Heading Home

I'm in Singapore still, waiting at the Changi Airport gate. Heading home soon! Blogging will resume shortly. Thank you for your patience.

Going to Singapore

Taking the rest of the week off, and fleeing to the safety of a badly-needed vacation in Singapore. This work week -- though only two fully-packed days of customer meetings, interviews for an open position, taking care of customers visiting from out of town, and regular emails and requests -- has me burnt already. So I'm escaping. See ya.

To The Power of 3

I've loved aquariums ever since I was a wee boy, but I never had one of my own. Then I bought a small 6-gallon set before (the Eclipse System Six) for my girlfriend, many many years ago, and we set it up with live plants and everything.

Somehow, everytime I moved, I've considered getting one but always found some excuse (mainly the maintenance needed) to thwart the pride of fish ownership. But recently, I came upon this design, and oh man, I really want one now! (Of course, I'll never do that, because I need more room than that, and I don't want a betta fish.)

The Price Is Wrong

They say you can't put a price on safety, but apparently, in Taiwan you can. From my casual observations, it's:

- $199NT ($6USD). That will buy you one of those RT MART (like WALMART) scooter helmets that provides excellent crash protection if you happen to hit something directly on the top of your head, and nowhere else. Side bonus: comes in a variety of trendy colours and styles with no regard to its structural integrity.

- the cost of a small bamboo chair for placing your child in the footwell part of your scooter. In the event of an accident, you will not be reimbursed for the major dental work needed on your kid from steering column impact.

- free. You can ride 4-up (2 parents, 2 kids) or just 3-up (2 parents, one baby held in the mother's arms) on the scooter at no additional cost. Even riding in front of police officers doesn't get any reaction from them.

Not New, but Maybe New to You (II)

I didn't get all of them last time, so here's some more:

I keep taking the safe road in life.

I've used the same passwords (or derivatives of them) for over a decade now. And they're probably easier to guess than they should be.

I always smile when I see hints of my mother's character coming from my aunts; the resemblance and mannerisms is uncanny.

I can watch episodes of Friends until the end of eternity.

It drives me nuts when people put extra spaces at the end of a line of a Word document. (I always have "show all symbols" turned on when I'm editing.)

Now, when I smell matches in the bathroom, I automatically smell the poo.

My all-time favourite channel is the Food Network. And they don't have that in Taiwan.

Now you.

Not New, but New to Microsoft

This is just too funny. Well, at least, it's funny to Mac fans like me.

It's basically a Microsoft demo of Windows Vista that someone ripped the audio from, and paired with a video of those same features in Mac OS X! Us Mac users have had these "new features" for, what, over half a year now??

Weekends

I'm tired. Exhausted.

I'm more tired from my weekends than from my workdays. But I'm way more frustrated from my workdays than my weekends. So I think I'm still happier on the weekends.

But that doesn't change the fact that I'm still tired right now.