, stopped laughing.

Today, I read about a cigarette butt on auction with a 4-digit price tag. And I laughed.

The source of it all

2005-04-12T10:11:00.000+08:00

My Gmail space has tipped the 2 GB scale; it’s now 2083 MB and counting. Even before it bloated, I’ve often wondered, where in the world does Google gets all that Gmail space ?!

But now I know.

From The Joy of Tech!

This makes my Monday

2005-04-11T11:09:00.000+08:00

The plane’s cabin was being served by an obviously gay flight attendant who was just as obviously enjoying himself. He came swishing down the aisle and announced to the passengers, “Captain Marvey has asked me to announce that he’ll be landing the big scary plane shortly, lovely people, so if you could just put up your trays that would be super.”

On his trip back up the aisle, he noticed that a woman hadn’t moved a muscle. “Perhaps you didn’t hear me over those big brute engines. I asked you to raise your trazy-poo so the main man can pitty-pat us on the ground.”

She calmly turned her head and said, “In my country, I am called a Princess. I take orders from no one.”

To which the flight attendant replied, without missing a beat, “Well, sweet-cheeks, in my country, I’m called a Queen, so I outrank you. Put the tray up, Bitch.”

Not just your simple ordinary toys

2005-04-07T04:13:00.000+08:00

They are the Plush Toys for your dogs.

Sniffany Gift Box

Chewnel #5

Modern pets are really a pampered lot ! I don’t even have Tiffany or Chanel in my collections, okay !

via Merrylog

A case of trying too hard [NUS 28 March 2005]

2005-04-02T05:45:00.000+08:00

Just 4 days old, but this is probably old news by now, seeing how it’s spreading like wildfire both in real life and in the blogosphere. Just so you know, I am a nice lady and didn’t think of posting it up here initially (prolonging the poor girl’s misery like this). But someone put me up to it, so here it is. I’m leaving the girl’s blog url out of this tho’, although it shouldn’t be too difficult to get hold of it if you are kpo enough. LOL

From Jim:

"Boy likes girl.
[...]
Boy got lecturer to help profess love for girl.
Lecturer stopped class early to display powerpoint… in front of the whole lecture group.
Girl feels grossed out and traumatized.
Girl becomes overwhelmed by news that spreads from HWZ to SPUG to blogs like mine.
[…]

Somehow, all these were captured on the lecture’s webcast video. Nowadays lectures are recorded and webcasted for people who like to miss lectures. So, check out the video here and I must say, that lecturer is one funny guy."

To infinity and beyond

2005-04-01T20:24:00.000+08:00

Yahoo! Mail may roll out news of their forthcoming 1 GB of free email storage (a couple of weeks ago), but Gmail adds another gigabyte to all its users’ accounts today ! No big announcements, just action !

To celebrate our one-year birthday, we're giving everyone one more gigabyte. But why stop the party there? Our plan is to continue growing your storage beyond 2GBs by giving you more space as we are able. We know that email will only become more important in people's lives, and we want Gmail to keep up with our users and their needs. From Gmail, you can expect more.

Happy 1st birthday Gmail, and many more.

We love you.

Bone-legged

2005-03-30T13:00:00.000+08:00

This morning someone in the house managed to get crippled by his own toy.

The wise-guy attitude

2005-03-30T08:13:00.000+08:00

Erin shot herself in her foot, and became the latest Apprentice to be booted from the show. About time, I say. I don’t see any exceptional added value from this young attorney, except her apparent eloquence. Which is a trait that most, if not all, attorneys possess, no ?

In any case, there is definitely no great loss without her. If Trump decides that he wants an attorney on his team after all, there are still Alex and Bren (oh yes, many lawyers in this season). No one’s gonna miss her much, except perhaps The Boss himself. With his favorite pageant queen off the show, there wouldn’t be much eye candy to look forward to anymore, eh.

The choices

2005-03-29T01:58:00.000+08:00

I have a beautiful friend. Her name is Jenna, and she loved a boy. He was her first boyfriend. When they were no longer together, she was heart-broken. In spite of this, or perhaps because of this, she was able to maintain her focus, and went on to do well in her studies and now, work. Jenna continues to have a bevy of suitors, but she chooses to stay single, hangs out with friends, and has a newfound love in traveling.

Like Jenna, Danni is absolutely passionate about life, and love. She loves a boy but alas he doesn’t love her. So she plunged into a new relationship. She intended to start anew, yet continues to bounce openly between the boy she loves, and the one she calls her “boyfriend”. Someone is suffering in that relationship, and it isn’t her.

Two passionate women with two different choices in love. Sometimes love is only as complicated as one is irresponsible.

One policy to rule them all ... Or is it ?

2005-03-22T22:23:00.000+08:00

We have zero tolerance towards public protests. We do not have double standards. We just have different approval channels.

The tribute

2005-03-22T04:07:00.000+08:00

"Roses are red. Violets are blue. OS X rocks. Homage to you."

First we have OS X, [possibly the best OS in the world], and then we had Google X.

Google X featured an alternate way to connect to Google's various services, allowing people to click on a series of graphical icons in a method inspired by a feature in Apple's operating system.

The experimental site was pulled a day after its debut, but you can still google-x at the mirror sites here: EaglesCrag.net, thejosher.com and The Place for It All, and Evilpig, where you can choose from six language versions.

