Sunday, May 29, 2005
The Commentator
Okay, this is another placeholder to write about a certain journalist. I'll get around to it someday.
*****
I've received an email from someone(s) wondering why I've disabled my comments.
I haven't, a'right. The way it works, right, is the comments thingies, right, work off the e-netation server.
Wot is a piece of crap, but is free, and I love you mister administrator.
So whenever the server craps out, or screws up (it has trouble counting apparently) my comments tag vanishes off the face of my blog. Until I manually run the scripts (why it isn't done automatically at the end of the day is beyond me) to repair my account and recalculate the number of comments I have.
I love it, honestly I do. It's for the same reasons I prefer PCs to macs, and probably part of the reason why I chose to enter the madness that is medical life.
*****
We now bring you conclusive proof that examinations, as in all things in life are infinitely more dependent on luck and good fortune than on skill, aptitude and operator ability.
ie : Re-minisce has passed his first surgical examinations.
Bugger.
*****
On the bright side, the rather attractive nurse is still looking extremely edible.
Wonder when the mysterious transition from hot chick in countoured uniform to scary ward sister in combat suit occurs. Bet if I look at her hair hard enough (which, cough, I swear I do not, well, not on a regular basis anyhow...) I'll be able to see the whites growing out of her roots.
No innuendo, get your minds outta the gutter.
*****
I've received an email from someone(s) wondering why I've disabled my comments.
I haven't, a'right. The way it works, right, is the comments thingies, right, work off the e-netation server.
Wot is a piece of crap, but is free, and I love you mister administrator.
So whenever the server craps out, or screws up (it has trouble counting apparently) my comments tag vanishes off the face of my blog. Until I manually run the scripts (why it isn't done automatically at the end of the day is beyond me) to repair my account and recalculate the number of comments I have.
I love it, honestly I do. It's for the same reasons I prefer PCs to macs, and probably part of the reason why I chose to enter the madness that is medical life.
*****
We now bring you conclusive proof that examinations, as in all things in life are infinitely more dependent on luck and good fortune than on skill, aptitude and operator ability.
ie : Re-minisce has passed his first surgical examinations.
Bugger.
*****
On the bright side, the rather attractive nurse is still looking extremely edible.
Wonder when the mysterious transition from hot chick in countoured uniform to scary ward sister in combat suit occurs. Bet if I look at her hair hard enough (which, cough, I swear I do not, well, not on a regular basis anyhow...) I'll be able to see the whites growing out of her roots.
No innuendo, get your minds outta the gutter.
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
The Effect of Senescence
Two of the nurses I'm working with are rather attractive.
Both of them are about the same height, which is relatively tall compared to the average Singalander female, but the similarities end there.
The first is attractive by dint of her personality. She's bright, well-spoken and kinda funny in a rather awkward, endearing way.
The second is simply slinky, streetsmart, and good to look at (ran out of S words, aside from the mundane). From front and back. And side. She has nice eyes and a nice smile too. heh.
Once upon a time a younger me would, if it came to the crunch have chosen humour over looks without a second's pause.
I guess I must be getting older now.
pause.
pause.
pause.
heh heh heh.
It's a shame they're so young...
*****
So you're sitting in the middle of the floor in front of your registrar's computer wondering how you got saddled with the impossible task of exorcising it of all spyware, adware, and repairing the registry before sunrise.
It's a beast of a machine, you realise that the second you pick it up and almost fall face first onto the floor. We're talking serious firepower here - this machine belongs to a geek of the finest calibre. The casing may read Dell, but you doubt anything even vaguelyHell Dell-ish remains within the deceptively cheapo skeleton. It weighs about four times your machine, and yours is a cadillac amongst computers upgraded to near-perfection.
O-kay. First things first. How do you crack this baby open...
*****
You feel the same pit of fear in the depths of your stomach as you examine him - that same fear you used to ride on the crest of, working in casualty.
