If...

If you become a pastor, does that make your life an experiment?

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My Rage Flower

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smudgi3's other smudgie

for ya. :)

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My Rage Dinosaur

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It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings

You know, it really is kinda very sweet to have online friends who sympathise with you when things are just crummy. Thank you.

I'm feeling a lot better. Last night, I dreamt of a jolly fat lady who gave out gifts to everyone she met. She was giving out baseball-styled t-shirts that fit everyone perfectly. She gave me a pair of jeans with pockets full of spare change, lovely trinkets, and useful stuff. I was very happy.

In fact everyone was very happy to see her because she would smile, look at you, and give you a gift that was just right. When she showed up, we forgot that my mother had tongue cancer -- yes, I dreamt that too; it made me wake up early and drag my parents to chinatown for breakfast together -- and all the other irritating things we did to antagonise one another.

It ain't over 'till the fat lady sings.

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:(

i was on the last stretch of my very last lap of 800m. I could see the finishing line just ahead, so I gave it everything I got and kept accelerating to the end.

All I could hear was the pounding in my ears.. just 20m more..

Then suddenly, I heard someone yell behind me, "What are you doing?" And then I realised there were two ang moh men behind me and I had inadvertently sped up just as they were going to overtake me.

I said, "Sorry.. I'm finishing..." as I veered off to the grass. And then, he shoved me hard off the track.

Damn them. I would have fallen if my legs didn't keep going.

Later I saw them on the other side of the track and I was very pissed so I walked towards them to say that I really didn't hear them -- all the earlier laps I always stepped aside to the drain to let them pass -- but he still should not have pushed me. But the guy I approached said it was the other guy who pushed me, and he was already running out of the stadium to leave. So I didn't confront the ang moh bully after all.

I feel like crying. :(

They were part of a team. I want to know the name of their company.

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Run-for-a-cause

Smole and I are raising funds for the breast cancer foundation by working on the sympathies of our friends and co-workers.

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Ruminations on Running

Training for a marathon defies common sense.

It is hard on the body. The pounding on concrete wears out the knees; the sun ages your skin prematurely; the immune system is usually slightly compromised after a long run. That reluctance to take another step at the 20-something or 30-something km mark is not just your imagination.. It is your body telling you that what you are doing is beyond what is needed for a healthy balanced lifestyle.

So why do people still do it?

Is it endorphins, that biochemical compound released by your body during exercise that makes you feel on top of the world? I doubt so, because sheer fatigue always overwhelms the good feelings with enough time. Trust me, I know that for a fact.

Is it for fitness? There are easier and better ways to be fit. Swimming is easy on the joints and is a good cardio workout. Even running the half marathon or 10km is better as it is less taxing on the body. I was literally sneezing and feverish all day yesterday from the long run on Sunday, and that was only 25.8km.

Is it for fun? Erm, personally, at this point in my life, playing squash is probably twenty times more fun than running a long slow distance. There is greater variety and competition in any game than there is in running, so, no, it is not "for fun", even if the music and company is good.

Is it for fame and glory? Not unless you can finish the race in a superhuman time.

So what is it?

For me it is this:

because flying to the moon defies common sense too.

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Which is the worst?

Praying selfish prayers

OR

Not praying at all

OR

"Lord, I'm sorry my prayers are so selfish. Amen"

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Week 3: The beached whale run

Die lah. Cannot make it. How to run a full marathon at the end of the year? I'm having a severe case of cannot-do-this-itis.

Smole's knee gave out very early during this run -- I think it was at the 10km mark. From Yishun Ave 1 all the way to the end, it would suddenly buckle every 500m or so. We walked the very last bit because of the pain.

We also got hungry. Who gets hungry on a long run??? We actually stopped at the 19km mark to eat a sandwich and piece of carrot cake because of the general tiredness. I thought we would have to stop there and take a bus back, but Smole sucked it in and kept at it until we got back to where we started.

Die.

[By the way, who says running is free? Amount consumed during run: $1.40 Ribena; $1.00 100-plus; $0.90 bottle of water; $1.40 can of lemon tea; $1.40 can of 100-plus; $1.80 sandwich; $1.00 carrot cake. not including the 3 water refills of water. Who has to eat this much during a run???? Die.]

[By the way, Edgware is positively as un-Singapore-like as you can get. Stepping into that neighbourhood is like stepping back to colonial times. If I lived there, just going home would be stress-relieving. The first time we ran through Edgware was in preparation for the half marathon last year. That was only the head of the beached whale. Now we have to do the whole freakin body and tail as well. Die lah.]