The replacement

2005-03-21T00:19:00.000+08:00

No, he's not a dickhead, he's a dickarm, wrote tien mao.

And I said, Yikes.

Sleeping bundle

2005-03-19T05:45:00.000+08:00

It was 4 am in the morning. I was working on my powerbook. Lecter stood up against my chair. He wanted to sleep in my lap.

It is now 5.11 am. He's still sound asleep, snuggled against my arm. I am typing with one hand.

Self-reliance

2005-03-19T03:28:00.000+08:00

A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick, or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event, raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring your peace but the triumph of principles.

The super Lomo shots

2005-03-08T23:39:00.000+08:00

The Lomo camera was originally a KGB spy camera. Now it is a pop culture icon, due in no small part to the power of brilliant marketing.

Lomo photos are characteristically overexposed, saturated with colors and have a tunneling effect where the edges of the photos are darker.

I first saw an ActionSampler, one of the core Lomo models, at projectshopBLOODbros at Wisma. For a toy camera with cheap plastic parts, the price was a stretch.

Then Mr. Ego got one and shot madly with it. He then proceeded to spam his friends the pictures. That was Lomo love at second sight for me.

A year later, yshwer got a Holga for her birthday. So here we have, a few of our favorite ones from her virgin film:

And because I found way to cheat with my shots, here are mine, of the only model I sleep with:

The inspiration

2005-03-04T00:15:00.000+08:00

I am never a major fan of the Idol show, save for Anthony Callea's performances on Australian Idol. If you haven’t heard of him yet, please, ask me for the video clip of his heavenly rendition of Carole Bayer Sager song The Prayer, made famous by Celine Dion and Andrea Bocelli.

21-year-old Anthony brought the house down with his Prayer, garnering a standing ovation and a notable 'Grand Royale Touchdown' from Mark Holden. It was his defining moment in the competition, and the finest performance on the Idol stage in two years.

But I am getting off tangent. I just caught the first episode of the latest season of the American Idol. It was not an exciting episode, but it was a good break from my daily grind.

There were 21,000 of them hopefuls in the nation's capital, trying out for the nation's favorite show, each of them convinced that he/she would be the next American Idol. I was suitably entertained.

But the one thing that got to me was neither the funny antics nor the better performances of the lot. It was the undiluted elation of those who passed the first stage.

When they came through the doors waving their yellow sheets of gold and jumping into the arms of loved ones, or screaming ecstatically, or kneeing on the floor in happy tears; during those brief moments of sheer ecstasy, as if exuberance could filter through screens, I believed that I was almost happy too, for them and their first triumphs.

The long last stretch

2005-03-03T02:51:00.000+08:00

I need to get out more, to see the sun, hear the birds, or be caught in the torrents of rain that finally fell from the sky today.

Instead I hole up in cramped spaces, kept in by deadlines and lethargy, acutely conscious and instinctively blind to the amount of work at the same time. It's the last dash, the one that really matters, and I could hardly find it in me to run anymore.

The tragedy

2005-03-01T20:02:00.000+08:00

As in Macbeth terror reaches its utmost height, in King Lear the sense of compassion is exhausted. The principal characters here are not those who act, but those who suffer.

- TheatreHistory.com

When Shakespeare did a tragedy, he really meant it. I finished up Ran last night. It was an adaption of William Shakespeare's King Lear.

Almost everyone who mattered, both good and evil, died painful deaths. Even Lady Sue, the parallel character of The Duke of Albany in Lear, was not spared. She was dastardly assassinated by her sister-in-law.

I felt so frigging bad after the show. Granted, I studied Macbeth, one of the four wings of Shakespeare's tragic and tragicomic productions, for a good two years in preparation for my 'O' levels.

But Lear (Ran) was not, as most tragedies, a picture of a calamity in which the sudden blows of fate seem still to honor the head which they strike, and where the loss is always accompanied by some flattering consolation in the memory of the former possession.

It was a deep fall from the highest elevation into the deepest abyss of misery, where humanity is stripped of all external and internal advantages, and given up a prey to naked helplessness.

The silent years

2005-02-28T02:10:00.000+08:00

Today I looked into the mirror and realized that, I had grown much older than I thought.

The distance

2005-02-23T17:43:00.000+08:00

Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.

- Victor Borge
US (Danish-born) comedian & pianist (1909 - 2000)

Today is 元宵节 (Yuan Xiao Jie), the last of fifteen days of Chinese New Year. It is also the Chinese version of the Valentine's Day. I don't think the two are related, but don't trust me. I can be quite ignorant when it comes to tradition stuff like that.

I used to tease Turner, whose name sounds and spells almost the same as the Festival itself, saying that he'd got his own day in his name. We were best of friends, and lovers for a brief period, before we drifted apart.

Strange how his contact is on my chat programs, and his numbers in my cell phone list, but we no longer contact each other. Even as we stay less than 20 mins' ride from each other, his is the longest distance I am away from a friend.

*

In other news,

Happy 24th, jerseyiv ! I love you ! :P

Caught !

2005-02-17T17:56:00.000+08:00

It's one thing to know that your boy's entering puberty; it's quite another to actually witness it. Last night, the first sight that greeted me when I looked over my bed, was Lecter in mid-act of that-thing-males-do.

He froze. I was groggy and lost for actions. We stared at each other for a good 1½ mins. Then in slow motion, he backed away from the scene of the crime and sat down half a meter away from it.