His pupils aren't symmetrical. Not by a long shot. One of them is blown - way, way blown. And as you watch you can almost imagine it dilating still further.
You flip through the casenotes in a hurry, and the story emerges - a story that is best kept off the public domain in respect of patient confidentiality.
The boss decides on an urgent CT head - there's no question about it, really.
You call for resuscitation equipment to go with the patient to scan - your training in accident and emergency medicine makes you almost paraniod about patients arresting or losing their b/p in the doughnut of death.
As you leave the unit, you notice there're no fluids - which you expressly asked for. You ask the senior nurse why, and she says we don't need it because the patient has noradrenaline running. Anger flares for a brief moment - your decision has been countermanded, and in your heart you know this is a mistake - it goes against everything you've learnt in ATLS -- and ACLS. You tell her so, but the trolley moves ever onward, and you decided that time is of the essence; perhaps there will be fluids in the scan room.
There aren't. It's not the same scan room as usual. It's not even the same department.
The scan finishes, interrupted several times by false low-saturations readings which you know better than to panic about, just put the probe back on his finger more securely, and tada, 100%
It begins as you leave the scan room. The b/p begins to fall a little. It's a short one minute dash back to the ward, and the noradrenaline stabilises the b/p enough at a relatively acceptable level to buy time.
You reach the cubicle and begin calling for stat iv fluids, NOW.
The senior staff is unhurried, moving almost in a dreamlike slowness - perhaps its the adrenaline flowing through your system. You watch the gelofusin flowing through drop by drop through the long femoral line. You watch the b/p slide down to 70/40
It's too slow. It's just too slow. It may be a big vein (flow is proportional to the fourth power of the radius) but it's also a long line (inversely proportional to the length of the cannula) and it's clearly blocked.
The senior staff nurse fiddles with the line, and you call for a large grey venflon RIGHT NOW.
She orders her junior not to give it to you, she says there's already a big line here, you don't need it.
Anger flares again. You bite it back... again.
You tell her there isn't any time for this, you're wasting time. You turn to the junior nurse (she's still attractive even in crisis... heh) and ask her for the venflon. She slaps it into your hand and you ram it home despite the senior nurses protests about hurting the patient and raising ICP. This guy's GCS is 3. He isn't going to feel this, I really don't think...
You call for another bag of gelo after realising the senior's just going to keep on fiddling with her stupid long line, and the gelo runs in stat within a few minutes as you try to reason with the senior staff : time is precious. Every moment you waste costs him brain, and life. She says she knows all this.
You tell her this patient is in shock, and needs stat fluids. She tells you that "we all" (as opposed to me, the unwelcome "rookie") know this patient, he's won't go into shock one, don't so kancheong.
You pause as you realise in shock, that this senior staff nurse old enough to be your mother has absolutely no idea what clinical shock is. Alarm bells which have been shifting about uneasily in the back of your head now sound a racous klaxon. You're tempted to tell her to leave the room, right now.
The b/p comes back up to 120/80
You decide to be nice instead of horrible, and try to explain it to her in terms she might understand. Give her a chance to learn.
You say : This patient had a systolic b/p of 70, making his mean arterial pressure about 50. His intracranial pressure - we both saw the scans - is probably about 20. This leaves him with a cerebral perfusion pressure of thirty.
She says she knows all this.
You tell her you're ATLS and ACLS trained, and you know how to resuscitate patients. She tells you that that is heart, and this is brain, and they are different.
You decide not to talk to her anymore, ever again, if you can help it.
There is no helping those who will not learn - and those who are too blind to realise that their silly pride comes at someone else's expense.
Both of them are about the same height, which is relatively tall compared to the average Singalander female, but the similarities end there.
The first is attractive by dint of her personality. She's bright, well-spoken and kinda funny in a rather awkward, endearing way.
The second is simply slinky, streetsmart, and good to look at (ran out of S words, aside from the mundane). From front and back. And side. She has nice eyes and a nice smile too. heh.
