Category: Diary

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Diary

How Did You Celebrate New Year’s Eve?

This year, I am not going to over complicate my New Year’s resolution.  It would be: read more, write more, play more music, and do more sport.  Other time sinking activities will have to be scaled back accordingly.

We stayed at home on New Year’s Eve, thanks to a laborious walk at Ubin Island the day before.  I got out of the bed in the early morning with my feet feeling sore.  I went back to bed thinking if we were to cycle instead of to walk, my feet would not be that sore.  But then I recalled what happen to those who do not cycle often.  I would rather have a pair of sore feet than a sore butt.

New Year’s Eve fell on a Saturday so we did our housecleaning ritual.  After a home cooked lunch, Cynthia and I spent a few hours romancing with the dragons.  Some readers have the misconception that MMO (massively multi-player online) is similar to the traditional role playing games, whereby you defeat your foes once and once only.  Well, in the world of MMO, we do that again, again, and again.  Very much like a game of basketball.  The court and the rules stay the same.  But the players and the outcomes may not.

*     *     *     *

After our movie outing the day before, TK, Cynthia, and I have decided to celebrate New Year’s Eve at my home watching some videos.  TK brought pizza and food while Cynthia bought potato chip and drink.  As for the lucky me, I was tasked to operate the Blu-Ray player.  I suggested to watch the Luc Besson movie “Léon” staring young Natalie Portman.  Cynthia counter suggested Quentin Tarantino’s gruesome “Reservoir Dogs” thinking that it was a comedy.  TK also preferred the blood and gore, for our New Year’s Eve.  In this party of three, somehow I am often outnumbered.

Watching “Reservoir Dogs” requires intense concentration, which we did not have once we started to eat our pizza and talked.  Cynthia and my mother were happily chatting.  TK was also happily chatting and every now and then, playing with his new phone often.  When the title “Mr. White” appeared, they had no clue where the story was heading, except blood and more blood.  I had to explain this is Mr. White, that is Mr. Orange, and he is Mr. Pink, and etc.  Fortunately, the ending was pretty obvious and that did not require much thinking to go ah-ha!  I can understand why “Reservoir Dogs” has become a cult hit.  I doubt TK and Cynthia really love it.

After “Reservoir Dogs”, the night was still young.  So we moved onto our next video.

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If you have not watched “Léon” before and are to watch today, you would probably say, “Hmm.  Natalie Portman acted pretty good when she was 12.”  But imagine you have not heard of this movie, you would probably be amazed and thrown out of your chair at how talented this young actress is.  When I first saw Natalie Portman on screen, I said to myself, “She is going to make it big.”  She does not disappoint me.  Her 2011 “Black Swan” has won the Oscar.  And I had my “I knew it!” moment.  It was sweet.

“Léon” was more violent than I remember.  Watching “Léon” after “Reservoir Dogs”, we had our evening filled with blood and violence.  They are both classic movies, no doubt.  That pretty much sums up what 2011 is, in a way.

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Year 2011 is pretty blah for me.  I hope 2012 is more exciting, in a positive way.  This is how we spent our New Year’s Eve.  What about you?  Did you do something outrageously fun?

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Diary

“Wah” – And Two Cars Banged

Singapore is a small country.  You can drive from east to west along the highways that totaled to approximately 50km.  That is from Changi Airport to Tuas Checkpoint that leads to Malaysia.  Or you can drive from south to east, a 30km journey from our beautiful resort island Sentosa to the not too beautiful Woodlands Checkpoint, which also leads to Malaysia.  In this small country, we have an efficient road network and an electronic pricing system that many of my overseas friends envy.  What they do not know is that although our roads are efficient, some of our drivers are not too smart.  Foreigners living within Singapore often tell me how amazed they are with the number of road incidents we have in such a tiny country.  A road network that is 50km in width and 30km in height.  I too am a driver.  I have often seen traffic congestion caused by road incidents.  I have nearly got into an accident recently when three cars in front of mine suddenly jam braked and one hit another.  Fortunately, common sense told me not to tailgate a chain of cars that were tailgating a blinking ambulance.  How stupid it is to form an impenetrable chain of cars at high speed when every other car on the left want to get back to the fast lane?  Right?

In Singapore, we have road junctions that are regulated by traffic lights.  Green means go, for those who are traveling straight.  If you want to turn left, you may need to give way to the pedestrians who are crossing the road.  If you want to turn right, you may need to get into a “pocket” located in the middle of the junction and give way to the cars coming from the opposite direction (both heading straight and turning left) as well as the pedestrians crossing the road.  When unsure of safety, common sense tells us to stay on the pocket till we are sure of the situation.  As the green light expires, a green right-turn-only arrow will light up to give those who are turning right a chance to cross safely.  It is a good and efficient system so long as people follow the rule.  Or rather, understand the rationale behind the rule.

