Lulu's Birthday!

My family has a pet.

The pet is a dog.

The dog is a she dog.

Her name is Lulu.

We name her Orh Lulu because she was very black when she was a baby.

It is Lulu's birthday today.

She is one year old!

Mum is cooking chicken meat for her special day.

Lulu likes to eat durain.

My family loves our dog.

Pain That I Am (Un)used To

Running 21km vs Painting a 2m x 3m room

The former gave me a bruised toe, sore right hamstring and aching quads/calves for 2 days. Last night able to do a relatively quick-paced run following a recovery run on Monday night.

The latter gave me biceps spasms, sore neck, aching shoulder dorsals and something similar to a tennis elbow. I'm still in recovery phase....please don't shout my name from behind. I can only turn very slowly.......

Last weekend

Last weekend was quite a harrowing experience.
But last year was slightly worse.

Although I did not club until 3am before running a half-marathon, I helped auntie paint her room from 10am till 10pm. By the time we were done cleaning up, it was almost 1am.

completed just under 2.5 hours. within expectations but was hoping to be faster. I think I should stop kidding myself and train.

New (practical) shoes

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~ chi chi chi chi chi ~
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Bought me some new running shoes.
The Adidas SL 72.

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~ chi chi chi chi chi ~
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Finally some practical shoes after ....hmm...not keeping count. But I'm already eyeing on some new Pumas.

The Adidas SL 72 was first released in 1972 for the Munich Olympics Games. Yes, the summer when some Israelis got killed. Munich was a great movie as well. I watched and reviewed it. Read the book too, George Jonas' Vengeance . Munich, the album by The Editors was equally brilliant. Something about 1972...Nike was born. So did Ocean Pacific.

Anyway, SL stands for Super Light. Which the shoes was back in 1972 as it is now, given a modern rehash.

Got it from the born again adidas promo now ongoing. Got a $30 discount instead of $50 because I wasn't too keen on the Bounce technology. Only Bounce shoes were entitled $50 discounts. Just head on down to a participating adidas store (I'm dead certain the one in Vivocity is), pick up a new pair from a range that is on promo, tell the salesperson you are looking to throw away your old pair, get the discount and dump your old sports shoes into the bin located in the store. The bin found in the adidas shop at Vivocity is about a third way to the brim. I think the promo's on till 7 Sep.

Oktober

Knowing that the coming weeks will not be pleasant, I have devised a "Land a'hoy!" plan to keep my spirits up as I continue the treacherous passage through these narrowest of channels and most precarious of passageways, fraught with nasty sea creatures, pets of Davy Jones and dastardly sword swinging pirates whose breaths are laced with whisky.

Following the midweek break that is Hari Raya, it'll be off to Phuket with auntie for my annual photography pilgrimage. Following that will be the end of month Camera Obscura concert.

sweetness follows......

Camera Obscura!

I don’t believe in true love anyway

Oh, who’s being pessimistic now?

I could document this as our first and our last row.

The more you look forlorn, the more to you I warm.

29 Oct 08

Damn

I hate working past sunset.

However interesting the work might be.

Time; and how to find it

Time has been elusive of late. In fact, I suspect that there's actually less of it going round the clock these days.

Especially the weekends.

Not that the weekdays are particularly filled with the missing seconds. Week in, week out, they zoom past as well.

I used to have a little trick when I suspect there is too much time. I look at the indicators more. By indicators I really mean devices like clocks, watches or even the relative position of the sun to the horizon. However the paradox was this; the more I notice it, the more of it I seem to possess. These days, I don't even have time to notice time passing by.

That is how my suspicion came about - the decreasing amount of time. They, time and its components; seconds, minutes and hours, are such sneaky bastards. They actually go faster when you don't notice them.

Then I learn that it's all relative.

Damn Einstein.

Pick out your cloud

Do you think
Just like that
You can divide this
You as yours
Me as mine
To before we were us
If the rain has to separate from itself
Does it say "Pick out your cloud?"

Here is a website featuring amazing pics of clouds.

Are geese altruistic?

Migrating birds fly in a V-shaped formation. Also known as a skein, these birds fly in this manner because of efficiency issues. Migration is a physical challenge for an individual goose or duck. Flying hundreds of kilometres is no laughing matter, if birds can actually laugh. They can't by the way.

Formation flying increases the range of the flock by 70-80%. Hence instead of 100km that a goose can fly while migrating, a flock can do 170km.