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A beach of diamonds

Without her glasses, it seemed to her that she was running on a beach of diamonds.

And in many ways, it was exactly so.

With the unrelentless sun beating against the back of their necks and knees, they hedged their bets on a singular moment: a quantifiable stillness in the movement from here to there. If they stopped to pick the diamonds, or stopped to fly their kite when the dark-skinned man so temptingly said. "Stop here? Wind good. Fly kite.", that singular moment would have slipped away like a mirage in the delusional desert heat.

There are no checkpoints in this journey. There were only hideous looking gods made of the same black glittering sand, watching the two -- what shall we call them? -- migrants making for themselves a trail of footprints as an offering that will be claimed by the sea. The sea always wins. Once in a while they would pass by a coconut tree that gave up, its crown completely buried in the sand, even as the others stood resolutely by with their dry roots exposed.

It was a curse: if they stopped they would lose; if they reached their destination, they would lose, but like condemned gamblers, they put everything they had into that singular and fleeting moment, relegating the crippling pain to a back part of the brain that could not be accessed easily.

And she thought: "Isn't this a lovely beach of diamonds?"

But she lost her glasses to the sea a long time ago.

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Links and Chinks

Quick links.

• Jim and Eric, you have been linked by our local library blog site! I submitted the book review I did for "Blindness" and they publised it. I say, I am going to submit a book review every month until I win that $10. ;)
  
• Via Elle E., an intriguing article on the "Macbeth effect" of needing to wash the hands when feeling guilty and the relationship between physical and moral purity.
• Popagandhi reviews the Nokia N73. That girl can sell me anything.
  
• How to make your own sports drink: tips on hydration by Guardian.
• Daryl's new MacBook has been randomly shutting down like many other MacBooks worldwide. If yours starts doing this, bring it in. They may swap out your logicboard.
• I still think sweat bubbles are gross but it kinda helps loosen the dead skin and encourages you to scrub it away, so I don't know if it is an entirely bad thing. I suppose if you were had so many sweat bubbles that they were keeping from cooling off through evaporation, that would be bad, but otherwise?
  

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Week 2: Bali Run

Bali was amazing. The private villa was the epitomy of hospitality; it was great fun getting to know new people; and then there was this: the crazy, amazing, unforgettable run to Sanur and back. 21.83km, most of which was on a black sand beach in the unrelenting noon sun. It was crazy but I would do it again, this time with sunblock.



We ran on the main road by the honking cars and grazing cows until we got tired of it; we ran on the inside kampung paths where everybody stared and dogs barked and chased after you; and we ran on black sand that glittered in the sun.

One of the cottage industries in this area is the collection of the perfectly smooth pebbles that was everywhere on the beach for export. There were many women on the beach collecting these pebbles and carrying them in gunny sacks on their heads. The black sand is also supposed to have healing qualities, which I hope explains the large number of naked local men we saw along the way.

It was really an eye-opening run. We didn't take a picture of any of the naked men, but my buddy took one of this guy standing on his head on the beach.



Along one of the kampung roads heading back to the beach, we saw a sign warning people what to do and what to look out for in case of a tsunami. The sign says that you should run towards higher ground when the sea starts to smell like "cooked stinky salt". I realised that I was such a city girl that I wouldn't know a normal sea from an abnormal one, let alone sniff out the "cooked stinky salt" tell-tale sign.



We had to cross 12 rivers this run. Everytime, we would take off our shoes and socks, wade through the stream, walk a bit, and then plop down to shake the sand off and put our shoes and socks back on. TWELVE TIMES! Some of the rivers were so strong that you could see large smooth pebbles rolling down.


Assessing the river.


First step.


Half-way. Man, this water is fast!


Almost there..


Waving at my buddy.

We got to Sanur, had a lunch of fried fish and rice, bought a kite, and headed back.

On the way back, Smole lost her glasses in one of the rivers when she stopped to wash up and cool down a bit in the water. She didn't even realise until quite a distance later when we stopped to put our shoes back on. We went back to look, but it was swept away a long time ago.

It was a difficult run for me at the last bit because I had a bad stomachache. The sun also got to me at the end, and at our last drink stop, it felt like we were at an oasis in the middle of the desert. The man at the drink stop said to us that we could stop and fly our kite there because the wind was good, but we had to say that we had many more miles to go... Thank God it was closer than the 2km we thought we had left, because I think another 30mins in that sun would have given me heat stroke.