There are a few problems with this setup, apparently to the Singapore drivers who may not have good common sense.  Inside the pocket, at times the view may be blocked by, say, a large vehicle on the opposite side of the road that also wants to turn right.  So, some would inch beyond their “pocket”, try to pull their necks out and see if the road is clear to turn right.  The problem is that if one is to look at this situation from the satellite view, by getting out of the pocket, the driver is positioning his car to the fast lane of the incoming traffic that he or she is unable to see.  Some take a leap of faith and cross the road even when there is no clear vision.  Is it dangerous?  Sure it is.  Is it a smart move?  Sure it is not.

Another problem is that Singapore drivers do not like to signal when changing directions.  So, those who are turning right looking at those incoming traffic and wonder: Hey, that car seems to have slowed down.  Is he going to turn left?  If so, I can beat him to it, yes?  Well, from my observation, it is a half-half case.  Some slow down at a junction due to safety concern.  These are good drivers.  Some intend to turn left and don’t signal.  These are our regular drivers.  As I always say, when in doubt, stay inside the pocket and cross the road when you are absolutely sure of its safety.  Even if the car behind you may be honking or high beaming you, do the right things in life.

So, back to my diary.  This morning, it rained.  It is still raining as I am typing out this entry.  The road was wet and I have dropped Cynthia off at her office.  I was heading home because I am on leave today.  As always, cars shooting out from the side roads without paying attention to the main road traffic.  That is OK.  I am used to it, dodging cars the best I could.  At one junction between South Bridge Road and South Canal Road, the green light was on.  I signaled and was about to turn left.  Ahead of me, there was two cars going straight.  All of a sudden, one SUV from the opposite direction has decided to turn right.  And BAM! it collided with a sedan car.  The front bumper of the sedan was gone.  The SUV was hit at the back, lost control, did a 180 degree turn on a wet road, nearly crashed onto the pedestrians waiting at the traffic light.  It was like watching a silence movie as Japanese music was playing in my car stereo blocking any crashing sound that came from the outside.  I remember clearly that I did not scream double-u tee ef, or qué pasa in Spanish.  I screamed, “Wah!”  I think in time of emergency, we naturally switch to our mother tongue.

If there is one take home message, or one message to pass along, drive intelligently and responsibly.  Don’t test your luck.

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Diary

My Niece Says the Funniest Things

My mother is in town.  All of a sudden, my humble home has turned into a family headquarter.  My sister visits my home often, with or without my presence, together with my buddy a.k.a. her husband and my niece a.k.a. Bethany.  Bethany and I converse in various modes . I often stick to my mother tongue Cantonese . I am not sure how much she can understand me.  At times I switch to English.  I don’t think she responds to me either.  But we have some friendly moments.  Like when she was dancing non-stop in my living room, in between songs, she would collapse and rest her head onto my laps for five seconds.  And then she would bounce back to her dancing mode, going round and round in circle, moving backward and forward, so totally absorbed in her own world.  Bethany would listen attentively to the first few bars of the song before launching into a unique dancing pattern choreographed specifically for that song.  For a 23 months old toddler, that is pretty amazing.

Bethany seems to enjoy listening to Roxette, Fleetwood Mac, Erasure, Tears for Fear, and Mariah Carey.  And she does not seem to like modern rock.  This saddens Cynthia a little bit.  As for me, I am happy that she likes some of my favorite records.

After a rather long dancing session, her parents were concern that Bethany getting too excited may affect her sleep later that evening.  So I switched to classical music, the same type of music that I played when she was still inside my sister’s tummy.  Bethany stopped dancing, took out her teddy bear, held it by its head, and dragged it across my living room.  If there was a level of affection between her and her teddy bear, I could not notice.  I know she has a habit of chewing it.  I now know that she likes to sweep my floor with it.  I found that amusing.  But my sister was not amused.  As my sister tried to lift the teddy bear from the ground, Bethany slammed it flat onto the floor, stepped on it with one foot, and dragged it across the room with one foot on my ceramic flooring, and another foot on the soft toy.