His embarrassment made me more embarrassed. I looked away, hummed a little tune like I didn't see what just occurred, and slowly lie back on the bed.

The one that breaks the camel's back

2005-02-16T03:43:00.000+08:00

There is a sign in every HDB lift that states the maximum load that it can hold. 540 kg, it says on most of those signs. The HDB engineers also explicitly decided that 8 people would fit that weight bill just right. That puts the average weight of each person at 67.5 kg.

Now, my friend Library Boy is 80 kg. In the worst-case scenario, 8 Library Boys in the lift would destroy it with an excess of 100 kg. Alternatively, assuming that I am 55 kg, 4 Library Boys and 4 of me would match the stated load perfectly. And the lift will rise up to the fifth floor where a little black shih tzu trots in, and with his mighty 10 kg, sends us all to our deaths.

V-day posts which speak my mind

2005-02-15T00:26:00.000+08:00

It was like a pre-Valentine's Day present, except that I don't believe in Valentine's Day. I don't hate it as much as I just ignore its very existence.

via No Two People Are Not On Fire

*

But (a relationship) is not a Valentine's Day commercial. It don't smell like roses or honeysuckles or scented candles all the time.

via No Milk Please

*

Random Thoughts, for Valentines day, 2004. The day's a holiday invented by greeting card companies, to make people feel like crap.
— Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

via TooMuchSexy.blog

He ain't no Brian

2005-02-11T05:06:00.000+08:00

Dee and I sometimes have spirited debates about Lecter's ability to understand us when we speak to him in English. One of us is convinced that he does so perfectly; he just doesn't feel like obeying us sometimes.

A while ago, I was about to take a shower, but Lecter kept whining for my company. So I told him, "Mommy's going to take a bath, larh." He immediately dove for cover upon hearing that.

Apparently, it doesn't matter what nouns comes before or after the phrase "take a bath". Lecter the ang moh gao does not follow the structure of the English language. I can say "I'm not going to let you take a bath forever” and he would still have done a Copperfield all the same.

A short account

2005-02-10T04:19:00.000+08:00

I tweaked the blog template tonight, notably taking down that adsense code by the side bar which refused to work. Apparently Google canceled my account coz of some violations. I highly suspect that it was the side title that did it, or some shit like that. Google never did tell me the real reason.

That was all I could manage. I had a tiring day, and another long-winded one tomorrow. As you know, I am not fond of CNY house visits. But today at Gran’s I was greatly amused by my baby cousin Roy. We hit it off almost immediately, and he shall be my little beacon of light at the Grand Monotonous Gathering, Part II tomorrow. I hope he remembers me though; the Sister was saying that kids that age have memory pockets like goldfishes.

That thing we do

2005-02-09T02:49:00.000+08:00

They have a term for it. It is called 守岁, literally meaning guarding the age(s). It is a traditional practice for kids to stay up the night on Lunar New Year's eve, so that their parents would live to ripe old ages. Rule of thumb: the later you stay up, the longer your parents live.

Even as a kid, I've always thought that it is the most badly disguised excuse ever. But what with all-nighter of games and back-to-back TV shows legally, who is any kid to complain ? Like drinking, us kids would only experience the hangovers of our binges the following day, when we had to wake up early for those darn house visits.

But that was all more than a decade ago. Now, all-nighters (though not of games and shows) for me are as firmly in place as death and taxes. But tonight, tonight was a disappointment. It could be me getting old, or that cursed sleep debt; I thought I was watching the TV with the Family, but the next thing I knew, I was waking up on the couch, forty minutes late into the Lunar New Year.

I don't care much for the countdown, but I felt funny that I missed it, unintentionally. I took a long bath, and felt more sober. Then I sit down here and pen about how I am still feeling weird about missing that midnight chime of the Lunar New Year.

I am certain I would feel much better after writing it. My psychiatrist says so.

Happy Lunar New Year, people.

Double-do

2005-02-08T03:45:00.000+08:00

It was five degrees celsius in the morning.

If I had a choice, I would be curled up in a ball, wrapped under blankets of clothes and refusing to budge more than a meter away from the heater. Mornings were not my preferred waking times, neither was five degrees celsius my favorite temperature.

But R-J was none like me. She loved it cold, real cold. Like jogging in a thin sweater over a flimsy tee in the biting winds (and snow) down at Riverside Park.

This morning after her snowy jog, R-J was deliberating if she should go for a shower before her dance class in two hours' time. She didn't want to double-bathe.

Halfway round the globe by the power of the MSN Messenger, I shooed her to the bathroom. What was so bad about a little double-wash up ? I did that shit all the time, even if they were not actually by choice. Those nights when I absent-mindedly ate those darn cookies after I had brushed my teeth. Or had milk spilled onto my PJ pants just before I climbed into bed.

Woe was me.

One year later

2005-02-07T00:45:00.000+08:00

I trying to street skate (again) was like a high school student attempting a college Physics Paper.

Last night after doing a couple of straight skates, we boldly ventured where we had not skated before: the dessert place seven minutes' walk away.

Fifteen minutes later, I stopped short of a street from the finishing line; the last stretch was too hazardous for the high school kid to tackle.

There was zero point satisfaction. Not coz I didn't reach the predetermined destination, but that I cheated.