The lead bird does majority of the work. The others just catch the draught and glide along. Whenever the lead bird tires, the bird at either tip of the formation takes over. I don't know which one, the left or the right, will do the swap, I'm sure they give some audible signal of sorts.

But that's not the only amazing feat. A sick goose that needs to fall out of the formation will never be alone. The bird to its front and back, or nearest pair, will fall out together and nurse it back to health before following the next skein.

So are all geese altruistic by nature? Following that question would be to ask have all non-altruistic geese died off?

Next I want to ask is this:

1. Is "communism" the only social system possible for insects like bees and ants? Would these insects have died off during the "evolutionary" cycles (not a question asked by those who believe in "intelligent design")?
2. Do turtles ever miss their children? In accordance with "survival of the fittest", how does forsaking your babies ensure "survival"?
3. Scavengers: will they prefer catching their own "fresh" food or insist only on leftovers?

The situation up North

Mum was saying something about somebody's remarriage and how that's probably the cause of his downfall.

Plausible?

Some thoughts......

Did US public political apathy lead to W. Bush? Correspondingly, what did our political apathy lead us to?

2010 is busy year for Singapore - Youth Olympics, F1, Shangri-la Dialogue, Singapore Airshow, perhaps soft opening of IRs.....not a chance of General Elections.

Weird thoughts, I know.....

Order

A colleague of mine shared the happy news of an addition to his family. Jessie Olivia. I noticed that the initials of his new baby daughter's name spelled out J.O.Y. His family surname starts with Y. It got me curious about the names of his other children. I found out that he has one other daughter and asked about her name. Turns out her name was Beatrice. The absence of any middle name was obvious. BY JOY?

A closer look at the meaning of the name Beatrice revealed greater meaning. Beatrice, derived from the Latin name, Beatrix (Potter fame), means "bringer of joy". How thick did the plot get? There's more.

Jessie Olivia was conceived so that Beatrice could have a sibling to enjoy growing up with. Jessie, derived from Jesse, means "god's gift". Which was what the parents thought of her to the family, especially Beatrice. So with Beatrice's permission (this gets rather cute, I know), her sister was named Jessie Olivia, with a middle name, despite Beatrice not having one. So the name Beatrice was chosen and Jessie Olivia came about because of Beatrice. I totally find that groovy.

There is another colleague, one whom I've known since 1998, whose commonly used nickname is Jinks. Long story about this, but it's not relevant here. His wife's name is Jenny. Daugthers are Jolie and Jamie. Jolie, the elder girl, means "pretty" in French. Jamie, well, they just loved the sound of it. I suggested to them that should they have another baby, a boy could be Julian or Justin. A girl could be Julienne/Julianne, Julia or Judy or Justine.

Why? So that the entire family can have names starting with J and a different vowel for each of the names. I find this really groovy too. But Jinks didn't notice this until I suggested. So it wasn't intended. He might consider it.

I find myself looking out for order and patterns in seemingly mundane stuff. Maybe it's because of this belief that within all the chaos that we exist amongst, there is actually a set of rules that govern us. A cause will follow with an effect and cause the next effect, so on so forth. A reason why certain things happen while certain things won't.

Karma.

Frustrated Inc.

Find your name below? (sourced from here)

ecord holder	event	seconds
Ronald Brinkmann (Germany)	West German Championship 1982	19
Robert Pergl (Czechoslovakia)	Czechoslovakian Championship 1982	17.02
Dan Knights (USA)	World Championship 2003	16.71
Jess Bonde (Denmark)	World Championship 2003	16.53
Shotaro Makisumi (Japan)	Caltech Winter competition 2004	15.07
Shotaro Makisumi (Japan)	Caltech Winter competition 2004	14.76
Shotaro Makisumi (Japan)	Caltech Spring competition 2004	13.93
Shotaro Makisumi (Japan)	Caltech Spring competition 2004	13.89
Shotaro Makisumi (Japan)	Caltech Spring competition 2004	12.11
Jean Pons (France)	Dutch Open 2005	11.75
Leyan Lo (USA)	Caltech Winter competition 2006	11.13
Toby Mao (USA)	US Championship 2006	10.48
Edouard Chambon (France)	Belgian Open 2007	10.36
Thibaut Jacquinot (France)	Spanish Open 2007	9.86
Erik Akkersdijk (Netherlands)	Dutch Open 2007	9.77
Ron van Bruchem (Netherlands)	Dutch Championships 2007	9.55
Edouard Chambon (France)	Murcia Open 2008	9.18

Otherwise..................

WELCOME TO THE CLUB!!!

(sourced from xkcd)

frustrating men since......whenever