My sister gasped and said that classical music must have brought out Bethany’s darker side.  I laughed hard . Bethany has a unique character.  My sister tried to grab the teddy bear and Bethany took it back, slammed it onto the floor and stepped on it.  Not violently, but with passion.  The cycle repeated and my sister would mimic the teddy bear’s voice and say, “I don’t want! I don’t want!”  Bethany would stare at the teddy bear and reply in a firm, unhurried, and dominating voice, “No you want! No you want!”

I laughed so hard till my tears came out.  The first English sentence I heard from her is “No you want”.  My niece says the funniest things.  I love her.  I love her darker side just the same.

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Diary

Wind Powered Decorative Door Damper (Alternative Title: A Week Moving In Jelly)

“This is my patent pending invention!”

Recently, the inanimated objects around me seem to have taken an unanimous decision to stop working.  I felt like moving inside a huge swimming pool filled with grass jelly.  Maybe I am too lazy, quietly observing the hole on my sofa growing bigger and bigger.  More holes have appeared.  What shall I do now?  And then there was this overhead light bulb in my bathroom that had turned into disco mode.  I took it out, left the socket empty like my wisdom tooth that was once there thinking that I did not have a spare one.  I actually do, inside one of the kitchen drawers.  One of my electricity wall socket is malfunction.  The switch does not stick.  I bought a replacement unit.  But I am still trying to find the courage to replace it myself.  I suppose I simply need to switch off the main power, disconnect three wires and reconnect them into the new unit.  I even visualize myself doing it with plastic slippers and plastic gloves on.  I have also bought a screwdriver that lights up if there is an electric current.

My 10 years old audio amplifier finally gave in.  For a long time, one channel would suddenly die and reappear when we temporarily pumped up the volume to a deafening level.  The symptom would appear again depending on the temperament of my old amplifier.  I would imagine our suffering – the amplifier and I – is mutual.  I was squeezing every ounce of life from it and it was testing every ounce of my patience.  One fine day, I have decided to put an end to this by forking out close to S$1,000 of hard earned cash.  The newer model looks very much like its elder sibling.  Less powerful on paper, slimmer, and is working every time we switch it on.

My watch has run out of battery.  Now, this is not news worthy, certainly.  But did you know that it is best to take your watch for a battery replacement at the agent?  I did not know.  One day, I walked into a new watch shop inside a new mall near my office that is a stone’s throw away from the airport.  The sales assistant was professional enough to inform me that I should bring my watch back to the agent so as to get the seal’s rubber changed as well.  Or I could go ahead to have the battery replaced at her shop but risk forgoing the water resistance guarantee.  There and then, I remember some of my old watches with their faces filled with water droplets from the inside whenever we entered into a raining season.  Is that so?  And so, this weekend, Cynthia and I deliberately drove to the agent shop at Raffle City only to be told that we have to visit a service center instead.  Because the service center only opens in town during office hours, I would imagine that I will have to go without a watch for quite some time.

The mother of all disasters as of last week besides Cynthia’s ear infection that I will get into shortly is the epic failure of our water heater.  My plumber and I were debating on the age of my dead heater after we took it down.  We disagreed but agreed that its age falls somewhere between 17 to 22 years of age.  My plumber was shocked that my heater could last that long.  I was shocked that a heater could not last longer.  Five years he said, is the life expectancy of an electric water storage these days.

One evening, I was extremely hungry.  So I turned on the electric oven wanting to heat up a frozen pizza.  Shortly after, the electric circuit of our home tripped.  Strange.  We had a problem with our oven a few years back and had its internal circuit changed.  I flipped the main switch back on and in a few seconds, it tripped again.  I switched off the electric appliances one by one and after some simple diagnosis, it was our water heater that failed.  Bumper.  Singapore can be quite chilly nowadays as it rains almost daily.  That night I had a rather cold shower.

The next morning, I opened up the false ceiling access area, noted down the make and capacity of the heater and determined to replace it with the same model.  On the same day, I drove down to a shop inside Singapore Red Light District, got terribly lost, and managed to procure one.  I loaded the new heater into my car and lugged it all the way home.  Day one, the plumbers arrived late and could not start work.  Day two, we dissected the dead heater out from the myriad of water pipes hidden above.  That operation resembled an open heart surgery.  I looked at the state of my dead heater, with its electric components exposed and covered in rust.  No wonder it died.  Once we took it down, horror descended upon us.  The new model was one and a half inches taller than the old model.  It could not be fitted into our false ceiling. I lugged the new heater back to Singapore Red Light District, paid extra to replace one that fits.  Day three, the plumber had hinted to come but he did not.  Day four, the plumber came and installed the water heater.  Those four days of cold shower nearly got me sick.  I hate showering with cold water at night, and ice cold water in the morning.