My skate nanny had to hold my hands up and over the slopes, across the rough patches, and around the obstacles. He might as well have pulled me along on a sledge.

Shame on me.

The big black dog

2005-02-04T01:17:00.000+08:00

Everyone meets his big black dog (BBD) at least once in his lifetime. For Lecter, today was the day.

He trotted up to the (stray) BBD in the Park, sniffing at his tail. That was the canine version of our handshake, said Marty Becker, DVM, a veterinarian in Bonner's Ferry, Idaho, and coauthor of Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover's Soul and Chicken Soup for the Cat and Dog Lover's Soul.

But I didn't think the BBD read Chicken Soup. Ignoring all laws of canine psychology he jumped around and repeatedly snapped at Lecter with his wolverine teeth.

With incredible dexterity, Lecter evaded every bite of death, even if only by the breath of a hair. However, by the third or fourth snap, Lecter's morale had been completely routed.

Giving a final bark of defiance, he retreated into the hillsides and onto the green little circle. There, he was rescued by the bai zhan jee knight who escorted him to the BBD-free sanctuaries of the Green Mordor.

It turns out that all those times of trying to hunt Lecter down either to leash him, bathe him or simply just to tease him, has turned Lecter into the dodge master. Nothing can touch him, not even the fearsome BBD. Winston Churchill would have been proud of him.

This is not like what you think

2005-02-03T15:34:00.000+08:00

The dreaded days are less than a week away. Dee says that I have an irrational dislike of the CNY (Chinese New Year), which I assure you, is not true at all.

I do not have an irrational dislike of the Festival of red packets, generous trays of snacks and bowls of sweet desserts.

In fact, it is like an un-birthday party at the Mad Hatter's; you get to eat as much as you want for a good legal reason, and the food never runs out. Even though they do add a ton of weight to my body mass, and give me that killer sore throat which would totally waste any amount that I collect from the red packets, to the GPs.

I am just not that chummy with the unavoidable house visits. Such boisterous greetings and irrelevant ~~gossiping~~ conversations, awkward questioning of the elders, blaring of the TVs, and those rowdy bullying / crying of the kids, all eight hundred decibels too harmful for my ears.

Though the decisive reason might be that, with less than five days to go, I still have not the fitting clothes (and shoes) to wear, which would make me look less like the fat ass that I am.

I ~~hate~~ dislike CNY.

Knowing is not the beginning of healing

2005-02-02T20:34:00.000+08:00

This is a little embarrassing, and may come across as a surprise, but despite penning about it more than a couple of times, really, the only expert thing I can do on my skates is to stand. I run better than I skate, and I don't run enough to be good at it either. I walk bus-stop distances though. But always stop before I perspire. Perspiration is for real exercisers.

Now that I see myself type these things out loud, I am beginning understand the reasons for the size of my calves, the bulge of my belly, and that number on the waist measuring tape that I've always refused to acknowledge.

I think I've just been crushed under the weight of the truth. I shall go stuff my face in the CNY goodies now.

The finale

2005-02-01T03:29:00.000+08:00

Lecter had since been dubbed the Cat, with ears of a baby Jack and eyes like a Chihuahua. He'd also, for the first time since last Winter, felt cooling enough to sleep in my arms again while I worked on the Mac. I had to type with one hand that night.

Here, sneaking up on the shaven one, in the boys' room,

The little one, now without his whiskers.

Just like first day of school, Part III

2005-01-31T16:15:00.000+08:00

That was his first cut, more than a year ago. None as exciting as it was amusing. The little boy was now in Singapore, with hair overgrown like a punkster, and perpetually panting under his black winter coat in the summer heat.

I did my enquiry calls to several listed groomers here. Almost all of them were offering similar packages. I did what I had to do; I shut my eyes and did a random pick, justified by no other reason other than I didn't know any better, the differences (if any) between them.

I ended up giving the Canada certified groomer another ring. They picked him up early in the morning the very next day, in their yellow school bus.

I crossed my fingers and waited with baited breath.

*

The yellow school bus drove up and gave the courtesy honk before coming to a rest in front of the house. The "hi! I'm back!" honk!

It was the Return of the Rascal.

*

The contrasting red harness on his back. That boyish bark. The untidy bush of a tail, wagging frantically. There, the familiarity ended.

The Little One was all bald. Bald like the eagle symbol of his birth country, and more exposed than the naked one little pig whose house got blown down.

He was all G.I. Bob for CNY, and we were horrified.

Just like first day of school, Part II

2005-01-30T23:04:00.000+08:00

It was Fall, when we dialed the number on the name card. It was time overdue for Lecter's virgin haircut.

That morning a week later, I scooped up the furry bundle from his favorite spot and set out for the groomer's at six-plus in the morning, navigating through the roads on scribbled directions copied from MapQuest.

It was a long way, a half hour (no traffic) drive from our apartment. It got especially sleepy during the last stretch of the dusty road of wilderness. Deloach's WS Kennels was like one of the lands atop the Faraway Tree: far and away, though not exactly exotic.

We dropped Lecter off at Deloach's like a FedEx package, and zombied back into the Camry. Dee and I were feeling dopey like hell, so we were pretty much oblivious to the struggling black fur ball in the groomer's expert hands.

I couldn't remember much of what happened after that; I (we) totally conked out. We were due to pick Lecter up at five, but we woke up late, lost our way a little, and finally reached there when all the rest of the kids were gone.