We are only young (and foolish) once.

(Thanks Smole for running with me and taking the pictures I was too scared to take!)

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Yasso's 800 and why you shouldn't run when sunburnt

My body has been feeling out of whack ever since I got burnt. I'm lethargic, grumpy, lazy, and in pain. So it was with much effort that I dragged myself to the stretch of road near my home to do a few laps yesterday evening.

I haven't done anything for four days. No cycling, no walking, no running, and there was the freakish long run this weekend looming over me like a curse. I squeezed into my sports clothes -- I hate running bras even more when I'm burnt -- brought a bottle of water, and tried out Yasso's 800. (Yasso's 800 is a pretty nifty way of training for the marathon. Basically you want to train to be able to do ten 800m in the same "time" as you want to do for the marathon, for example a 4:30hr requires you to do it 4:30mins.)

I chose a straight stretch with a short hill at the end of it, and I estimated 800m to be two laps of that stretch. So I started running... and felt weird straight away. My muscles weren't co-ordinated and I felt like I couldn't sweat properly. I thought I had just lost muscle mass and fitness because of the last four days so I perservered. First lap 4:55; Second lap 4:42; Third lap 5:07. I was pooped and my shoulders were stinging.

And then I noticed them. Hundreds of water-filled bumps all over my arm, my shoulder, and the back of my legs. The sweat had collected under my burnt skin and was unable to get out! The skin was slimy to the touch.. horrible! So I went home immediately, got into the shower and scrubbed myself with a wash-cloth, which left me looking like a multi-layer scratch-and-guess-what-colour-you-get-for-a-prize card.

(I have a picture of the bumps, but to keep this blog from becoming a compendium of awful pictures of skin abnormalities, I'm refraining from posting it.)

(I've changed my mind because I am more macabre than I am vain. For the foolhardy...



Sweat bubbles under burnt skin.


I am multi-coloured, are you?


see the pictures here!)

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Four Million Frowns

Remember the Four Million Smiles campaign that Singapore launched to greet the 16,000 IMF delegates who are currently within the 41.8 by 22.5km radius of our beloved country?

(Canopy thought the campaign was a quirky idea.)



This guy by the name of Seelan Palay thought that he didn't want to welcome the IMF delegates with four million smiles because he didn't like globalisation or the IMF or the World Bank or capitalism and so he decided to launch his own independent social art project titled Four Hundred Frowns instead. Kinda cute and innocuous I thought, since surely we are not ALL expected to embrace globalisation...



He got arrested.

I think IMF delegates visiting Singapore this time round really get a first-hand account of what Singapore is like. It is not a farce -- we really are that organised; we really can orchestrate an entire city of flowers to bloom at the same time, we really are that safe -- but it comes with a price.

I love my country, but sometimes I feel like a child because I keep hearing: "You don't understand. It hurts for now, but it really is for your good." I wonder if I'll get to grow up sometime.

Personally, I would submit my picture to the smiling site rather than the frowning site any day. But 400 out of 4,000,000 is a dissent level of 0.01%. Can we cope with that percentage of dissension, Singapore?

Technorati tags:
four hundred frowns | four millions smiles
singapore | flower magic

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New convert

I am a new convert to the powess of sunscreen, aloe vera, and strapless bras. The surfer dudes we went to Bali with swore on Hamilton sunscreen SPF 70+, and looking at their nicely bronzed bods vs my own red, bumpy and sore skin, I am sold.


The Powerful Trinity

Of course, chemists say that any SPF beyond 30 is just marketing, but what does a new convert care? SPF 30 or SPF 70, I'll take and use you all.

As Eric says, 29 is the best age to learn about the powess of sunscreen. :)

Links: Be SunSmart; Sunscreens don't protect against UVA rays

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4th grade homework

Via Joan. I consider this a meme. :)

“Eleven is about the best age for almost anything.” The Changeling, Zilpha Hentley Snyder. Make a best age for list in which you decide what different ages are best for... Include your age and the ages 14, 16, 21, 30, 50, 65, 100.”

14 is the best age for having crushes;
16 is the best age for learning about transitions;
21 is the best age for finding out who you really are;
29 is the best age for running your first marathon;
30 is the best age for getting married;
50 is the best age for not having to worry about money;
65 is the best age for volunteer work;
100 is the best age for having a gigantic birthday bash.