Round about the same time, Cynthia was suffering from an ear infection.  The problem with Cynthia is that she is not that good at articulating her pain.  I was not that worried until much later.  She saw a doctor four times and was finally referred to a specialist.  I was there to help her articulate the pain, giving her some moral support.  The consultation went well.  But it took us a long time to procure the medicine because it was nowhere to be found.  Looking at this week of moving in jelly, I was the least surprised.

Since I was working from home, I also called in someone to service our gas stove.  One burner eventually failed and for some time, we were cooking with a single burner.  It was challenging and required lots of planning.  When the technician opened up the stove, I was amazed at the beautiful network of gas and electric pipes hidden underneath the stove.  It was like a science project, some sort of experimental invention.  The technician took out a spinner, tighten one bolt and viola, the burner is working!  That cost me S$60.  As an bonus though, he cleared the pipes for all the burners.  There must have been some gas leakage during the process.  I felt a bit giddy standing next to this old man who has done this for years.  We talked.  When the servicing was completed, after I was S$60 poorer, all my burners now ignite with new found rage.

We live on a rather high floor, unblocked and our home faces the reservoir.  When the wind blows from our door and out from the windows, the wind can be strong enough to hold the door ajar.    And when the wind blows from our windows and out from the main door, the wind can be strong enough to slam the door hard.  Recently, due to a lack of imagination, we hang one tiny teddy bear at the door (as seen in the picture on top of this post).  Yesterday, I realized that when the wind blows, it moves the teddy bear dangerously towards the door gap.  And when the door slams, it slams right onto the teddy bear and produces a low thump sound instead of a loud bang.  This teddy bear turns out to be the cheapest door damper I can find in town.

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Diary

Nan Lian Garden

Today is Deepavali.  We will never forget last year’s Deepavali when we started our trip stuck behind four and half hours of traffic jam crawling from Singapore to Malaysia.  I put my bladder to the ultimate test.  Since then, we have not driven to Malaysia.  According to local news, earlier this year, when Malaysia Customs first rolled out the fingerprint verification system, the traffic jam had extended to eight hours.  The only time I could hold my pee that long is when I am having a very good sleep.  I cringe thinking about such scenario.

This year’s Deepavali, Cynthia and I are in Hong Kong.  If you have not visited Nan Lian Garden, you ought to pay it a visit.  The nearest MTR station is Diamond Hill.  The garden is filled with rare plantations and fossil stones imported from, I presume, China.  Today was my second visit.  Inside a souvenir shop that I must have missed in my first visit, I spotted tiny pieces of fossil stones no bigger than an abalone selling from HK$10,000 to 30,000.  I could only imagine how much those gigantic fossil stones scattered in the garden would cost.

There is a Chinese vegetarian restaurant inside Nan Lian Garden.  It opens at noon and it is popular.  My dad got a queue number before noon and we did not have to wait for our table.  The decoration is tradition and elegant and the atmosphere is clean and cosy.  The beetroot and carrot soup was complimentary.  So was the fruit plate.  For the four of us, we have ordered:

  1. Braised Mini Beancurd Patty with Mixed Vegetables
  2. Yellow Porcini Mushroom with Beancurd Casserole
  3. Eggplant with Diced Oyster Mushroom Casserole
  4. Deep-fried Curry Puff with Mixed Mushroom
  5. Stir-fried Noodle with Bean Sprouts
  6. Dessert

All in and it costs HK$420 (about S$70).  I think it is rather reasonable for a yummy and healthy meal.  The restaurant inside our Botanic Gardens in Singapore would cost more, if I remember correctly.

As the four of us admired the fossil stones in Nan Lian Garden, my parents would say: Look, that is a tiger.  Look, that is a dragon.  Look, that is a human.  And look, that is a sheep.  Every time when I saw a stone that demanded our imagination, I would whispered to Cynthia: Look, that is a panda.  Look, that is a panda too!  Yes, we are still in joy.  Thank you Blizzard.

My mother often pokes fun at how slow I am to process my photographs.  This year, when I click the shutter, I aim for total perfection.  Every click matters.  The only tweak I need to perform is white balancing.  I think that is the bare minimum in term of digital photo processing.

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Diary Snippet of My Life

Snippet Of My Life Episode 33 – How Have You Been?

There are so many words I want to write.  So many ideas stuck inside that my head figuratively exploded in my bathroom this evening, while I was showering.  Instead of putting shampoo onto my hair, I used shower gel.  It smelt good, it smelt different.  And then I realized that my ‘shampoo’ shouldn’t smell different.  Smelling different was not good.  Times like this makes me wonder what I was thinking.