When we saw Lecter scuffing his feet on the counter top, we just stood there guffawing for more than five minutes.

He was like a shaven lamb with a really big head. We almost couldn't recognize him. His tail fanned wildly once he spotted us. And I just hugged him coz I missed him so much.

He, the little lamb who lost his mink coat, and had a big beard.

That was his first, and our first. We called him Kam Gong for the rest of the week.

Just like first day of school, Part I

2005-01-29T08:21:00.000+08:00

Waking up before the alarm went off, rousing the sleepyheads, feeding the little boy his breakfast, telling him to be good there, packing him up and sending him off at the gate, to the bright yellow school van that had come to fetch him.

It was his first time, and our first time here. We had to tell the driver that the boy would be feisty and to keep an extra eye on him. He assured us that he would.

Being on wheels

2005-01-28T02:02:00.000+08:00

The wind was more willful there, like it was, when it was blowing by the sea. It was strong enough to nudge me along on my skates, while I stood there feeling it in my face. Before whipping strands of hair across my face, as I made a turn for the opposite direction under the last block of the row.

That was partly why I loved skating. I loved the wind in my face, and the distance that I could never cover if I was running / jogging instead of skating.

A hiatus of almost a year, with rare breaks in between, had rendered me completely paralyzed on wheels. Couldn't stand on my own, having to take baby steps sideways going down an almost non-existent slope, being paranoid of narrow spaces etc. But this had, at least, had me feeling a little accomplished today when I held my own for some extended distance without doing it as precariously as I had did previously.

The skating was good, and the big fat wind was a bonus. I was doing to do it again.

The idol

2005-01-27T03:52:00.000+08:00

Minutes before six in the evening. I looked up from the C-pen that Dee was showing me, to the little boy at my feet. He hadn't been out today yet. He looked up at me, and then towards the gate. Oh well why not, I thought. The little bugger was just eager for any chance to be out of the house. The areas around were his territories and I usually would not use the leash on him. Esp. when the Park which he and all the kids and canines of the estate often frequented, was barely two minutes away. Plus he always followed me well enough.

We walked out (well I strolled, and he, being he, dashed out) of the Gates of the Green Mordor. In that twenty seconds that I had to lock the gate, the rascal made a little detour into the Uptight Neighbors' house, and (!!!) peed on their superbly well tended lawn. Mrs Uptight Neighbor was talking on her cordless phone, and saw the whole frigging incident. I was hoping she would not call the police after that. Dee was convinced that she would though.

Roaming without his harness and leash apparently made him an attractive candidate of an impromptu abduction by the kids in the Park. The girls (and couple of boys) were following him, sneaking up on him, trying to carry him, ride on him, and basically scaring the hell out of him with their loud open discussions of the best tactic to tackle him. I stood a distance away, chuckling at the commotion. Reluctantly as he was, he'd just unconsciously acquired for himself another fan club.

By the time we left the Park, his fans had tattooed his name into their memories, in the same folder as his likes and dislikes, and his ability to catch any ball that bounced and sticks that he deemed good enough for fetch. They also clamored onto a ~~van~~ bike to track down the exact location of the house, and efficiently gotten his schedule of appearances at the Park.

Such was the adoration for being small and black in an estate of yellow labradors and retrievers.

Such was the birth of a reluctant idol.

Meet the twixters

2005-01-26T02:16:00.000+08:00

So now I am betwixt and between. 2X years old, struggling with financial independence, and none brighter than I was a couple of years ago. Even Lecter learns, quickly too. I probably oughta shoot myself. But I'm too tied up at the moment, it's a crazy period, only to get crazier. I'll get down to the shooting once I am done with the rubbish on hand.

*

Looks almost surreal. Though I probably wouldn't wanna be living in one of them right now.

Like the wind, he goes

2005-01-25T02:10:00.000+08:00

Lecter is a sprinter.

When he was only as big as Dee's palm, we had him run up a gentle slope and down to the other side at 3 am in the morning, scooping him up before he reached the finish line and had him planted back at the starting point again. As he grew, we raced him against college kids, where he would fall a mile behind, but would always finish the race like a true athlete.

Nowadays as sudden bursts of energy grips him from time to time, he would just sprint down a whole length of distance in a matter of seconds, outrunning many his human counterparts, and most amateur inline skaters.

Now he may not be the cutest amongst the superbly well-groomed yelpers in a canine toy breed competition, but I am betting my money where it matters: on him winning the crown (and hearts of the bitches) in a toy breed race.

For Lecter may be bow-legged, but he's an arrow when he runs. All I have to do now is to get him to run in a straight line without wandering off to pee at some tree, and you're looking at the new 100-meters dash toy breed champion.

*

Wouldn't the bugger feel gan kor, being carried around like this ?

FurBerry Puppy Purse

via pamperedpuppy

Fat babe (wanna be) slim

2005-01-24T02:08:00.000+08:00

This may not be the most interesting read, but the accompanying pictures are weirdly appealing, in a there-is-a-gory-car-accident-and-I-don't-want-to-look-but-I-can't-help-it way, especially when it's linked with this.

If only the rage refers to our real girls here, I wouldn't have a headache finding clothes that actually fit.

(links via tien mao's little read book)

Whilst the venerable Mr. Miyagi Sensei puts up pictures of (rich and famous) slim babes, I'm posting those of the underrated. You go, sisters.