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Free Pretty stuff I cannot do without: Macfox

If you can't have a Mac, you can at least dress up your PC to look like one. :)

Introducing Macfox, the Mac OS simulator for firefox.

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Week 2 - Part I

The cost of an adventurous (read: crazy) run in Bali this weekend.


The shape of my garmin foreruner branded onto my wrist.


My invisible running tee. :)


Aloe Vera and painkillers. Need I say more?

Details of the run coming soon. Stay tuned...

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Running graph

This is a graph of every single run I've ever done since July 2004.

I think it will be fun to watch this graph change as Smole and I push the upper limit of distance in preparation for the marathon in December. You can already see "Week 1" as the first peak just after the Army Half Marathon.

To Smole -- 13 weeks, baby! 'Till the wheels fall off and burn!

Related posts: One year running; Speed and Distance

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Coffee, biscuits and Fernando Ortega

Fernando Ortega's This Good Day is a great early morning song to have with your coffee and biscuits.

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Alone in the Universe, by David Wilkinson

I have one thing to say: QUIRKY. This book covered everything from UFO sightings to crop circles to conspiracy theories to life on Mars to Star Trek. I don't think I was in Wilkinson's target demographic group because everything was just a little too quirky for me.

What does the Carpenter's song "Calling all interplanetary craft" have to do with anything? Wilkinson starts one of his early chapters with a quote from this guy: "I am convinced there is life out there. It is only a matter of when we find it." Which made me sit up, choke a bit on my beverage of choice, and look at the cover again to check the title of what I was reading.

Wilkinson ends the book on a more sober note. He says that for now, there is very little evidence that points to life apart from earth, but that our desire to find other types of life-forms is representative of our longing NOT to be alone, and that we are in fact not alone, because Jesus came 2000-odd years ago.

I know Wilkinson isn't implying this, but the thought of Jesus as an alien life form gives me the creeps.

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Retail therapy

What is it about being miserable and stressed that makes you want to blow all your money on something big, white and shiny?

Or forget all your plans not to snack and polish off an entire pack of cheese twisties and two packs of green tea in five minutes flat, while blasting loud music from your 5.1 speaker system, which incidentally is not compatible with that big, white and shiny machine?

I don't know why I know what kind of speaker jack a big, white and shiny machine has when I've never owned one. I don't know why I lurk on big, white and shiny sites like a lonely stalker.

When the spirit breaks, something big, white and shiny has got to take its place.

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Week 1

On track!

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Muahahaha!

I'm published. Thanks Ivan for letting me know about the contest at High Browse. Now I hope I win that $10 voucher so I can have some coffee. :)

Update: I didn't win. Pppth. I never win anything. NLB, be gracious and give a voucher to everyone you publish!

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Running gear, limited edition

I dragged myself out of bed at 6am to meet up with the sgrunners to collect my limited edition sgrunners.com gear. Cool or not? :)



I like! The shorts look a bit short, but I probably could get used to it. It's high quality stuff! Well done, TLR. :)

It was a bit strange meeting virtual folks for the first time. Didn't know to go with my real name or my moniker, so I went with my real name (since I thought it more sincere), only to get blank looks, until I said my moniker, then I got mostly blank looks and possibly one flash of recognition.

It's strange hearing them referring to one another by their monikers: reno, meteor, dorimon, TLR... TLR even labelled my running gear "mis_nomer"! Kinda cute I thought, so here's a picture.



It is strange how a name chosen in a particularly misanthropic and ironic state of mind grows on you.

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An open letter

Dear God,

My brother-in-law's grandmother passed away yesterday morning... But I'm sure you knew that already. My brother-in-law is having a hard time because his family is split in two by the quarrel, and one side is mad at him for letting the other side know about her death. It is kinda crazy. When I visited her this last June, I remember grandma tearing because she was caught in the middle of the two sides and because she missed Connecticut so much. She had to sell her house and move her life halfway across the country. I hope heaven is a bit like Connecticut, for her sake anyway.

We are sorry that we are crazy and petty and selfish and quarrelsome. Please forgive us. But even so, I have something to say that is making me peeved.

While I was concerned about how the two sides of my brother-in-law's family were going to be reconciled, my mother was concerned about something much larger and far beyond our power or scope. Just as she walked away after our conversation, she turned to me and asked: "But was grandma a Christian?"