Once upon a time a younger me would, if it came to the crunch have chosen humour over looks without a second's pause.
I guess I must be getting older now.
pause.
pause.
pause.
heh heh heh.
It's a shame they're so young...
*****
So you're sitting in the middle of the floor in front of your registrar's computer wondering how you got saddled with the impossible task of exorcising it of all spyware, adware, and repairing the registry before sunrise.
It's a beast of a machine, you realise that the second you pick it up and almost fall face first onto the floor. We're talking serious firepower here - this machine belongs to a geek of the finest calibre. The casing may read Dell, but you doubt anything even vaguely
O-kay. First things first. How do you crack this baby open...
*****
You feel the same pit of fear in the depths of your stomach as you examine him - that same fear you used to ride on the crest of, working in casualty.
His pupils aren't symmetrical. Not by a long shot. One of them is blown - way, way blown. And as you watch you can almost imagine it dilating still further.
You flip through the casenotes in a hurry, and the story emerges - a story that is best kept off the public domain in respect of patient confidentiality.
The boss decides on an urgent CT head - there's no question about it, really.
You call for resuscitation equipment to go with the patient to scan - your training in accident and emergency medicine makes you almost paraniod about patients arresting or losing their b/p in the doughnut of death.
As you leave the unit, you notice there're no fluids - which you expressly asked for. You ask the senior nurse why, and she says we don't need it because the patient has noradrenaline running. Anger flares for a brief moment - your decision has been countermanded, and in your heart you know this is a mistake - it goes against everything you've learnt in ATLS -- and ACLS. You tell her so, but the trolley moves ever onward, and you decided that time is of the essence; perhaps there will be fluids in the scan room.
There aren't. It's not the same scan room as usual. It's not even the same department.
The scan finishes, interrupted several times by false low-saturations readings which you know better than to panic about, just put the probe back on his finger more securely, and tada, 100%
It begins as you leave the scan room. The b/p begins to fall a little. It's a short one minute dash back to the ward, and the noradrenaline stabilises the b/p enough at a relatively acceptable level to buy time.
You reach the cubicle and begin calling for stat iv fluids, NOW.
The senior staff is unhurried, moving almost in a dreamlike slowness - perhaps its the adrenaline flowing through your system. You watch the gelofusin flowing through drop by drop through the long femoral line. You watch the b/p slide down to 70/40
It's too slow. It's just too slow. It may be a big vein (flow is proportional to the fourth power of the radius) but it's also a long line (inversely proportional to the length of the cannula) and it's clearly blocked.
The senior staff nurse fiddles with the line, and you call for a large grey venflon RIGHT NOW.
She orders her junior not to give it to you, she says there's already a big line here, you don't need it.
Anger flares again. You bite it back... again.
You tell her there isn't any time for this, you're wasting time. You turn to the junior nurse (she's still attractive even in crisis... heh) and ask her for the venflon. She slaps it into your hand and you ram it home despite the senior nurses protests about hurting the patient and raising ICP. This guy's GCS is 3. He isn't going to feel this, I really don't think...
You call for another bag of gelo after realising the senior's just going to keep on fiddling with her stupid long line, and the gelo runs in stat within a few minutes as you try to reason with the senior staff : time is precious. Every moment you waste costs him brain, and life. She says she knows all this.
You tell her this patient is in shock, and needs stat fluids. She tells you that "we all" (as opposed to me, the unwelcome "rookie") know this patient, he's won't go into shock one, don't so kancheong.
You pause as you realise in shock, that this senior staff nurse old enough to be your mother has absolutely no idea what clinical shock is. Alarm bells which have been shifting about uneasily in the back of your head now sound a racous klaxon. You're tempted to tell her to leave the room, right now.
The b/p comes back up to 120/80
You decide to be nice instead of horrible, and try to explain it to her in terms she might understand. Give her a chance to learn.