Lately, a multitude of events and activities have happened.  Some directly, and some indirectly hinder my usual pace of update in my website.  Before I pour out my words in a random relevance, there is one good news to share.

1. News of An Amiable Scale

Amelia is a beautiful name.  That is the name of my guitarist and my band manager’s 3.3 kg baby girl who arrived yesterday morning at 9.30am.  Three and a half years ago I was the emcee for their wedding.  That memorable day seems so far away.  Reminiscing the key events that happened from then till now can easily make my brain goes kaboom.  For those who have missed our band’s public performance one and a half years ago, that could well be the very last gig of No Eye Candy.  Our drummer falls in love.  Our guitarist and band manager now have a baby.  The only ones who stay relatively stationary are Cynthia – the bassist – and I.

Amelia, our Spanish teacher, is back from Spain.  People are gifted in different ways.  She must be one of the most cheerful person in the world.  With her in our classroom, our spirit lights up 10,000 watt.  Amelia speaks so much faster than our replacement teacher Gloria.  All of a sudden, I find myself standing on the quicksand of audio retardation.

2. What If All These Words Were to … Vanish?

It is not the first time my website is hacked.  The last few times that happened, I changed my blogging engine.  Now that I am using WordPress, I am unsure where else to turn to.  In the last couple of weeks, my website was hacked at least twice.  During the time when the fate of my website was unknown, Cynthia seemed to be more affected than I was.  She asked, “What if …”  It did come across my mind that all my close to 1,500 posts written since 1996 could vanish into a digital black hole.  If that did happen, what else could I do?  So I replied, “Well, I will have to start from the first post again.”  Cynthia was shocked by my calmness.  To be honest, it sucks thinking about it.  Thank God, while this tiny digital space of mine was somewhat violated, it is still alive with its legacy growing one post at a time.

3. Online Gaming and Work, Online Gaming and Life

The barrier of our imagination is often defined by our experience.  It is hard to describe what online gaming is if one has not immersed into one.  Recently, I have new observations in life and work that are revealed due to my experience in online gaming.  I will not write too much about the gaming bits that may be hard to relate.  Instead, I will focus on the life and work bits.

My work is getting busy lately.  I belong to a reasonably sized team.  In theory, workload should be evenly distributed among us.  But in reality, some may be busier than others.  Different people take this situation differently.  Some may make it a point to announce to the world that they are the busiest one.  Some may start to criticize and openly examine what others are doing.  I am the easygoing one.  If I am the only one working while everyone around me is taking a break, I am OK with that.  If I am one of the few who is taking a break while some are burning long hours, I am OK with that too.

When we play an online game, essentially we are playing a team based game.  Almost everyone has a meter to show how each of us is contributing on a real time basis.  Because different people come with different skills and levels of commitment, come from different age groups and genders, I have seen all sorts of patterns displaying in my meter.  At times when everyone is contributing at their maximum, it can be an exhilaration experience.  At times when one or two under-perform, I often do not mind carry them through.  However, it is not uncommon to see these under-performers being openly picked onto and humiliated by the high-performers.  Even being removed from the team.  If you think that this sounds like work, there is little difference between work and non-work.  There are no two hats we are wearing.  It is the same person at work or not.

One morning on our way to work, Cynthia and I chatted about our new online characters.  There will be new old challenges to overcome (the challenges are old to us but are new to our new characters).  Cynthia cringed thinking about it.  I pondered for a moment and said something like this: “It is the constant need to overcome challenges that keep us going.  That sense of thrill – the thrill of potential failure and defeat – is what makes life [or this game] interesting.  Treasure it because once we can comfortably overcome them, life [or this game] becomes another routine, a chore perhaps.”

4. Social Network and I, Social Network and You

Thanks to Google+, in the last three months, I am off the hook from the social networking scene.  It was a reset that got me off Facebook.  And I hardly spend the same amount of time and effort in Google+ like I did in Facebook.  This does bring some imbalance to my life.  It is as though a chunk of my life has been torn away.  I feel less inspired these days because I was used to a high level of online social stimulation and interaction.  I reckon it may take some time before my digital hormone returns to normal.  But it is a good thing, in the long run.

Today, I read a CNN article and it wrote:

Of course, if [the Facebook users] stopped and think about it, they would realized that Facebook is work … The hours Facebook users put into their profiles and lists and updates is the labor that Facebook then sells to the market researchers and advertisers it serves … We’re not the customers. We are the product.