And then I suddenly detested the burden you gave to us evangelical Protestants. It is difficult enough to solve the problems of life, why do you burden us with the fate of those who are dead? Why does the eternal fate of a soul lie in our miserable, pathetic, and foolish hands? I hate the testimonies and sappy songs about "Why didn't you tell me when we were alive?" I hate the guilt-trips; I hate the uselessness of prayer against another person's will. If you were so powerful and so loving and so just, why couldn't you do it on your own?

You know that I love my non-Christian friends. I love my Christian friends who have non-Christian family members. Some of us have prayed for those we love for years, but Jesus himself said that it is harder for a rich man to enter heaven than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. If I cannot imagine being happy in eternity if those I love were languishing in hell, can I imagine a God, whose very name is love, happy in a similiar situation? And if you were not happy in eternity, how could you be God, if it is necessary that your will be done?

I am sorry for thinking these things, but writing them down makes hardly any difference, since you knew about them to begin with. I will still pray, because I still believe. So please be with my brother-in-law, his family and my sister in this time that they may find peace in you; please bless my friend J and grant her rest and healing, but above all, that she may know you too.

In Jesus' name,
Amen

----
update: going to church takes the vim out of me and makes me remember that right after Jesus made the camel reference, he also said that with man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible. so i take the burden back.

...

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God willing

Smole and I finally sat down and did some serious mathematics and came out with this plan for our long runs.

Week 1 _________ 20km 10Sept
Week 2 _________ 24km 17Sept (bali)
Week 3 _________ 26km 24Sept
Week 4 _________ 28km 01Oct
Week 5 _________ 30km 08Oct
Week 6 _________ 32km 15Oct
Week 7 _________ 34km 22Oct
Week 8 _________ 36km 29Oct
Week 9 _________ 38km 05Nov (Australia)
Week 10 ________ 35km 12Nov
Week 11 ________ 30km 19Nov
Week 12 ________ 25km 26Nov
Week 13 ______ 42.2km 03Dec

In between the long runs, we'll do a mix of laps, hill repeats, and shorter distances at a moderate to fast pace. In between the short runs we'll play squash, badminton and cycle.

In between the squash, badminton and cycling, we'll have to figure out how to read, work, eat and sleep while running because we won't have time for anything else if we stick to this plan. At the tortoise pace we run, we'll be spending a quarter of our waking hours of the weekend running! We really need to train to get faster, if only to save time.

What an audacious and exciting plan. Quoting Joan (an elite runner with elite quotes) quoting Bob Dylan,

“How far you going?” Ruby asked me with a smile.
“I’m going all the way ’til the wheels fall off and burn.”

- from Bob Dylan’s Brownsville Girl

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For 60 cents

My father is a part-time courier for a small law firm. He used to get paid $500 a month to be there five-days a week full-time, but now he gets paid per job.

Today, when I got home with the char siew pau (BBQ pork bun), four siew mais (steamed pork dumplings) and two har gaos (steamed shrimp dumpling) I picked up from Tiong Bahru on my bike ride home, I asked my mum where my dad was. She said that he went to Pasir Ris in the afternoon to serve a letter, and was waiting for it to be past 7pm so that he could get the concession price for the bus ride home.

Kinda makes you want to rob a bank and buy a car, if you know what I mean.

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On books and lists

Time Magazine has released a list of the 100 best English novels from 1923 - present.

I tend to forget what I read, hence the question marks. I think it will be a fun project to go through this list, you think?

Of the few I've read, my favourite book in this list is probably Herzog The Lord of the Rings. Which is your favourite?