Hello Grandma, Byebye Grandma

2005-01-23T23:29:00.000+08:00

We drove half an hour via the expressways to spend less than five minutes with Grandma Gambit today. The old folks at St. Luke's Hospital have a sleeping time at 8 pm, and probably wake up at 4, 5 am the following morning.

I would love to wake up at those times, I love dawns (but not mornings), but I have a rather inverted sleeping schedule, regardless of my geographical location. So needless to say, that isn't very possible.

Breakfast at Tiffany's

2005-01-22T11:09:00.000+08:00

I almost died, having my breakfast at a table where old wives' tales and labeling (by the older folks) became the Truths of the Day.

Lecter became a pekingese (!), and all giant breeds of dogs were german shepherds. All dogs caused asthma, and anyone, especially kids, within a certain radius of contact would get it from the dogs.

Who-and-who had a dog, just like that ! (pointed to Lecter, who looked on puzzlingly.) A fat lion-dog (pekingese) ! * He gave it up for adoption within a couple of months.

Aiya no surprise, larh. My who-and-who also, marh. She gave up TWO of them (shoved the two-finger victory sign in front of the rest). Dogs cause asthma, leh. And they are dirty smelly and stupid too.

Yah yah, very smelly and stupid. Their fur makes you asthmatic too.

I looked at Lecter sitting quietly by my side, and I looked at them. And then I decided who were actually the stupid ones.

-

* Most pekingese are not fat. They are just fluffy. Like Lecter is now.

Blurbs

2005-01-22T01:59:00.000+08:00

The series

I personally haven't tried drunk dialing, but cw makes it seems almost fun to do so ... 'til you become sober, that is.

*

Knowing ID

What if God is a lobster? Or a totally, like, super-smart cherry pie?

*

Not that this would ever happen here

Just as I began to rave to my friends how absolutely heavenly my meal was, the front door of the restaurant swung open and in trotted 4 cows, all walking on their hind legs, covered in blood.

from Ramblings of a Wallflower

*

Rooting for your President ...

Just as Bush takes his 2nd oath of office,

[click to enlarge]

not.

On being free

2005-01-15T23:22:00.000+08:00

Freedom knows no harness or leash. It also tastes like chicken bones.

- Lecter, aged 17 months (- 7 days)

Sometimes I wonder why people donate

2005-01-14T18:05:00.000+08:00

Apologies for the rather fragmented entry earlier on today (or yesterday, since it's passed midnight now). That's what happens when you wake up at some unearthly hour and then put to screen what you've read previously. Debt relief is too huge a topic to be attempted by hazy minds at dawn.

Page six on the Straits Times today (yesterday), is an article on some of the findings of a national survey commissioned by the NVPC (National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre). Lower-income Singaporeans are reportedly more generous in their donations to religious organizations and charitable causes than their richer compatriots. Statement is made based on proportion of income donated.

I don't suspect that the findings of this 'landmark national survey' are going to create much buzz in the community. Any amount from a person earning peanuts would be likely to translate into a large percentage of the income anyway. I did not contribute a scholarship amount to the tsunami funds, but it sure is a substantial percentage of my financial possession.

Although certainly, there are those amongst us ordinary folks whose hearts are far bigger than some of the more recognized names in certain industries. People like 56-year-old Agnes Boo, a clothes seller, who earns $800 a month, and gives $1,000 to help the tsunami victims, on top of the 1900 calls she dialed in to the (circus/stunt) shows put up by the local glitterati, are worth more than our respect. For donating 125% of her monthly pay and then some: I salute her.

Will debt relief work ?

2005-01-14T09:20:00.000+08:00

While donations pour in from governments and individuals in the wake of the Asian tsunami disaster, greater financial relief might come in form of a freeze offered by the Paris Club of nineteen creditor nations, on interest payments and debts owed to them by the tsunami-affected nations.

Even then, Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the Seychelles are the only three of the countries affected who have taken up the offer. Thailand turned it down, not wanting to affect its credit ratings. India, too, has said it will rely on its own resources rather than international aid.

The Indonesian central bank has previously accepted a possible condition of debt relief that the money should be spent on reconstruction in Aceh, prior to the current no-conditions-attached debt moratorium.

The fact that the central government has been fighting separatist rebels in Aceh for several years could cast doubt on the sincerity of their intention to spend the money there.

How to ensure that the debt payments would be directed specifically to Aceh and not be diverted by corrupt officials ?

*

Debt relief might bring in the cash in the short term but can make it more difficult for countries to borrow money in the longer term.

The tsunami debt relief is expected to be confined to official government debt, a move which should protect Indonesia from the possibility of a credit rating downgrade, ratings agency Standard & Poor's said.

Forcing a restructuring of private debt would be well intentioned but ill conceived, it said - "inducing a default by Indonesia may well be a serious impediment to future private investment and lending to Indonesia."

Concerns about corruption, questionable political intent, economic sovereignty and the dangers of encouraging reckless spending surround the debate on debt relief.

Even with the best of intentions, it can be difficult to absorb the cash and turn it into real improvements on the ground.

*

Total external debt

Indonesia $132.2bn
India $104.4bn
Thailand $59.2bn
Malaysia $48.6bn
Sri Lanka $9.6bn
Somalia $2.7bn
Seychelles $560m
Maldives $270m

Source: World Bank

Resources: BCC NEWS | Business

How strong is your love ?