You say : This patient had a systolic b/p of 70, making his mean arterial pressure about 50. His intracranial pressure - we both saw the scans - is probably about 20. This leaves him with a cerebral perfusion pressure of thirty.
She says she knows all this.
You tell her you're ATLS and ACLS trained, and you know how to resuscitate patients. She tells you that that is heart, and this is brain, and they are different.
You decide not to talk to her anymore, ever again, if you can help it.
There is no helping those who will not learn - and those who are too blind to realise that their silly pride comes at someone else's expense.
Friday, May 20, 2005
Re-miniscence
The new car arrives tomorrow.
For some strange reason, through some strange twist of coincidence the Father has decided to go with a Peugeot this time.
It's probably just my psychosis acting up but I just can't help thinking about another Peugeot from a long time ago.
*****
He watched as her fingers crushed the life out of her fag in an ashtray. She exhaled deeply, twin tendrils of smoke forming shortlived divergent cones before dissipating as they fled her nostrils.
She had proud features and fair, faintly freckled skin, and a face that somehow made you think of green eyes and fiery red hair.
But her eyes were brown.
*****
He smiled as he read the text message. How typical of a woman - the means justify the ends. Flirting to gain a possession. In this case, crayons and paper.
And then he remembered another time in another world.
He could picture it in his mind's eye - the same restaurant. She sat opposite him awkwardly as the couple next to them got all lovey dovey. He rolled his eyes at her, lips twitching in the ghost of a smile. She smiled with her eyes at him, and then it spread to her face, and his.
Their waitor arrived and slid into the seat next to her. She had that way with men; they instantly became stupid and corny around her.
He asked her where she was from, and he thought with that accent? You've got to be kidding me...
The waitor was really into Her. It was obvious.
And then she did it. She asked him if he could give her some bread to feed the ducks at Hyde park with, pleeease?
The waitor dithered. Well, it's against the rules, well, I really shouldn't...
She gave him The Eye.
He melted.
She left happy, holding half of fort knox worth of bread carefully handwrapped by her personal waitor in aluminium foil, to keep it warm and ward out the winter chill.
He thought, watching her, that she didn't even know it, but she was a professional.
*****
This is a placemarker to remind me to write about a certain journalist.
For some strange reason, through some strange twist of coincidence the Father has decided to go with a Peugeot this time.
It's probably just my psychosis acting up but I just can't help thinking about another Peugeot from a long time ago.
*****
He watched as her fingers crushed the life out of her fag in an ashtray. She exhaled deeply, twin tendrils of smoke forming shortlived divergent cones before dissipating as they fled her nostrils.
She had proud features and fair, faintly freckled skin, and a face that somehow made you think of green eyes and fiery red hair.
But her eyes were brown.
*****
He smiled as he read the text message. How typical of a woman - the means justify the ends. Flirting to gain a possession. In this case, crayons and paper.
And then he remembered another time in another world.
He could picture it in his mind's eye - the same restaurant. She sat opposite him awkwardly as the couple next to them got all lovey dovey. He rolled his eyes at her, lips twitching in the ghost of a smile. She smiled with her eyes at him, and then it spread to her face, and his.
Their waitor arrived and slid into the seat next to her. She had that way with men; they instantly became stupid and corny around her.
He asked her where she was from, and he thought with that accent? You've got to be kidding me...
The waitor was really into Her. It was obvious.
And then she did it. She asked him if he could give her some bread to feed the ducks at Hyde park with, pleeease?
The waitor dithered. Well, it's against the rules, well, I really shouldn't...
She gave him The Eye.
He melted.
She left happy, holding half of fort knox worth of bread carefully handwrapped by her personal waitor in aluminium foil, to keep it warm and ward out the winter chill.
He thought, watching her, that she didn't even know it, but she was a professional.
*****
This is a placemarker to remind me to write about a certain journalist.
Thursday, May 12, 2005
Irritating
Lifestyles of the Engaged!
That's the ad that really irritates me every morning. A one-liner taken out of context followed by canned laughter (either that or the line is just so bad it's not funny.) What's the deal with that?