?The Adventures of Augie March
Saul Bellow

All the King's Men
Robert Penn Warren

American Pastoral
Philip Roth

An American Tragedy
Theodore Dreiser

Animal Farm
George Orwell

Appointment in Samarra
John O'Hara

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
Judy Blume

The Assistant
Bernard Malamud

At Swim-Two-Birds
Flann O'Brien

Atonement
Ian McEwan

Beloved
Toni Morrison

The Berlin Stories
Christopher Isherwood

The Big Sleep
Raymond Chandler

The Blind Assassin
Margaret Atwood

Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy

Brideshead Revisited
Evelyn Waugh

The Bridge of San Luis Rey
Thornton Wilder

Call It Sleep
Henry Roth

Catch-22
Joseph Heller

The Catcher in the Rye
J.D. Salinger

A Clockwork Orange
Anthony Burgess

The Confessions of Nat Turner
William Styron

The Corrections
Jonathan Franzen

The Crying of Lot 49
Thomas Pynchon

A Dance to the Music of Time
Anthony Powell

The Day of the Locust
Nathanael West

Death Comes for the Archbishop
Willa Cather

A Death in the Family
James Agee

The Death of the Heart
Elizabeth Bowen

Deliverance
James Dickey

Dog Soldiers
Robert Stone

Falconer
John Cheever

The French Lieutenant's Woman
John Fowles

The Golden Notebook
Doris Lessing

Go Tell it on the Mountain
James Baldwin

Gone With the Wind
Margaret Mitchell

The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck

Gravity's Rainbow
Thomas Pynchon

The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald

A Handful of Dust
Evelyn Waugh

The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter
Carson McCullers

The Heart of the Matter
Graham Greene

Herzog
Saul Bellow

Housekeeping
Marilynne Robinson

A House for Mr. Biswas
V.S. Naipaul

I, Claudius
Robert Graves

Infinite Jest
David Foster Wallace

Invisible Man
Ralph Ellison

Light in August
William Faulkner

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe
C.S. Lewis

Lolita
Vladimir Nabokov

Lord of the Flies
William Golding

The Lord of the Rings
J.R.R. Tolkien

Loving
Henry Green

Lucky Jim
Kingsley Amis

The Man Who Loved Children
Christina Stead

Midnight's Children
Salman Rushdie

Money
Martin Amis

The Moviegoer
Walker Percy

?Mrs. Dalloway
Virginia Woolf

Naked Lunch
William Burroughs

Native Son
Richard Wright

Neuromancer
William Gibson

Never Let Me Go
Kazuo Ishiguro

?1984
George Orwell

On the Road
Jack Kerouac

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
Ken Kesey

The Painted Bird
Jerzy Kosinski

Pale Fire
Vladimir Nabokov

A Passage to India
E.M. Forster

Play It As It Lays
Joan Didion

Portnoy's Complaint
Philip Roth

Possession
A.S. Byatt

The Power and the Glory
Graham Greene

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
Muriel Spark

Rabbit, Run
John Updike

Ragtime
E.L. Doctorow

The Recognitions
William Gaddis


Red Harvest
Dashiell Hammett

Revolutionary Road
Richard Yates

The Sheltering Sky
Paul Bowles

Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut

Snow Crash
Neal Stephenson

The Sot-Weed Factor
John Barth

The Sound and the Fury
William Faulkner

The Sportswriter
Richard Ford

The Spy Who Came in From the Cold
John le Carre

The Sun Also Rises
Ernest Hemingway

Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston

Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe

To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee

To the Lighthouse
Virginia Woolf

Tropic of Cancer
Henry Miller

Ubik
Philip K. Dick

Under the Net
Iris Murdoch

Under the Volcano
Malcolm Lowry

Watchmen
Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons

White Noise
Don DeLillo

White Teeth
Zadie Smith

Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys

Read more!

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Little Miss Geek

This is why I think I may be a geek. When I am writing with a marker pen on fancy paper and mis-spell "Happy birtday" because I'm thinking too fast, I think, "Ctrl-Z".

Why can't we have a Ctrl-Z for our normal everyday lives? (For the non-geeks, Ctrl-Z is the keyboard shortcut for the `undo' function in Windows.) Countless times I've longed for that nifty shortcut: when there is coffee all over the carpet because I toppled the cup while reaching for the phone, when my phone gets pickpocketed beccause I didn't zip up my bag, when I said something really stupid and hurt someone's feelings.

At those times, I just want to hit "Ctrl-Z" repeatedly until I get back to a more favourable state of being.

But life is not like that. If life were like that, I'll probably still be in 18-year-old mis_nomer beta version. I would have spilled no coffee, have no ex-es, broken no hearts, and done nothing mortally embarrassing, like forgetting to bring certain vital wardrobe functions. It just wouldn't happen because I would be Little Miss Perfect (and Little Miss Obsessive-Compulsive, too, but hey, who cares). (Did I spell Obesessive correctly? Ctrl-Z ctrl-Z ctrl-Z...)

(If anyone wants to know, I hit Ctrl-Z 29 times to create the graphic you see above.)

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A very good prata at tekka market

I'm stuffed with prata and teh tarik and I'm absolutely brimming with the pleasure of discovering a VERY GOOD prata stall at tekka market.