Now that I am outside the social network, I do not deny the wisdom of the writer’s observation.

5. News of An Amiable Scale – A Prologue

Amelia is a beautiful name.  Yesterday inside our car, on the way home, I said to Cynthia, “If our baby does not come out fast, all the beautiful names will be taken.”  She giggled.  I believe that God has plans for us.  We may not understand why certain things do not happen at the time we think they should.  Perhaps the answers we sought after are less important than the contents life has presented to us on a daily basis.  Perhaps answers are to be earned in the form of rewards.

In short, this is how I have been lately.  Now, tell me, how have you been?

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Diary

How We Celebrated Mid-Autumn Festival

Out of the blue, my sister called me at work yesterday.  Everyone at the bench area turned to me as I was speaking in Cantonese.  Yes, I am bilingual.  If you are to count my half baked Spanish, I am quasi-multilingual.

Quickly, I moved into a phone booth as I battled – mentally speaking – on how to react to my sister’s for lack of a better word, ‘ambush’.  An ambush with a good intend no doubt.  Perhaps as one gets older, one prefers to plan ahead.  Like my mother who called me while I was watching The Voice on TV half an hour ago.  She asked, “What time are you going to arrive in Hong Kong?”  I shrugged and looked at Cynthia for help.  Then my mother asked, “Which day and what time are you leaving Hong Kong?”  Even Cynthia, my travel organizer, struggled to remember the booking information.

Back to yesterday, inside the phone booth, my sister proposed that we should – in a few hours’ time – have a reunion dinner and honor the tradition of Mid-Autumn Festival.  Jolly good.  But what would happen to the defrost meat that we were going to cook in the evening?  And my home was in a total mess.  Time, yes we need time to plan doing something, or even doing nothing.

Eventually, we worked through the logistics.  Our close to two years old niece Bethany is adorable.  When she says hi and bye, those moments melt our hearts.  And she is able to address me properly in Cantonese!  I have been waiting for this moment for months.  Months!  My sister said that they may not need to send Bethany for a music appreciation class.  They can send her to my home instead.  I tried to play guitar with her.  Getting a sustained attention from a kid for more than half a minute is hard.  Asking her not to yank the strings off my beloved Spanish guitar is even harder.  I am a patience man.  In my vision, I am still seeing Bethany playing a grand piano, rather than a Spanish guitar.

After dinner, we popped by a playground in our condo.  To be frank, I have not stepped inside the playground after all these years of living here.  The noticeboard says that the playground is strictly for children under 12 years of age.  Since Bethany was with us, we happily stepped into the playground for the first time.

Our niece seemed to have a good time.  The amount of time parents have to spent in order to play and to take care of their kids is mind blowing.  I salute all the parents in this world, including mine.  Mark, if you are reading this, I salute you too as you are going to have your little one later this year.  Years of repetitive dailies await.  Speaking as such, our band’s guitarist’s newborn should be due soon.  I am seeing babies spawning all around me.

In last year’s Mid-Autumn Festival, Cynthia and I were in Hong Kong crawling through the museums.  Our trip to Lamma Island seems so far away.  How time flies.  How time flies indeed.

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Diary

Goodbye Tak Tak. We Love You.

Does a dog have a soul?

Tak Tak was ten years old.  And he passed away yesterday’s morning in Hong Kong, in the loving arms of my parents.  The news has darkened my day, no doubt.  But the emotional impact is nowhere near to what my sister and parents have experienced.  On that very morning, my sister flew back from Singapore to Hong Kong.  She asked if I wished to come along for the ‘funeral’, and for the support.  I wish I could.  But with the deadlines upon deadlines at work last Friday, I buried myself into the mountain of unending tasks and meetings instead.  It helps not to think about it.  It hurts when I think about how my parents and my sister feel.  And it sucks when I cannot be with them.

If I remember correctly, ten years ago, my mother and sister were convinced that having a dog to accompany my father would keep him active and happy in his retirement days.  So they bought Tak Tak when three of them were in Hong Kong.  By then, I have already moved to Singapore for six years.  Tak Tak had added a lot of joy to my family.  One day when he was still a little puppy, he broke his leg badly.  To go through a surgical operation would cost much more than to replace him with a new puppy.  But how do you put a price tag on a living being?  Even on the last day of his life, his medical bill came up to HK$800.  So Tak Tak had gone through an operation and a long and painful recovery process when he was still a little puppy.  I think perhaps all these misfortunes, pain, and loss is part and parcel of life that bonds people together, reminding us that there is a higher force somewhere.  Hence we love.  Hence we smile to love.  Hence we weep to the love departed.

