post-its + slinky = AWESOME

they've done it again! eepybird.com, the great minds that brought you the diet coke and mentos experiment, have done it again! this time with 280,951 post-it notes and a whole lotta patience. the sticky notes experiment blows my mind!

can't get enough? enjoy perusing the rest of their experiments!

sign me up!

i want to write a blog that everyone wants to read.

i want to be influential.

i want the free stuff that comes when i have achieved the above said.

too bad i am too busy (i.e. lazy) to pour my heart and soul into self promotion on cyberspace :P

ps: bruises by chairlift (better known as the song from the new nano-chromatic ad) is most catchy!

don't know what you got till it's gone

"Three years ago during my first trip to Singapore, I fell for the Comfort’s classic charm. Sliding onto the rear bench seat, I noticed that the Comfort’s interior was a time warp of black vinyl and easy-clean rubber floors, which, this being Singapore, were actually cleaned on a regular basis. The Comfort had a springy ride that conjured up fond childhood memories of bouncing along in a yellow school bus. In comparison, the murky confines of New York taxis leave me feeling squashed as if I were in the back seat of a police cruiser."- Nick Kurczewski

who knew that comfort cabs would be compared to the checkered cabs of the NYC of yore? Nick Kurczewski, a freelance automotive journalist who blogs for the New York Times' Wheels blog bemoans the fact that comfort cabs' Toyota Comforts (known as the Toyota Crown here in Singapore) are being switched to more fuel efficient taxis.

yes I know that as a country, we may be comfortable, and safe and have all the modern amenities (sans certain freedoms) that we need, but to allude to the Toyota Crown as a Singaporean icon? erm, not so much.

still, it's always nice to read something about your country that isn't condescending or critical (or about food/shopping for that matter). So I'll just keep forwarding that link to all my friends, who will probably respond the same way as darren did ("the NYTimes covers some strange things"), but who will have a little suppressed burst of pride deep down inside, that something as trivial as the taxi cabs we take for grated, are of interest to others.

ps: thanks to garrett ewald for the link!

you're SO intellectual!

the new paper is the perfect newspaper (no i shall not make any puns about it being a "rag") for the five minute bathroom break. ok so it's not that new (it was launched 20 years ago actually), but I was curious about the new design revamp that they just came out with.

however, what really caught my eye was the cover story about "Sassy singles end up dating Mr Fright". That's all well and good. I am a strong believer that you shouldn't NEED to be in a relationship to satisfy society's expectations and Ms Candy Soh, a 27-year-old preschool teacher managed to give pretty decent (albeit expected) answers about what she expects out of a relationship and a potential life partner.

kudos to her.

but a quote by the second interviewee, a 29-year-old legal assistant, reduced me to a shaking ball of laughter and tears right there in my office lavatory. she's been on blind dates and dated men she trawled off IRC (great place to meet men honey!!) but didn't seem to be able to click (pun intended!) with them.

the kicker was when she proclaimed to "enjoy intellectual films like A Beautiful Mind and Forrest Gump" and bemoans the fact that "some men don't try to understand these movies." I sure am glad she's holding these men up to such lofty expectations.

perhaps she should consider speed dating to draw in better male specimens?

chillin' like a villin'

ok.. i meant "villian", but i don't know how to make it sound right if you are reading it instead of hearing it.

there is something very nostalgic about sitting at the micky d's at funan surfing on my laptop waiting for ah seng and ock to arrive for lunch. ok maybe there wasn't wireless.sg during my freelance days (when i got to sit around doing a whole lot of nothing more often than not)

i feel like the total gadget geek i am, sitting here with a computer, phone, ipod and a real book (to add a touch of good old fashioned intellect) and i have to say i am liking it.

liking it a lot actually ;-)

i'm also excited about the fact that today is my last day of classes. it will be nice to get back to a normal one job schedule!