"Eh have you washed the toilet yet?" (ahahahahhaha)
"When are you fixing the fridge?" (AAHAHAHAHAHA)
(always followed by Lifestyles of the Engaged is filmed before a real-live audience.)
It's pathetic. Makes it seem like we don't even know what's funny and what's not anymore.
*****
The Essence of Geekdom
This post comes many days overdue, after I made the horrific discovery whilst on-call that there is no blogging from the hospital network. The next forty eight hours have, of course, been spent semiconscious. I think I caught Coach Carter with a friend somewhere in there too.
We've been seeing an increasing emergence of Geekdom of late; somehow (alongside Gaydom) it's moved from being something vaguely dirty to shamefully come out of the closet (shuffling your feet) about, to a banner of status to be proudly held aloft, a fashion statement almost. I'm tecchy, I'm trendy. I know all about the latest trillion-megapixel digital camera cum washing-machine, I have three of them at home! I have an Ipod and an Ibook! I rules you ok!
I remember that when the phenomenon was in its infancy that bastion of intelligence and wit the country over, The New Paper ran underwhelmingly intellectual interviews with slinky models about their handheld devices and their latest geeky toys. Back in those days the models knew Jack about their supposed daily necessities, and preferred to wax effusive about themselves instead.
We've come a long way now, and some of them (models) even write for (ha) PC magazines, and actually know their stuff down to the last megapixel and nanosecond. They're The New Geeks, supposedly.
Being the pleasant and agreeable chap that I am though, I move that they really aren't. They're actually geek wannabes - people who want to jump on the bandwagon but can't - because they haven't quite captured, or understood the True Spirit of Geekdom.
Now I know a thing or two about computers, what with having administered a computer network once and assembled and repaired a fair number of PCs - but I wouldn't dare deign to call myself a Geek.
But it was a close call, the other day.
See, doing what I do, which is mostly watch patients go nowhere fast in a hurry (sometimes they go somewhere fast in a hurry, only its the wrong place and that can get a bit disheartening) one gets slightly depressed, and feels the urge to occasionally treat onself to, ah - retail therapy, I believe the phrase is.
Not being one to splurge on clothes (been there, done that, wallet very empty now) I've been indulging my clearly psychotic and depressive alter-ego in computer hardware, including a graphics card that cost close to the price of a small nuclear reactor, a sleek little logitech mx1000 laser mouse, and of late a gigabyte of dual-channel DDR ram and a wireless LAN card running at 108mbps.
Yeah, it's been one of those years. You'd think the evidence pretty incontrovertible - the man must be a geek, but still I say nay.
You see, after plugging everything up I couldn't help but notice the heat radiating out of my case (must be the dead lizards and fried ants around the casing clued perceptive old me in) so I started doing a bit of worrying about my Northbridge potentially setting fire to the neighbourhood and razing the entire population-ultradense little island I live on to the ground. (yes, I knew what a northbridge was, and if you don't, you probably ought not to.)
Actually no, I just worried that all that excess heat might have a negative impact on my computer's shelf-life.
After ripping an old processor fan off a pentium-75 museum piece (anyone want to buy an antique?) that happened to be lying around thanks to my brother's own little difficulties with reality and duct-taping it to my northbridge, and feeling happy with myself I got to worrying that maybe it still wasn't enough... (this particular trait I blame on genetics. I'm Singaporean. Ergo, I must be Kiasu.)
That's when I started reading tech forums about PC cooling solutions, and THESE ladies and gentlemen are the big time tech boys - this is where the real-life tech-boys eat, sleep and breathe.
I began slide down the slippery slope towards compu-insanity... decisions, decisions... invest in an active cooling solution? ah, but the noise... or maybe a passive cooling solution... will it be a toss up between the mini jet turbine / rocket engine... or maybe the ultra conductive thermonuclear-cooling-rod-thingummagig which costs twice the price of an aircraft carrier from the subcontinent... My mind was awhirl. Reality began to shimmer...