2005-01-10T23:38:00.000+08:00

Under two weeks to that-day-of-the-year-when-I-can-ask-for-anything-like-a-spoilt-brat (well ... almost anything). I like pleasant surprises, but I prefer not to waste well-intended gifts which I have no use for, more. So for those who are thinking of getting me something to console me on wasting yet another one full year of my life, this is the list to look out for:

(in no order of preference)
一。 One gigantic pot of tang yuan
二。 Sonic
三。 A sushi treat
四。 Swatch ~~Typical-Square~~* OR ~~Bunnysutra~~**
五。 Salomon Inline TR gel 3 pack
六。 One-of-a-kind tees from one of the Far East Plaza shops.
七。 Something nice from Puma (exclu. wallets & wrist bands).
八。 Any books from my Amazon wish list.
九。 A mouse / case for the lonely guy.
十。 MNG vouchers.

There, took me all of ten minutes to come up with that. Be nice, I'll be waiting eagerly on my side.

updated
*I am allergic to plastic straps.
**the Sister's fiancé just got her that for V-day. Maybe as a hint or something. Haha. Okay okay, I am just joking (about the hint).

Drowning opportunities

2005-01-10T01:03:00.000+08:00

Even in this part of the world, so close to the disaster, not everyone sees only the tragedy in the tsunami disaster that claimed more than a hundred thousand lives. Post-disaster, I was talking to Dee, and our conversation drifted to Nassim Taleb and his ruminations about black swans (or rare events), which might tie in pretty well with that which happened to South Asia on the morning of Boxing Day.

What dee said about not mourning as much as he should, partly coz' 'more people die in much slower ways each year from a range of silent killers' and partly coz' 'natural disasters tend to be agents of change' are ringing much more truth than most people care to admit.

In this case, agents of change could come in the form of reconciliations between the government and the rebels in the two countries worst hit by the disaster.

In Indonesia (Aceh), the government and rebels / pro-independence fighters have declared a ceasefire in the aftermath of the disaster. Even then, both sides have accused each other of attacks, none of which could be independently verified. We are crossing our fingers that relief effort for disaster might change the dynamics of the long-running conflict between the antagonists. If not, we could all be back to square one.

In Sri Lanka, the Sri Lankan government and Tamil Tiger rebels are thrown together to bring aid to hundreds of thousands of tsunami victims. A situation where many hope would offer a chance to mend fences. Then the former decided to bar UN Secretary General Kofi Annan from visiting tsunami-hit north-eastern areas under rebel Tamil Tiger control. The Tigers were furious. They (the tigers) have also protested against the government's decision to send soldiers to manage relief camps in their territories, and have accused the government of discriminating against them in distributing aid.

This, that and a couple more accusations from both sides. Such tensions are threatening to overshadow the aid effort, and the disaster now looks likely to exacerbate ethnic grievances in Sri Lanka rather than help overcome them.

There is really no easy way out, especially of any political situation. But it is more likely for an age old feud to be settled in the face of disaster than for an internal illness to cure itself. This disaster has created opportunities for conflict resolution. The ball is in their courts, if they want to seize them.

Resources: BCC NEWS | South Asia

I'm hooked

2005-01-08T18:24:00.000+08:00

More, from Johann-

A depressed young woman from a Manhattan finishing school was so desperate that she decided to end her life by throwing herself into the ocean.

When she went down to the docks, a handsome young sailor noticed her tears, took pity on her and said, Look, you've got a lot to live for. I'm off to Europe in the morning, and if you like, I can stow you away on my ship. I'll take care of you and bring you food every day. Moving closer, he slipped his arm around her shoulder and added, I'll keep you happy, and you'll keep me happy. The girl nodded. What did she have to lose?

That night, the sailor brought her aboard and hid her in a lifeboat.
From then on, every night he brought her three sandwiches and a piece of fruit, and they made passionate love until dawn.

Three weeks later, during a routine search, she was discovered by the captain. What are you doing here? he asked. I had an arrangement with one of the sailors, she explained. He's taking me to Europe, and every night he comes and screws me.

He sure did, lady, said the captain. This is the Staten Island Ferry.

And then hell freezes over

2005-01-08T02:06:00.000+08:00

After the unexpected closure of g.a.d, Etan's stuff just cracks me up again. His site here, and only for the sexy. He is after all, (more than) your average sexy New Yorker.

Sweet Tooth

The other day April and I took off to do a little window-shopping. I didn’t care that much for the merchandise in the windows, but every now and again, a female sales clerk would catch my eye.

April caught me at it. “You’re like a kid in a candy store!”

“Yeah, well, since I’m married to you, I’m like a kid with diabetes in a candy store.”

*

Redneck Graves

Three rednecks, Bubba, Earl and Jeb, were stumbling home late one night and found themselves on the road that led past the old graveyard.

“Come have a look over here,” says Bubba, “It’s Zeb Jones’ grave, God bless his soul, he lived to the ripe old age of 87.”

“That’s nothing,” says Earl, “here’s one named Butch Smith. It says here that he was 95 when he died.”

Just then, Jeb yells out, “But here’s a fella that died when he was 145 years old!”

“What was his name?” asks Bubba.

Jeb lights a match to see what else is written on the stone marker, and exclaims, “Miles, from Georgia.”