MMmmmm Booze.....

slumber

i am so glad that i am passed the phase where i needed to get sloshed at least twice a week to feel that me life was complete.

i don't remember making an ass of myself countless times, but it seems that ever ex-college mate of mine, ex-colleague, ex-army buddy (you get the point) seems to have a story about me that i don't remember!

that. is. not. a. good. thing.

thank god that i did all that BEFORE the advent of (affordable) digital cameras and cellphones. the drunk pictures of me are all either lost or locked away in the dark recesses of my film archive, and for that i am grateful. however this guy really got the raw end of the deal.

not only was he caught on google street view (a godsend to me in nyc, and hopefully coming to singapore at some point), but he was also in front of his mother's house.

he didn't whine too much about it, but just enough for google to blot that image off their site. too bad he didn't get there before thisislondon.co.uk got to it first.

so the next time you decided to excessively imbibe, be sure to pass out in a somewhat more private location eh?

bygone tech-brands

"napster subscribers fall" says the news article on the bbc.

napster! when was the last time i heard that!? probably in university when it was still easy to 'steal' music. this got me thinking about tech brands and phrases that were virtual bywords in the last decade that we hardly hear of anymore.

napster (of course), netscape (remember navigator?), eudora (gotta love email!), telnet, leonis (the nus server that i had early access to thanks to my elder sis who went to school there, oh, and the PRE-GRAPHIC interweb i might add), earthlink, aol, winamp, mIRC (the client, not the actual chatroom interface), gopher, animated gifs, friendster, lotus 1-2-3, word perfect, ms-dos, california games, kazaa, limewire, ws_ftp, illustrator, pagemaker, ICQ, askjeeves.com, quarkXpress, lynx, IBM's OS/2 Warp (damn that is OLD school),wordstar, dbase, strongbad (how i used to crack up to trogdor the burninator!), bryce 3D, myst...

the list is endless...

i am in a bit of a nostalgic mood, so if you have any other programmes, applications, games etc to add to that list. feel free to tack it on!

where's the impetus to blog?!?

it's so weird, we're totally wired, and perpetually online, and yet it's getting harder to blog.

part of the reason (as mentioned before) is obviously facebook, but there are also other excuses, like my thinking that no one reads this anymore (not that I blame them, heck, I've been out of fashion for YEARS). Do we really want our status updates (there! the bad influence of facebook again!) in bite sized chunks or would we rather actually find out how people REALLY are (erm.. as far as blog posts go that is.)

really makes one wonder.

I should just post a shitload of new pictures :)

correction, I should really TAKE a shitload of new pictures.

you know it's a sad day...

... when the US Presidential Election comes to the WWE

wtf?

bad stuff, cannot bluff

please make it stop!

sometimes, when you have good (bad?) things to share, you just gotta do it. all i can say is that i am VERY glad that i do not work at the MDA right about now ;)

to my foreign friends, yes, this is how singapore wastes their taxpayers' money.

ps: if the link above is too slow (because everyone wants to watch the damn thing), you can try this instead

proud new home owner

this is the look of a proud owner of his own kingdom.

it's not what you would expect, because it IS darren after all, and even though we love him, we can hardly call him normal.

but he's got his keys, the contractors are starting work and by early 2008, we should have a new place to invade for chill time. even if it is NEARLY in malaysia.

hallelujah!

good things do come to those who wait.

so what if it's 5:15am in the morning and that i've spent the last few hours fiddling with my computer?

i've finally gotten my p990i to sync with my mac, and i couldn't be happier. updated contacts and calandars?

ahhh! my life is complete!

and now, to hit the shower and enjoy a much deserved sleep.

*update - it's 7:15am and am just done manually changing some contacts that wouldn't upload. reminder to self - make sure everything is working fine before making random declarations*

blabber

if it was as easy to give up smoking and to start working out again as it is for me to procrastinate blogging, i'd be fit as a fiddle and have smoke free lungs. it actually took a promise to my colleague suan chiang for me to actually post an entry. apparently there are still people who read this and who are curious as to how things are going in my life.

who would have thought?

however, it seems like my bedroom induces lethargy, especially after working all damn day. school is back in session, so what this really translates to is eight hours of newspaper work, followed by three hours of teaching, followed by another three hours BACK at the newspaper, before i finally take off for home, as wrung out as a dishcloth that's had to clean some massive spills.

things are steadily getting better i'd like to think, i'm getting more done at work in less time, and am actually beginning to understand how things work to the point that i preempt mistakes before they even get out. the learning curve is steep, but i'd like to think that i'm giving it the old college try and admirably hanging on.

change is in the air though, lots of it. and while it might mean the marginal tightening of belts, there is no substitute for happiness. money can buy you a lot of things, but if you aren't happy, then what's the point?

now all i need to do is to start quitting them cigarettes, and start hitting that gym.

who knows, it might even happen soon.

another alternate me

doh!
even in the land of the yellow people, i stick out like a sore thumb... or stomach.
thanks to randy for the link to making your very own simpsons avatar.

go forth and create.