I do not have much opportunity to interact with Tak Tak.  I was looking forward to playing with him this October when I will be home in Hong Kong.  Tak Tak was a smart dog, a joyful dog, and a dog well loved by everyone – strangers and friends alike.  On one particular day, in year 2009, our family took Tak Tak to a park (click here for the relevant blog entry).  That was a rare day when the entire family was in Hong Kong – my parents, my sister, my brother-in-law, my wife, and I – with our dog outdoor.  The day is so rare that I cannot recall another day like that day.  It was a happy day, a special day.  Tak Tak was dashing from people to people.  I was busy taking pictures.  And I am glad that I have put up a photo collection, completed with a journal.  Because that helps to keep the memory alive.  Memory fades.  Words and pictures stay.

Through my eyes as a quiet third party observer, my sister’s immediate response to the situation has touched my heart dearly.  She packed and went, dropping everything she has when family has to come first.  I feel ashamed that I could not do the same.  My mother’s calmness to the whole situation reminds me how great a mother she is.  And my father, I would not have thought that he is so much affected by the loss of his dog.  Moaning his loss so very profoundly, I was surprised.  If my father loves someone, he never shows.  In fact, he often shows quite the opposite.  In this episode, I see my father in a different light.  I see my family in a different light.

According to my mother, in the morning before Tak Tak passed away, he was unable to get up, or open his eyes.  But he knew my parents were there.  He knew my sister was on the phone.  And he responded in a subtle way.  On the previous day before Tak Tak passed away, he could not walk.  So my parents carried him to see a veterinarian.  Tak Tak had a heart condition.  After an injection, he seemed well.  Well enough to get down to the ground and walk home with my parents.  According to my mother, in that particular day, Tak Tak was in joy to see my father and her walking together, in the outdoor.  He was a happy dog.  And he died with a smile.

Does a dog have a soul?  Wherever you are, thank you for all the loving memories and thank you for being with my family all these years.  You are and will be missed.

Categories
Diary

So We Assembled A New PC

It was November 25, 2005 when I upgraded my home computer to the one that was powered by the 64-bit AMD chip.  Over the years, I have incrementally upgraded its parts until recently, my 6 years old machine has shown signs of aging whenever Cynthia plays WoW and watches YouTube at the same time.   The CPU could no longer cope with the demand.  6 long years this AMD machine has served us well.  A new chapter is at dawn.

I am not a fan of ready made computers.  I enjoy the flexibility of mixing and matching what I need and to replace and upgrade the parts as and when I want to.  What I dread to do though is to relearn what is out there in this ever changing technology space in order to decide how best to assemble a new PC that suits our needs.

The first thing I picked was the video card.  Cynthia is not a hard core gamer.  She plays WoW casually.  And I foresee she may follow our gang to play Diablo III and Guild War II when they are out.  So I picked the XFX Radeon HD6850 XXX Edition.  It is not a high end card.  But it is not low either.  Its price is comparable to the CPU and the motherboard.

Choosing a CPU is pretty straightforward.  Since I do not overclock my machine, I picked Intel i5-2500 with a clock speed of 3.3GHz (socket is LLA1155).  I am hoping that this can last for 5 years and more.  As for the memory, a total of 8GB seems sufficient.  There are not many options when it comes to RAM.  And I have decided to use the DDR3 RAM (1600MHz) made by Kingston.

As for the motherboard, there are tons of options.  After much consideration, since I prefer to upgrade my video card over the years, I do not need the latest Z68 chipset that has the GPU embedded inside.  Hence, I have opted for a P67 chipset.  Between Asus and Gigabyte, I do not have a preference.  The Asus P8P67 rev 3.0 looks good to me, utility-wise.  And it is affordable.  With that, and a couple of miscellaneous items, the decision making phase is completed.  The total damage thus far without a monitor is …

S$1,360

This works out to be lesser than what I have anticipated.  The salesperson at Sim Lim Square told me that it would take an hour and a half to assemble my computer.  I said no problem.  I have a movie to catch.

This morning, I have this suddenly urge to upgrade Cynthia’s 22″ monitor as well.  Her monitor, as Cynthia has rightfully pointed out, is still in working condition.  However, I have also pointed out that with a better screen resolution, she can see more in the game.  So I grabbed a 24″ Samsung LED monitor S24A350H.  Bargained it down to S$310.  Its resolution is 1,920×1,080, which is still a bit lower than my current 24″ LCD (1,920 x 1,200).  I wonder why Samsung does not make these any more.  The salesperson said that demand is not there.  Perhaps PC gaming is indeed dying.

