Humor 1 Maturity 0

Heheheh... this post of a online science news clipping came up on Slashdot. Check out the title:

"Hubble Discovers Dark Spot on Uranus"

(it's just SOOOOO RIPE for humor) Read the comments that come after...

*snicker*

*chuckle*

*muffled laughter*

*LOL*

*ROTFLOL*

I TRIED to be mature about this!

Triplets and a pair

Currently nursing a plethora of ulcers now... a trio of mini-ulcers spot the insides of my lower lip, near the gum and my jawline, while a pair of larger, angrier ulcers attack some prime locations - namely, the tip of my tongue and sneaking behind my upper left molar, at the point where my jaws open and close.

Fun fun fun. And I'm drooling all day like a teething toddler (i know this from first-hand experience )

Tried my good 'ol cure, Zitacin, which helps numb the pain and create a temporary protective layer that's, mmm, good for one meal... before it wears out. Tried Watermelon Frost, an old skool Asian medical powdery-like application which works to cool off the "heatiness" of the open wounds... but as with Zitacin, it's only good for one meal. Washes right off with my saliva like rubber duckies floatin' along a hillside river.

Then my colleague recommended that I rub some salt on them. Literally. I thought that might be too extreme, so I stuck to my mom's recommendation instead, dilute the salt in some water and gargle. I estimate it to be a 90% concentration of salt, 10% water...

Oh the paaaaaiiinnnn...

My eyes were so watery during the 30 second process, I couldn't read off a signboard if it was placed right in front of me But, hell... I've had worse. And the pain kinda gets to ya... it hurt soooo good. The clenching of fists, gnashing of teeth, and maniac laughter...

Gotta be a sucker for punishment, else I'd just crumple in a corner and weep.

Pieces of a jigsaw puzzle

Everytime I look into your eyes,
I discover yet another new piece of myself,
building and building,
to complete a masterpiece of life.

Each time our fingers entwine,
Each time you wrap your arms around my neck,
You afix a new piece of the puzzle in my heart.

Every new morning I look forward to life with aplomb!
Every sunny day I feel refreshed and energized!
Every rainy day I look toward you to share my warmth!

Take this piece of my mind.
Take this piece of my soul.

Piece them together,
and with your gentle touch,
form the final piece
of my heart.

My niece has just spent a year on Earth!

Guess what? Little Eleanor just passed her first life milestone last weekend! Heheheh... Click on the cheeky one's picture link below to access her photo album of the BBQ celebration we had the previous weekend @ Jinji's place (coz last weekend Uncle Jinji and Aunt Cynthia were out in Seattle)... Coochie coochie coo! Ahhhh! Too adorable!

It's my birthday - and I'm cute! ^o^

Shooting Star... strike me

Love does work in mysterious ways.

Searching and searching...
Hoping and praying...
Or perhaps, like me, you simply cling on to the belief that Fate would come around,
and beat you on the head with a stick.

"When the One appears, i will know... Somehow, I will know."
Toiling along Life's busy journey, not much thought is given to people who pass you by.

"Hmmm, she's a nice gal, perhaps I'll ask her out for a movie.. see how it goes."
What started out as e-mail conversations, a night out for dinner and a movie...
...evolved into a spiritual connection, a level of concern that goes into the heart and soul.

Then one day,
An awakening.. an epiphany.. or as Archimedes would say, "Eureka!"

A gentle kiss underneath the shade of a garden gazebo,
unleashes a powerful torrent of emotions and passion,
sealed away by life's responsibilities for far too long.

A spiritual and mental link forms,
allowing one to sense the other party's distress and battered resolve,
hammered by the pressures of perfection and Father time, ticking down.

You rush forward
to pick her up from the crumbling platform around her,
to console her,
tell her silly stories...
provide her a sip of water...
give her arm a gentle squeeze,
reassuring her that for every step back,
she is taking two steps forward...
offer a shoulder to rest her head,
and hopefully, ease away some of the weariness that clouds her mind...

For each kiss since then..
For each hug since then..
For each wink since then..
For every hour, every minute, of every day since then..

I feel blessed.
I feel ready to conquer the world,
with You by my side.

My shooting star,
My flowing comet,
My guiding light.

I am finally able to say out loud,
"The darkness of my future is now banished!"
"My path is now lit!"
"I am ready to take leaps of faith with confidence!"

I am thankful to Fate,
thankful for the chance,
to have You by my side.

The cream of my coffee.
The apple of my eye.
The bubble of my tea.

I shall look forward to crossing oceans
and traversing mountains
only if You would join me
by my side.

Modern Day Misery?