*

Unlikely Events

I saw on an internet news site this morning that some towns in Texas just had a white Christmas for the first time in 86 years. And I thought, well, that’s appropriate: first the Red Sox win the World Series, and then hell freezes over.

Paper farm, 2005

2005-01-06T01:04:00.000+08:00

A while before last Christmas, some emotional wires that connected my girlfriend and I short-circuited, and all communications ceased abruptly. Christmas came and went. We spent a rare holiday season without our usual exchange of crazy warm wishes. Thank goodness, New Year came and fixed up one of the wires; girlfriend sent me the first of her latest yshwer-pets: the three square pigs (one of them is supposedly a gay. No prizes for guessing which.), wishing me a happy new ear and taking at least 49% of the rust off our static sistahood with that.

So my girlfriend is a cartoonist-on-whim. That means, she can draw you any animal, alive or extinct, anytime anywhere as long as she has the pen. She drew me a reindeer over-wrapped in scarves on the back of a receipt once, two Christmases back, while waiting for our main courses to arrive. I think I might still have that slip somewhere.

Like the seasonal collections of designer outfits, there are seasonal changes of her main characters. Last season, she gave me the sheep, and the very next day, she gave me those pigs. She hasn't really given me the cows yet, but I'm positive they'll come sooner or later. It's a paper farm out there.

My real animal barked me into giving him an extra run today. The first place he ran to, was to his best friend's, the Golden Retriever's, just a couple of houses down. The two are the best of friends-foes. They bark at each other as furiously as I would to my fishmonger if I discover that he tries to shortchange me on my fish. But then again, both of their tails would also be wagging just as madly at the same time. So perhaps, all that ferocity is actually their canine way to communicate in an extremely manly manner, you know, like an ego thing, to see who barks louder.

"Hello !! " Bark bark.

"Hola ! " Bark bark louder.

"How's your day ?! " Bark even louder

"Very well thank you !!! " Barking at top of his lungs.

Well anyway, Goldie was not at his compound, or his Little Tikes kennel today. Lecter was sniffing around and poking his head thru' the gates looking for him and he wasn't there. He (lecter) then leaped over a canal and onto a huge grass patch to the steep slope by the side of the house, walked the whole length of it a couple of times while sniffing and poking his head thru the railings several times before jumping back to the front gates again. I thought I saw him lay down by the side of the gate, looking rather deflated for a moment.

I thought he missed his friend. Either that, or he was just feeling darn sian, not finding his friend where he usually finds him. Either way, I'd felt the same way. Now, my friend and I just need to work on that 51% of rust.

An American breakfast

2005-01-03T21:41:00.000+08:00

Tien wrote about his drive-in at Doumar's in Norfolk and said it was sorta like Sonic. Gosh. Sonic! My favorite fast food chain yet. I am in love with at least 90% of what's on their menu. It's a tremendous bonus that they have those killer tater tots. As Tien wrote, you can't lose with tater tots.

Speaking of kickass fast food, I had some nice waffle at the SMU café, after I brought Lecter for a walk at the Botanic Gardens (where he plopped into the lake chasing his black swan friend). Nice, but small. The 6 inches by 4 inches plain waffle with one egg and two greasy sausages was twice as expensive as Dee's huge packet of Chinese noodles with his favorite luncheon meat and fish biscuits. But I thought his noodles looked greasier. So there. I paid more for less grease. Haha.

<< Lecter, asleep in my arms on our way home from the Gardens. That smelly boy.

My own cocktail mix

2005-01-02T19:10:00.000+08:00

With a cough, and a cold, and a friggin' throat infection, I am starting the new year with a big bang of my own. Fever would be served in a moment.

Now if I could get the ears to stop hurting so much, I could at least plug in my iPod while corpsing around. But no such luck; they come in a Happy Meal set.

*

Monet and I finally caught the National Treasure. Yes, we were some latecomers for this one, and I was even watching it after reading it on themoviespoiler. Which I was glad I did (watch it), coz the posted spoiler was rather crap. This did not usually happen, crap spoilers I mean, though I couldn't be sure since I'd only read spoilers of shows which I did not intend to watch. NT was an exception. I was desperate for junk material then. But I digress.

NT was surprisingly good. SOP: sprinkled inconsistencies, older hero, younger babe (left insert), cuter sidekicks (I do think sidekicks are getting to be more eye candy. Ryan Reynolds was, in Blade Trinity.), clumsy bad guys, plus this time, a Washington DC attractions menu disguised. Which did make me tempted to return to the DC for at least a week. But that could wait.

I'd also never watched Nicholas Cage smiled so much onscreen. Must be that Troy babe larh. Guys.

In the year 2005

2005-01-02T13:57:00.000+08:00

Fresh start for the new year. Let's see how '05 will measure up.

*

Lecter smells delicious after his bath, much like a walking piece of black pepper steak. With fur. That is until he chases the pigeons and the big black swan, and falls into the pond with a big flat plop. And then, there goes the steak.

*

New Year Resolutions blog entries never make any good reads. Why the need / want to broadcast resolutions which are most likely to be neglected by the end of the month ? In fact, why make them at all ? If people are as resolute as they should be when they make the resolutions, we might just have more millionaires, models, and star performers in every field than we could possibly handle. The standards are already high enough. Don't need to perform Olympics on daily basis liao larh.