December 2004 Archives

Skeptics, don't ask me where I got these messages from.

Message received by senior church member during our house blessing: The fish in our Koi pond shall grow to have unusual patterns. Everything that lives in there, shall flourish. (I am logging this down so we can keep track of it when something happens)

Message I received while praying about the Tsunamis earlier this week: Singapore shall be protected.

While the death toll mounts, I feel numbed. We've sent in our donations, we've said our prayers, and that seems like all I ought to do. Perhaps there are too many things on my mind at the moment - too many things happening all at once. Each day passes in a blur, and I never seem to have enough time to finish whatever I'm doing.

Another SPH newspaper closes down.

I can vaguely recall the pain felt when the newspaper I worked at, Project Eyeball, closed down 3 years before that. Vague, because time has eroded many of the memories I once had of the people and the place.

As a fresh graduate I was idealistic. And shaken. 'Why retrench the people who were simply doing their jobs well', I wondered, 'when the management who decided on the business plan would keep theirs?'

The emotions I felt have been whittled away, but some things in life still stay in my head because they seemed illogical. I suppose retrenchments hardly ever make sense to those who are affected.

Ironically, there may even be a few ex-colleagues who were transferred from Eyeball to Streats. I wonder how they must be feeling. Deja vu?

...Is like living without my right arm.
I can still get things done

But it's like walking 3 sides of a square
to get to the same point.

Every time I think of opening a new page,
I reach out to hit CTRL-T but then realise
It doesn't work that way any more.

I did that too many times today.
I stopped myself, because it felt silly.
As if something would happen in IE!

So my taskbar's cluttered now.
Programs, Documents, and a gazillion browser windows.
I do lots of things at the same time.
Now it just takes me longer to locate a window.

And I can't open multiple pages
With the click of a button anymore
It's one by one by one by one...

The customised version of IE we have to use
prevents me from changing the homepage URL
and usernames or passwords cannot be stored

So nothing's done anymore with just a click of a button.

And it takes longer for me
To find what I want.

Worse, I nearly lost the Google Toolbar.
I begged to keep it
Because that was the closest thing to Firefox
That I had left.

At least it let me search Google
And block popup windows
For free.

Merry Christmas everybody!

Hilin got me the Apple iSight. I totally didn't expect anyone to get it for me. Best Christmas present this year, so far. In line with my plans to catalogue all the items lying around the house, I bought the full license to Delicious Library (Mac only) and it has been able to scan the majority of our books and CDs. It scanned in a DVD movie, too. It is amazing... Thanks again for the present!

I sent an SMS to one of my Cypriot (Greek) friends and she returned the Christmas wishes. Her mum even said hi to me. I was touched that they remembered me. It's been four years since we graduated, but I'm still glad I had a crazy time with my hallmates in university.

It's now official. The whole company has been informed that on 1 Jan 2005, the new Copyright Law would come into effect, with criminal penalties for offenders. At the same time, the new company IT security policy would also be implemented.

Mozilla Firefox was listed as one of the programs not allowed on our systems. Much has been sacrificed in the name of security. So I thought I should at least write my favourite web browser a farewell message.

Dear, dear Firefox. How did I love thee?

Let me count the ways.

Opening multiple tabs so I could view all ongoing web projects simultaneously. It was neat. I knew what was going on, real-time.

Viewing text in any size that I want. No pain. No eye strain.

Blocking popup windows. And having the option to allow popups for trusted sites.

That nifty web search toolbar. Doing editing work was fast - I could do a Dictionary.com search in a jiffy.

It's officially the end of an era, dear Firefox. But in my house, on my computer ... you'll still rule.

We officially moved in yesterday.

However many fixtures have yet to be, well, fixed.

My G5 Mac is now situated in the music room. Unfortunately, that places it just out of reach of our wireless network (yes, it's encrypted, unlike our neighbours' ;-). AirPort Express (AE) was of little use - the G5 could connect to it, but AE couldn't seem to bridge the gap between our wireless router and the G5, despite numerous placement attempts and reconfigurations.

This means I cannot download my emails (most of which are spam, anyway). My access to the Internet depends on whether anyone else is using the lone PC that's been set up and hooked up to our router.

And now I have to take my leave.

I'm very busy juggling work and moving house. I won't necessarily respond to emails. I won't check out URLs you send me. I may not reply to your text messages.

And no, we have no housewarming plans yet. We're not exactly in the mood for that right now.

The big match is on right now but I can't watch it on TV because we only have one SCV point, and everyone in that room has fallen asleep. If, in the first minute, I had jumped up and shouted GOAL!!!! I don't think anyone would be cheering with me. But well done, Henry.

Oh well. There's always the BBC (live updates) and the human imagination.