It was only when I started considering water-cooling (which essentially moves half the nation's Newater (tm) reserves through your PC's case every five seconds) that I caught myself from plunging headlong over the brink into the endless canyon of True Geekdom.
True Geekdom is about an obsessive urge for perfection - a stark over-the-topness that has nothing to do with aesthetic or common sense, or even about liking sleek, shiny things. It has to do with wanting to modify, tweak and overclock that last little virtual knob and dial till your system teeters on the brink of frying itself into a supernova at an ultra-cold temperature of absolute zero, just so that you can tell yourself - and other geeks - that you've been there. That you've overclocked your 486 to the speed of an AMD 64 on steroids... just... because. It's about patience and hours of toil, trouble and trial-and-error -- as well as about extravagence : too much money spent, too many degrees under that don't matter, too much air being moved that plankton and people halfway across the globe from enough oxygen to live meaningful lives -- it's about not caring about anything at all, except... perfection.
So no, I'm not a geek.
And neither are the rest of you normal people toting your fancy video-phones and digital-cameras out there.
We're just people who like shiny toys with lots of little buttons on. :)
That's the ad that really irritates me every morning. A one-liner taken out of context followed by canned laughter (either that or the line is just so bad it's not funny.) What's the deal with that?
"Eh have you washed the toilet yet?" (ahahahahhaha)
"When are you fixing the fridge?" (AAHAHAHAHAHA)
(always followed by Lifestyles of the Engaged is filmed before a real-live audience.)
It's pathetic. Makes it seem like we don't even know what's funny and what's not anymore.
*****
The Essence of Geekdom
This post comes many days overdue, after I made the horrific discovery whilst on-call that there is no blogging from the hospital network. The next forty eight hours have, of course, been spent semiconscious. I think I caught Coach Carter with a friend somewhere in there too.
We've been seeing an increasing emergence of Geekdom of late; somehow (alongside Gaydom) it's moved from being something vaguely dirty to shamefully come out of the closet (shuffling your feet) about, to a banner of status to be proudly held aloft, a fashion statement almost. I'm tecchy, I'm trendy. I know all about the latest trillion-megapixel digital camera cum washing-machine, I have three of them at home! I have an Ipod and an Ibook! I rules you ok!
I remember that when the phenomenon was in its infancy that bastion of intelligence and wit the country over, The New Paper ran underwhelmingly intellectual interviews with slinky models about their handheld devices and their latest geeky toys. Back in those days the models knew Jack about their supposed daily necessities, and preferred to wax effusive about themselves instead.
We've come a long way now, and some of them (models) even write for (ha) PC magazines, and actually know their stuff down to the last megapixel and nanosecond. They're The New Geeks, supposedly.
Being the pleasant and agreeable chap that I am though, I move that they really aren't. They're actually geek wannabes - people who want to jump on the bandwagon but can't - because they haven't quite captured, or understood the True Spirit of Geekdom.
Now I know a thing or two about computers, what with having administered a computer network once and assembled and repaired a fair number of PCs - but I wouldn't dare deign to call myself a Geek.
But it was a close call, the other day.
See, doing what I do, which is mostly watch patients go nowhere fast in a hurry (sometimes they go somewhere fast in a hurry, only its the wrong place and that can get a bit disheartening) one gets slightly depressed, and feels the urge to occasionally treat onself to, ah - retail therapy, I believe the phrase is.
Not being one to splurge on clothes (been there, done that, wallet very empty now) I've been indulging my clearly psychotic and depressive alter-ego in computer hardware, including a graphics card that cost close to the price of a small nuclear reactor, a sleek little logitech mx1000 laser mouse, and of late a gigabyte of dual-channel DDR ram and a wireless LAN card running at 108mbps.
Yeah, it's been one of those years. You'd think the evidence pretty incontrovertible - the man must be a geek, but still I say nay.