It took me a while to get this new LED monitor working with the new graphic card.  No matter how hard I tried, I was not able to utilize the entire desktop.  There were black margins of unused area, top and bottom and on the sides.  Then I discovered there are something called underscan and overscan.  Whatever they mean (gosh I am really not a geek), changing these parameters seem to have solve my problem.  I have no problem connecting Cynthia’s new machine to our 42″ plasma TV (1080p) via HDMI.  I am unsure why the same setup did not work for the LED monitor.  Whatever the issue was, I am happy to see it disappeared.

Cynthia seems to be happy with her new computer.  As for my computer, it is about 3 years old.  I reckon the chip and the motherboard should last for another 2 to 3 years.  I will think about it when I get there.

Note: This entry is not an official endorsement to the products I have recently purchased.  Instead, it serves as my future reference on the go (like I did for my previous computer setup and has proven to be useful).

 

Categories
Diary

Sea Devils, And Other Not So Random Stuffs

El rape, in Spanish, can mean a type of fish called monkfish.  I have no idea how ugly it is until I looked it up in Wikipedia.  One classmate from our Spanish class commented that monkfish is a type of anglerfish.  Curiosity or boredom, I am not sure.  But someting drove me into reading up on anglerfish.  At first glance, it is a fish that has a fishing pole attached onto its head to fish other fish.  You could say that it is solely evolution that creates weird species like anglerfish.  I look at the ugly sad face with a pole on top of its head, I am not so sure.  It is one genius design.  But that is not the only reason why I am so fascinated with anglerfish.  According to online materials, when scientists first discovered that all the sea devils – a family of deep sea anglerfish – are female, they were intrigued.  How do the sea devils reproduce?  This is where the story gets juicier.

The male sea devils are 10 time smaller then the female counterparts.  Some are born with a stunted digestive system that prevents them from feeding.  So, the male sea devils need to find the females fast, before they die a natural death.  Who would design such a system?  Nobody knows.  Once they have found the opposite sex, the male sea devil would bite onto the female’s skin with its sharp toothless jaw literally fuse itself onto the female sea devil.  This act of, I would say, love would further fuse their blood vessels.  Soon, the male sea devil becomes a parasite.  Pathologically speaking, there is an English term called atrophy.  For those who are not pathologically sound (neither am I), here is how you can envisage atrophy.  The order is important too.  First, after attaching itself to female sea devil, its brain is gone.  Then its heart, followed by its eyes.  There is a certain sense of melancholy in this sequence of graduate degeneration.  What is left are its balls, solely used as a function of reproduction.  With that, the cycle is complete.  Sea devils as a species have lived for 100 millions years and more.  It is quite an accomplishment given such a bizarre design they are bestowed upon.  Who would want to be born as a baby sea devil boy?  I so would not.

Last Sunday was my birthday.  Traditionally, I take leave on my birthday and have a good eight hours of self-reflection, doing something different.  This year, my birthday is like any other weekend, which is quite refreshing for a change.  I don’t really feel like I have gained a year.  I met my niece (and her parents of course) for lunch at East Coast Park.  She is cute as ever and was a bit moody that day.  So was I.  Cynthia and I did not dine out in the evening because I wanted to catch F1 Silverstone live on TV.

Some say F1 is getting boring this year.  Because we know which driver and which team is likely to win the championship.  In my opinion, that is besides the point.  It is what happens between the first lap and the final lap that makes most of the F1 races interesting to watch.  It is what happens between the first race and the final race that defines the season.  F1 can be full of surprises.  Who would have thought that Alonso would win this year’s F1 Silverstone?  And who would have thought that last year, after fighting all the way up from the second half of the season, Alonso was unable to win the championship?  So close he was.  So very close.

After my tiny achievement in reading a complete Spanish story – albeit how short it is – I have new found courage to read a proper novel in Spanish.  The progress has been painfully slow.  And it is not getting any easier.  At this rate, I may be able to finish reading the story in six months.  This book has a sequel too.  So, provided that I am not getting any saner than I am today, I may be able to finish both before my next birthday.  That would be quite an achievement.

Rumor has it that our band, or what is left of it, will be jamming again this coming National Day.  This give me less than a month to toughen my fingertips for my guitar, tighten my vocal, relearn my songs, and to master a new piece of recording equipment that I have bought since – I reckon – the end of last year.  And I still have this photographic travel journal that will take me at least three months to complete.  It looks as though I have just discovered what needs to be done in 2011, albeit more than half a year late.