I used to patronise a stall facing the Chinese side of the market because it was the most convenient, but after they served me a really lousy and chewy kosong (plain) prata, I decided enough was enough, and ventured to find a different stall the next time. And this is what I found:

Muhd Ani Rafi
#01-301
(My camera battery is kapooted so I won't be posting pictures for a while.)

Nestled behind the row facing the Chinese side of the market is a narrow corridor of Malay food and nestled in the middle of that, is this store that sells heavenly prata. The 60 cents kosong is crisp, soft and hot. The $1 egg prata is tasty, light yet substantial. $1 is a rockin' good price! I even had a piece of potato in my curry.

The prata man chopped up my prata for me, handed it to the server, looked at me and said, "Bagus" (`good') with his thumb stuck out and the widest grin plastered on his face. And, you know what, it was lagi bagus! (very good)

I'm hooked.

Technorati tag: Prata

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Free stuff I cannot do without: Skype

Everyone knows about Skype so I'll let the pictures do the talkin'.


Talking to sis. Isn't she beautiful? :)


Talking to dog.


Pop talking singing to dog

Skype alone is worth the $43 I fork out each month for the internet.

Tip: if you can't get video to work with the latest Skype version, try installing an older version instead. While Skype 2.0.0.103 works great with my A4 Tech webcam ($35 at Sim Lim), skype 2.5 does not.

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So which little red arrow are you?

www.statcounter.com
Technorati tag: statcounter

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The odds against us

Instead of training, I've been busy designing logos for my posts on training. So, to kick off this logo's inaugural appearance on this blog, I quote Smole:

Hey, you know what happened? I went to the Runner's World website and clicked on their personalised training programme to get a plan for our marathon at the end of the year, right? So I put in our recent half marathon time, the number of weeks we have left to the race, and chose a "moderate" training plan and it refused to churn out a plan for us! It says, "Sorry, you do not have enough time to train for your chosen race. Please consider changing or postponing your race." ??!??

Funny thing is, when I went in and put in the exact same variables, it churned out a plan for me. Heehee.

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Write a title here

We went to visit J yesterday. It was good to see her. She is able to walk, talk softly, eat, and isn't in too much pain. Yet it was troubling. It was difficult to watch her have to cope with the trauma of surgery, and the implications and the psychological burden of having cancer. It broke my heart.

When I walked into the room, her newly wedded husband told us that a huge old tree in our neighbourhood was split into two by lightning on the day of her surgery. He pondered the significance of the violence of both events and went to check out the split tree. While looking among the roots, he found a figurine of the Chinese deity Qi gong, a drunken monk who goes around curing people of their sicknesses. He found it very significant and took it upon himself to wash the deity and bring him home. Along the way, he met two Chinese aunties who gave him lime leaves soaked in water and told him to bathe the deity in it.

So I sat there and watched him bathe this deity; I watched my friend with the 15cm gash across her throat tearing when her grandma asked her how she was; I had dinner with S later and watched her tear over a quiet dinner; I watched myself wake up in the middle of the night with worry.
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f-

Bridget Jones' pet phrase comes to mind.

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Watch what you google

AOL mistakenly released a list of web search queries sorted by individuals. It is scary what you can piece together about a person's life from their web searches. New York Times did a bit of detective work and tracked down one individual from what she searched for: a widow named Thelma Arnold. The article is reproduced below. (link to article)

A Face Is Exposed for AOL Searcher No. 4417749

Article from New York Times,

By MICHAEL BARBARO and TOM ZELLER Jr.

Published: August 9, 2006

Buried in a list of 20 million Web search queries collected by AOL and recently released on the Internet is user No. 4417749. The number was assigned by the company to protect the searcher’s anonymity, but it was not much of a shield.

Thelma Arnold's identity was betrayed by AOL records of her Web searches, like ones for her dog, Dudley, who clearly has a problem.

No. 4417749 conducted hundreds of searches over a three-month period on topics ranging from “numb fingers” to “60 single men” to “dog that urinates on everything.”

And search by search, click by click, the identity of AOL user No. 4417749 became easier to discern. There are queries for “landscapers in Lilburn, Ga,” several people with the last name Arnold and “homes sold in shadow lake subdivision gwinnett county georgia.”

It did not take much investigating to follow that data trail to Thelma Arnold, a 62-year-old widow who lives in Lilburn, Ga., frequently researches her friends’ medical ailments and loves her three dogs. “Those are my searches,” she said, after a reporter read part of the list to her.

AOL removed the search data from its site over the weekend and apologized for its release, saying it was an unauthorized move by a team that had hoped it would benefit academic researchers.