You see, after plugging everything up I couldn't help but notice the heat radiating out of my case (must be the dead lizards and fried ants around the casing clued perceptive old me in) so I started doing a bit of worrying about my Northbridge potentially setting fire to the neighbourhood and razing the entire population-ultradense little island I live on to the ground. (yes, I knew what a northbridge was, and if you don't, you probably ought not to.)
Actually no, I just worried that all that excess heat might have a negative impact on my computer's shelf-life.
After ripping an old processor fan off a pentium-75 museum piece (anyone want to buy an antique?) that happened to be lying around thanks to my brother's own little difficulties with reality and duct-taping it to my northbridge, and feeling happy with myself I got to worrying that maybe it still wasn't enough... (this particular trait I blame on genetics. I'm Singaporean. Ergo, I must be Kiasu.)
That's when I started reading tech forums about PC cooling solutions, and THESE ladies and gentlemen are the big time tech boys - this is where the real-life tech-boys eat, sleep and breathe.
I began slide down the slippery slope towards compu-insanity... decisions, decisions... invest in an active cooling solution? ah, but the noise... or maybe a passive cooling solution... will it be a toss up between the mini jet turbine / rocket engine... or maybe the ultra conductive thermonuclear-cooling-rod-thingummagig which costs twice the price of an aircraft carrier from the subcontinent... My mind was awhirl. Reality began to shimmer...
It was only when I started considering water-cooling (which essentially moves half the nation's Newater (tm) reserves through your PC's case every five seconds) that I caught myself from plunging headlong over the brink into the endless canyon of True Geekdom.
True Geekdom is about an obsessive urge for perfection - a stark over-the-topness that has nothing to do with aesthetic or common sense, or even about liking sleek, shiny things. It has to do with wanting to modify, tweak and overclock that last little virtual knob and dial till your system teeters on the brink of frying itself into a supernova at an ultra-cold temperature of absolute zero, just so that you can tell yourself - and other geeks - that you've been there. That you've overclocked your 486 to the speed of an AMD 64 on steroids... just... because. It's about patience and hours of toil, trouble and trial-and-error -- as well as about extravagence : too much money spent, too many degrees under that don't matter, too much air being moved that plankton and people halfway across the globe from enough oxygen to live meaningful lives -- it's about not caring about anything at all, except... perfection.
So no, I'm not a geek.
And neither are the rest of you normal people toting your fancy video-phones and digital-cameras out there.
We're just people who like shiny toys with lots of little buttons on. :)
Tuesday, May 10, 2005
Best Buddy
Not so long ago, my best buddy rang me up to chat for a bit, and wish me happy birthday.
I don't know that calling back would be any point since I'll probably eat into his student expenses (does it work that way?) but anyhow, happy birthday back (sorry for the delay) and hope you had a great one.
And thanks.
******
I've been meaning to write about The Second most Irritating ad on the radio - every morning, I resolve to on the drive to work - but I just can't for the life of me remember what it is by the time I knock off work.
One of the things that does get to me though is the way the DJs all now not-so-subtly whore themselves to companies running their stupid little advertisements for cars, condominiums and credit cards.
Honestly, hearing about amazing transmissions and fantastic interior car design for the thousandth time is enough for me to want to reach out over the wire and strangle Jean and Rod to death...
I don't know that calling back would be any point since I'll probably eat into his student expenses (does it work that way?) but anyhow, happy birthday back (sorry for the delay) and hope you had a great one.
And thanks.
******
I've been meaning to write about The Second most Irritating ad on the radio - every morning, I resolve to on the drive to work - but I just can't for the life of me remember what it is by the time I knock off work.
One of the things that does get to me though is the way the DJs all now not-so-subtly whore themselves to companies running their stupid little advertisements for cars, condominiums and credit cards.
Honestly, hearing about amazing transmissions and fantastic interior car design for the thousandth time is enough for me to want to reach out over the wire and strangle Jean and Rod to death...