I came across an interesting article (albeit a little late since its inception), and it details some of the more thought-provoking aspects on how the digital/electronic revolution has altered the way society communication. A 'reverse evolution' perhaps? Reading through the article there are some points that the author describe which really struck a chord with me:

Besides, how many times have we spewed off some verbal insult in the heat of the moment, before we had time to consider? E-mail always gives you that time, right?

That's true, but what you lose in text vastly outweighs the gain.

Hell yeah, this I can totally relate to. Sometimes one like me, who really enjoys the fact the others enjoy my company, come across people who simply reject all attempts at a friendly exchange - so I come really close to exploding... BUT, thanks to e-mail/IM/SMS, I've been given "freeze" time to think about how I wanna structure my response, instead of just coming right out and ACTUALLY telling them how I feel. Now, something about that just feels not quite right.

The difference is of course that insults are just someone who hates me making a noise to indicate they hate me. It's them telling me how they feel. Criticism, on the other hand, is someone telling me something about myself that I myself didn't know.

This is probably the strongest point in the whole article, IMHO. Criticism, constructive or not, usually forces you to address and reflect on things that you are probably missing - a kind of blind spot in perception, in a way - and there are no better people to tell you that except your closest friends and family. In person. In your face.

You are hard-wired by evolution to need to do things for people. Everybody for the last five thousand years seemed to realize this and then we suddenly forgot it in the last few decades.

I remembered as I was growing up, I used to meet up with friends, or go downstairs with my brother to play games, cycle with friends, meet up with my buddies during lunch breaks in school to hang out, go to the gym, play sports etc. Now it's all like distant memories. And it's been like, what, four years that I've left Singapore for studies in the US? Man... I'm glad that I still have some contact with my family here (we share the same roof afterall) and more recently, introduced a very special gal in my life.

Well, I certainly look forward to meeting more people, and perhaps hide less behind my cloak of invisibility granted by e-mail, Y!M, MSN, ICQ, Skype (which isn't all too bad, since I've recently gotten my webcam to work on them). "Excuses, Excuses!"

So what are you waiting for? Go ahead and call one of your family members, relatives or old friends out for a cup of coffee or maybe a game of chess, ping pong or basketball. Y'all deserve some time out in the sun and catch up! I know I certainly do need my UV exposure, ever since observing my two-toned limbs in some of my recent photos.

Final Azumanga Video: "Lord of the Yen"

This is simply too cool... too cool for words. Let me just do a quick voice casting list for my fellow viewers, so they don't get lost in the midst of the video!

LOTR Character	Azumanga Character
Sauron/Saruman	Yukari
Gandalf	Nyamo
Frodo	Osaka
Sam	Chiyo
Aragon	Sakaki
Legolas	Kagura
Gimli	Maya
Elrond	Yomi
Arwen	Kaorin
Balrog/Gollum/Smeagol	Kimura
Galadriel	Kimura's wife
Theoden	Tomo
Eomer and the Riders of Rohan	Tadakichi-san

Watch it and be amazed (or completely lost, for those non-Azumanga and non-LOTR fans ;)

Azumanga "Graduation" (by Vitamin C)

Hehehe... this ones is kinda kewl too... I remember this "We like to party" song, it was like so wayyy back ago. Man! I'm getting old... Oook, so i didn't watch the previous video to realize it was kinda abrupt... anyway, here's a better one... this song always makes me nice and warm inside, esp with the right video! Enjoy!

ULFULS:Shakkin Daioh

Another one of my Azumanga searches turned up this really cool Anime MTV! Kaakkkooiii!

Happy SysAdmins Day!

Ahhh.. July 28th, 2006. It's the unofficial Systems Administrators Day! Hee... sent to us SITE guys in the ECE department of OSU, one friendly and informed user felt that it's fitting to celebrate the hard-working folks who keep your computers running, networks connecting and printers printing.

Awwww... great. I feel sooo good right now...

Anyway there's a Wiki for it, oh and do check out the song link at the bottom of the page for the official song! It's a blast. Lovin' it!

Dusting off Friendster

After a long long hiatus, after a dozen attempts at procrastinating , I finally blew the dust off my Friendster profile and refreshed my info, post-graduation. Well, there's not a lot to write about... but hey! It's something! I also wrote a couple of reviews. Probably will hang around a bit more until I get bored again. Ha ha haaaaa...

Also threw in some photos from my FL "Shuttle Discovery Launch" trip! If you look at the right column of ma blog's front page, you can click to my Friendster profile in my plethora of fun links! Wow! Isn't that just so cooooooooooooooooooool?


*mooooooo*

Florida Hooooo!!!!