My running commentary, in chronological order:

Recent CD acquisitions (at the usual CD Shop): Zero 7's When It Falls (nice ambience, sounds a bit like Air though); Blue Bar Vol 2 (hip chillout lounge - my only big splurge); The Very Best of Christmas Favorites (heart-warming renditions by various artistes - I particularly like Diana Krall's take on Jingle Bells); WOW Christmas (by various famous Christian artistes); Depeche Mode remixes 81-04; High Society compilation We Got The Soul (I really dig this Motown groove, baby).

Recent Apple acquisitions: For myself, a Belkin Cassette Adapter. I've been looking for one for ages and finally my Apple Store had it in stock. I tried it out in my car (which loads cassettes in sideways) and after a few re-tries, it worked! Marvellous piece of equipment, and much clearer than the FM Transmitters I've used. No batteries required with the cassette adapter - and no mixed signals from nearby radio stations.

For mother, we decided to get a 'little' something from the Apple Store, if you know what I mean. It was selling like hotcakes. I also counted 60-70 boxes of iMacs and other systems lined up for delivery. Business is roaring! However I don't like the new iMac after viewing it in person. It's thick - and certainly it's designed by the iPod team because it looks like a first(?) generation iPod, encased in transparent plastic over the white. Granted, the whole CPU is inside. But somehow it looks better in pictures.

Later on (when we've finished moving house) I plan to get iSight so I can scan our books using Delicious Library, mentioned in a previous post.

Hot in the news today is a finding that the majority of Singaporeans believe they speak Mandarin well. As suggested in the Straits Times, they probably gave themselves a generous self-assessment.

Here in Singapore, I haven't heard anyone speak 100% Mandarin without relying on other tongues to fill up gaps in their vocabulary. Quite often our version of Mandarin has evolved into a smattering of English and Chinese dialects. My Mandarin, I am first to admit, is pretty shite although I am speaking a bit more of it these days.

Similarly - perhaps due to our multicultural background - when we speak English, we throw in Mandarin, dialects, and Malay as filler words and substitutes. There are glaring errors even in formal correspondence. Most common mistakes I've noticed: Pluralising uncountable nouns by adding an 's'. Saying you'll 'revert' to someone - are you going to morph into him?

Increasingly I've noticed that genders are getting mixed up. That's probably because 'ta' in Mandarin could mean 'him' or 'her' in English. It gets confusing, especially when the speaker is referring to two possible people, one male and one female, and you're trying to figure out who it is without embarassing the speaker.

Admittedly, we're all human. Even newscasters make mistakes. But imagine what it would be like learning French and other languages which have genders for nouns!

A relative in the States (a staunch Democrat) sent this to me and I just had to share it with everyone:

Bush is my shepherd; I dwell in want.
He maketh logs to be cut down in national forests.
He leadeth trucks into the still wilderness.
He restoreth my fears.
He leadeth me in the paths of international disgrace for his ego's sake.

Yea, though I walk through the valley of pollution and war,
I will find no exit, for thou art in office.
Thy tax cuts for the rich and thy media control, they discomfort me.
Thou preparest an agenda of deception in the presence of thy religion.
Thou anointest my head with foreign oil.
My health insurance runneth out.

Surely, megalomania and false patriotism shall follow me all the days of thy term,
And my jobless child shall dwell in my basement forever.

I'm mentioned in today's edition of Streats, a free Singapore daily tabloid. Mucho gracias to my friend Joan.

Ms Vanessa Tan, who has been blogging since mid-2002, said: "I chose Movable Type because it's one of the most powerful weblog tools for advanced bloggers who know how to work with databases and scripts. You can also install additional plug-ins written by third parties to enhance the functionality of your website."

...Blogs by journalists are listed on cyberjournalist.net while Ms Tan suggests checking out www.daypop.com/blogrank, a website that ranks the top blogs.

Incidentally, Streats is possibly the only local newspaper with a web standards-compliant website. Way to go!

UPDATE! Streats sent me a list of questions for the interview. For the record here are all my answers:

I watched Alexander today. It's another of those epic 3 hour films with lots of gory battle scenes and dramatic speeches, with the occasional romance and sex thrown in.

Spoilers ahoy!

Taufik won.

Yessss!

And there were three million votes.

I always preferred Mat to Ah Beng because he was really the better singer, even though he always looked more anguished. Singapore will be proud to have Taufik as our representative in World Idol. At least, he can pronounce his words properly.

We know the Chinese market will be waiting for Sly, so no big loss to him. Kind of sweet that his parents spoke up for him. Oh, I was pretty amused by Taufik's 5 brides (erm, I think Muslim law permits up to 4).

And both of them, in fact almost all the finalists, sang better than Dick Lee.

Comments?

[Additional thought: Isn't it strange that even though Taufik won, most of us think Sly will do better in Asia? It is a paradox that continues to affect English-speaking singers in Singapore. If you want to make it big more easily, sing in Mandarin, because you can market yourself in Taiwan and China. However that's about as far as you will get, although that is good enough by most Singapore standards. Unless you want to land roles in Hollywood movies playing stereotypical kung-fu good cop/gangster characters, because that's how Asian artistes are generally viewed.]