Saturday, May 07, 2005
Lightning Funny
It probably says a lot when one can't tell the difference between rest from work and convalescence from illness, lying in bed with a fever and a nose damper than the average Englishman - it feels good. Take it.
So a week later and much has transpired, of which I have written nothing.
On the bright side I now have a wireless 108Mbps network to play with, on the not-so-bright side I blew a substantial portion of my salary just to make myself happy.
One of my frieds has decided to write an article about why we don't have enough babies in Singapore. In mitigation, I'll write that she's Canadian so she clearly doesn't understand the situation properly. Cough.
Anyway, amongst some of hercriticisms insights are that
1) People stay with their parents too much
and
2) Cars are too expensive in Singapore
I think she might be on to something here.
I also propose that we qualify legalising bartop dancing for women with the caveat that the woman must have sexual intercourse immediately after (with a man); sort of the way oral sex is only legal if it is followed by penetrative intercourse afterwards.
Anyhow sex aside, I have finally found Speakers Corner in Singapore.
It's in the corner of some unknown park in the middle of Freaking Nowhere, which is a little suburb somewhere within the dingier part of the city, near Chinatown. When I drove past (and realised that this was The speaker's corner) there were a grand total of 2 individuals upon it, both of the avian variety. I think they were optimistacally trying to discover something stimulating amidst the barren-ness of the artificial astroturf that line the grounds.
I couldn't help but remember Speaker's Corner, Hyde Park, London and feel a strange pang of bitter nostalgia.
******
Some of the funniest sights I have ever witnessed with my own eyes / ears include :
Alice, hands clasped in pseudo-prayer pretending to be an angel,
Dozer pretending to bite K on the shoulder without a second's pause, in response to the phrase "don't worry, she doesn't bite",
my ex-reg drolly intoning "my mother also say I handsome" in response to someone else saying he was very honest because his mother say so.
A certain person looking me blankly in the eye and saying "no?" in response to the all-time low, "I'm trying to say the three hardest words a guy can ever say to a girl, you know?"
(and then appending "I'm not good with these kinds of things" with a mischievious smile)
So a week later and much has transpired, of which I have written nothing.
On the bright side I now have a wireless 108Mbps network to play with, on the not-so-bright side I blew a substantial portion of my salary just to make myself happy.
One of my frieds has decided to write an article about why we don't have enough babies in Singapore. In mitigation, I'll write that she's Canadian so she clearly doesn't understand the situation properly. Cough.
Anyway, amongst some of her
1) People stay with their parents too much
and
2) Cars are too expensive in Singapore
I think she might be on to something here.
I also propose that we qualify legalising bartop dancing for women with the caveat that the woman must have sexual intercourse immediately after (with a man); sort of the way oral sex is only legal if it is followed by penetrative intercourse afterwards.
Anyhow sex aside, I have finally found Speakers Corner in Singapore.
It's in the corner of some unknown park in the middle of Freaking Nowhere, which is a little suburb somewhere within the dingier part of the city, near Chinatown. When I drove past (and realised that this was The speaker's corner) there were a grand total of 2 individuals upon it, both of the avian variety. I think they were optimistacally trying to discover something stimulating amidst the barren-ness of the artificial astroturf that line the grounds.
I couldn't help but remember Speaker's Corner, Hyde Park, London and feel a strange pang of bitter nostalgia.
******
Some of the funniest sights I have ever witnessed with my own eyes / ears include :
Alice, hands clasped in pseudo-prayer pretending to be an angel,
Dozer pretending to bite K on the shoulder without a second's pause, in response to the phrase "don't worry, she doesn't bite",
my ex-reg drolly intoning "my mother also say I handsome" in response to someone else saying he was very honest because his mother say so.
A certain person looking me blankly in the eye and saying "no?" in response to the all-time low, "I'm trying to say the three hardest words a guy can ever say to a girl, you know?"
(and then appending "I'm not good with these kinds of things" with a mischievious smile)