Well, a couple of weeks back while we were talking about road trips... I was planning one to Lake Erie to see the Marblehead Lighthouse... a friend of mine suggested that on the Independence Day weekend, we should journey down to Florida, to catch the launch of the shuttle Discovery STS-121. I was like, "Cool! Why not?" Then he also mentioned that his colleague has a place not too far from the Kennedy Space Center. Road trip with free lodging? That sealed the deal! Florida... HERE WE COME!!!

After checking out the launch time and date (Saturday 3:34pm), we estimated the 1060 mile trip there would probably take us 16 hours of non-stop driving to make it on time. We have two drivers to rotate, I volunteered for the night shift/overnight drive.

It was a long drive, but good fun. I did nearly run off-road once, if not for the wake-up strips at the side of the highway! That was around 5am I believe... I was kept up mostly by music, chewing gum and industrial strength caffeinated Thai tea!

Of course, as most of you know, the launch date of Discovery was cancelled, TWICE. So we spent our time mostly hanging around the beaches. It was great! To be close to the ocean... listening to the waves lapping the shores... man, I've been away from Singapore for so long... this almost feels special!

When it came to the actual launch day, 4th of July, I used my Canon Powershot A530 to capture a small video (hosted by YouTube.com) of the shuttle launch... as far away as we were, the sound of the rockets could still be heard, and despite the shuttle being nothing more than a brightly lit blip in the sky... the excitement and energy in the air was infectious!

We had a few other stop-overs near the end of our trip as well... check them out in my uploaded photos - the entire photo album of this FL trip can be found in Flickr! (Just follow the link)

Hope your summer holidays/vacation/trips are also fun and real interesting! I look forward to listenin' about yours too! Cheers!

A Banana Split, using my tongue

Just discovered a nice way to snack... grab yourself a banana (hopefully a sweet one, like the small "fragrant bananas" back home in Singapore... yum!)... peel it partially.

Next, get yourself a tub of Edy's/Dreyer's Dibs ice cream bites. Pick your favorite flavor (or something close to it... I chose Cookies'n'Cream). Now, with your banana in one hand, and your tub/plate of ice cream bites ready and waiting, take a nice comfortable bite of the banana, and then immediately pop one or two Dibs into your mouth.


Let your tongue savour the mix of tastes... the melting cream, the tantalizing chocolate coating, and the fruity goodness... roll it around your mouth, under your tongue, across the palate... mmmmm... yesss...

*awaken after spacing out*
Eh... eh? Oops... got a bit carried away there. Anyway, It's like making a Banana Split Sundae right there, in your mouth, with your tongue... ain't it?

Pagani Zonda - Destination: Singapore

Yet another proof that in Singapore, like most "First World Countries" around the globe, the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer (credits to a MyCarForum post):


This car's STARTING price is a jaw-dropping, blood-draining, wallet-burning SG$1,800,000,000 (just a little over 1.13 million US Dollars). Attempting to drive a super-exoticar like this in the tiny, cramped island of Singapore is madness. You'll be doing at least twenty 0-60mph runs between traffic junctions every day!

In a situation as such, this vehicle simply screams, "I've got money to buuuurrrrn baby, so eat my dust LOSERS!"... grrr... in one single post, I've churned up dark feelings of envy, lust, anger and greed. Hmmm... four out of seven deadly sins. Muahahahahah...

I guess in the end...

CosPlay: Dedicated to expressing Anime/Manga love!

Yet another stamp of approval in my entry to Geek Haven, comes my undeniable interest in Cosplayers (unfortunately, my lack of fashion sense deems me unworthy of appearing in front of these dedicated and wonderful costume players). While there are FAR too many CosPlay web sites out there, here are some interesting cosplayers (that i came across recently) in the guise of some of my favorite characters from anime and video games!

I thought the Talim costume looked really authentic and the cosplayer herself looked the part - athletic and kick-a$$ gorgeous in pose! I've always liked Rogue, and the cosplayer had all of the right elements - from the streak of silver hair, to the classic-colored X-tights, plus the boots and gloves made the perfect combo!
This last one is just way too cool - yessiree, that's the schemin' ol' Starscream from classic G1 Transformers, baby! Right down to the sneering grin! Of course, we don't expect this cosplayer to transform, but hey - at least a good part of the character's "devilish energy" is there! Click on the picture for a surprise! (More costumes @ Fanboy.net)

Google to Paypal: "GBuy!"

The funniest thing about this is that if it's true, then Google's research folks deserve an award for most outstanding Hokkien label for an online service.

GeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeBuy

LOL, can't get over this... childish, I know...

Source: Ars Technica

Update: Google has since released the official name for their online payment and financial transaction service... Google Checkout.