But the detailed records of searches conducted by Ms. Arnold and 657,000 other Americans, copies of which continue to circulate online, underscore how much people unintentionally reveal about themselves when they use search engines — and how risky it can be for companies like AOL, Google and Yahoo to compile such data.

Those risks have long pitted privacy advocates against online marketers and other Internet companies seeking to profit from the Internet’s unique ability to track the comings and goings of users, allowing for more focused and therefore more lucrative advertising.

But the unintended consequences of all that data being compiled, stored and cross-linked are what Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy rights group in Washington, called “a ticking privacy time bomb.”

Mr. Rotenberg pointed to Google’s own joust earlier this year with the Justice Department over a subpoena for some of its search data. The company successfully fended off the agency’s demand in court, but several other search companies, including AOL, complied. The Justice Department sought the information to help it defend a challenge to a law that is meant to shield children from sexually explicit material.

“We supported Google at the time,” Mr. Rotenberg said, “but we also said that it was a mistake for Google to be saving so much information because it creates a risk.”

Ms. Arnold, who agreed to discuss her searches with a reporter, said she was shocked to hear that AOL had saved and published three months’ worth of them. “My goodness, it’s my whole personal life,” she said. “I had no idea somebody was looking over my shoulder.”

In the privacy of her four-bedroom home, Ms. Arnold searched for the answers to scores of life’s questions, big and small. How could she buy “school supplies for Iraq children”? What is the “safest place to live”? What is “the best season to visit Italy”?

Her searches are a catalog of intentions, curiosity, anxieties and quotidian questions. There was the day in May, for example, when she typed in “termites,” then “tea for good health” then “mature living,” all within a few hours.

Her queries mirror millions of those captured in AOL’s database, which reveal the concerns of expectant mothers, cancer patients, college students and music lovers. User No. 2178 searches for “foods to avoid when breast feeding.” No. 3482401 seeks guidance on “calorie counting.” No. 3483689 searches for the songs “Time After Time” and “Wind Beneath My Wings.”

At times, the searches appear to betray intimate emotions and personal dilemmas. No. 3505202 asks about “depression and medical leave.” No. 7268042 types “fear that spouse contemplating cheating.”

There are also many thousands of sexual queries, along with searches about “child porno” and “how to kill oneself by natural gas” that raise questions about what legal authorities can and should do with such information.

But while these searches can tell the casual observer — or the sociologist or the marketer — much about the person who typed them, they can also prove highly misleading.

At first glace, it might appear that Ms. Arnold fears she is suffering from a wide range of ailments. Her search history includes “hand tremors,” “nicotine effects on the body,” “dry mouth” and “bipolar.” But in an interview, Ms. Arnold said she routinely researched medical conditions for her friends to assuage their anxieties. Explaining her queries about nicotine, for example, she said: “I have a friend who needs to quit smoking and I want to help her do it.”

Asked about Ms. Arnold, an AOL spokesman, Andrew Weinstein, reiterated the company’s position that the data release was a mistake. “We apologize specifically to her,” he said. “There is not a whole lot we can do.”

Mr. Weinstein said he knew of no other cases thus far where users had been identified as a result of the search data, but he was not surprised. “We acknowledged that there was information that could potentially lead to people being identified, which is why we were so angry.”

AOL keeps a record of each user’s search queries for one month, Mr. Weinstein said. This allows users to refer back to previous searches and is also used by AOL to improve the quality of its search technology. The three-month data that was released came from a special system meant for AOL’s internal researchers that does not record the users’ AOL screen names, he said.

Several bloggers claimed yesterday to have identified other AOL users by examining data, while others hunted for particularly entertaining or shocking search histories. Some programmers made this easier by setting up Web sites that let people search the database of searches.

John Battelle, the author of the 2005 book “The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture,” said AOL’s misstep, while unfortunate, could have a silver lining if people began to understand just what was at stake. In his book, he says search engines are mining the priceless “database of intentions” formed by the world’s search requests.

“It’s only by these kinds of screw-ups and unintended behind-the-curtain views that we can push this dialogue along,” Mr. Battelle said. “As unhappy as I am to see this data on people leaked, I’m heartened that we will have this conversation as a culture, which is long overdue.”

Ms. Arnold says she loves online research, but the disclosure of her searches has left her disillusioned. In response, she plans to drop her AOL subscription. “We all have a right to privacy,” she said. “Nobody should have found this all out.”

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