Realm of the Imponderable

RDOC #73
Ice Cream is a powerful aphrodisiac..

Last nights blackout was weird. It affected half the island and if I didn't get a call from my parents or read the newspapers today I wouldn't have known about it. I was in Bukit Batok when it happened and the rest of the time I was playing crazed taxi driver ferrying my friends home.
It brings to mind the famous blackout in the Eastern US last year in August. I think they should have just had a baby boom this month as a result. (Think about it; you're at home alone with the husband/wife and it's dark and you have nothing to do except light candles and look at each other... not to mention the freezers weren't working so everybody went on ice cream binges. y'know, ice cream is a powerful aphrodisiac to some people..)

RDOC #72

Last Salsa lesson was yesterday. Hmm... I am now eligible for intermediate lessons, so does that make me a competent Salsa Dancer?
Well, let me put it to you this way: If I were to go dancing with a girl at a Salsa bar I'd probably end up making both of us look like fools. Salsa is about imagination, creativity, the ability to sense the mood and adapt and all of this boils down to just two things: You need a passion for it, and you need experience.
Now, the only way to get experience is to go down to a Salsa bar, dance with some girls(or guys, if you're a girl) and make fools of yourselves. Practice makes perfect, as Paps always says, but I really wonder how many guys in his class actually go home and practice with a broomstick as he suggested? As a matter of fact, I wonder whether he himself did that? hhee. I'd like to have taken a picture of that

The thing about passion... it's not something you just get. It kind of grows on you. Like a weed or something. Once it takes root it sticks. How many passions do I have? err.. lets not go into that.. Let's just say that Salsa is still a little seed in the ground that's half taken root, shall we?

RDOC #71

Was at a Salsa Beach Party last night with Hui and some others from Salsa class. Coincidentally my old friend Meera happened to be there too. I put it down to sheer coincidence because nothing else could possible describe the circumstances that led to her appearing there.
It began like... oh nevermind... it's a really long story. Suffice to say that she has been out of Singapore for more than a decade and she just got her Phd (I think it was molecular biology, or st least something related to that) and was back for her sisters wedding ceremony. Think the last time I saw her was about 3 or 4 years ago..

Anyway, the beach party was good; there was a live band, good music and the only thing I can complain about is the lack of good drinks there. Pity I don't have the knack for leading people, but silly me has the agility but not the experience or imagination to be a good leader. Oh well... those are things that can be fixed, I suppose. Practice, practice etc...
(sounds like juggling, doesn't it?)

I learned how to juggle clubs last friday!!!
har har... next up: Cigar boxes, yoyos and Diabolos. After that I'll be able to put up a one man circus and become a billionaire. har har harrrrr...
(Oh who am I fooling??)

UDOC

Went out for dinner with some of my cousins a few days ago. One of them's from Canada and she's here for her ritual annual trip to see her grandparents. Perhaps we should get together more often; we've got alot in common, the 5 of us. (blood is thicker than water, supposedly.. I've lost a few friends over the years but not any of my cousins)
I seem to be seeing them like, once a year on average.

One of these days I should trip down to Vancouver and visit her and go skiing at Whistler while I'm at it.
Should that day come I shall bid you all farewell because the next day I may have a broken neck from an excessively garang attempt to ski down the cliff-like double black diamond slopes.

oh well..

RDOC #70

Feeling sad...

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I guess I should comfort myself knowing that the people I love are happy...

I seem to have this song by Guns N' Roses stuck in my head now..
"Think about you"...
I've been a big fan of that band for, hmmm, 15 years now...

RDOC #69

Was at World Juggling Day last saturday, which was held at downtown east. It was a small event that occupied only a stage in the middle of the square and a bit behind it but the acts were pretty impressive. I have to admit that people here in Singapore are pretty good even at weird things like this if they set their minds to it. The winner for the freestyle competition used a Diabolo and his skill was about on par with what you see in any professional circus. And he did it with a fair bit of stle too.

I finally met somebody who does Devilsticks. At last! I thought people like that were an endangered species. Learned a fair bit from him, and now have a little bit more inspiration to carry on with this (supposedly) rarely seen art.

I also met up with some of my NS buddies who just finished their ICT (Har har...they were stuck in camp while I was out roaming the streets)
Seems that the same ol' Heong Kah methods and tactics we used are still very much applicable in reservist. And I'm sure that as time passes we'll have even more of them..

RDOC #68

Yet another week passes by...
Spent most of it in the lab at NUS trying to figure out the intricacies of the project that I'm working on, and getting frustrated by all manner of mechanical and software bugs, glitches and failures.
Oh well... I have managed to get a good control system set up for the motor I'm working on, and I suppose that's a good start.
opps.. I didn't mention what it was exactly that I was working on in the first place..

The aim of the project is to formulate a mathematical friction model that contains 3 variables: Frictional force, velocity and displacement. Traditionally the last variable is omitted. To test this there's a setup involving a DC motor, some circuits and some sponges. Oh, and of course, a computer to control everything.

Anyway, given the current unreliability of some electronical equipment there was a breakdown in one of the chips used (and it's going to cost the lab a good (I think) $10 to replace on miserable little 2x0.5x0.25 cm black box) but thankfully the whole circuit didn't need rewiring, otherwise I'd really be screwed.

In other news, my Flashing skills have improved significantly over this week. I can now mask and unmask layers as well as change backgrounds with great efficiency.

(I'm talking about Macromedia Flash... not whatever else was going on in your head right now..)

RDOC #67

Was in KL last weekend for a little "spiritual exposure" with Joanna's church. Turned out that the spirit was more willing to go gallevanting down town than to sit listening to sermons at the hotel...
I found that pastors tend to go out of point when they get carried away with their preaching, and it is the good ones that go off on a tangent (which seems to be something that they have to do) but still manage to give you something to chew on while you're sipping coffee during the break sessions. (Coffee, by the way, is essential unless you want to look like your head's doing a balancing pole act on your neck halfway through the sermon)

Spent a lot of time doing the thing they do on The Amazing Race in KL, hopping from place to place and worrying both about money and time spent on travel. KL's shopping centres are huge but lack variety. I say that once you've seen one you've seen them all.
The only thing I got back was a few boxes of Tao Sar Piah which is fiendishly difficult to find in Singapore.

Spent a good part of Saturday night hunting the mystical Ramly Burger, which reputedly has the power to make good health conscious people throw all their ideals out the window and indulge in a roadside meal sitting on the sidewalk, complete with passing traffic and a good dose of vehicle emissions on the side. Seems that these fabled powers weren't all fantasy and legend...

I can also finally say that I've experienced the infamous KL nightlife (or rather, the early stages of it, which usually occurs around 2am in the morning). Not too much different from Singapore, except you have nightclubs that are far more crowded and less people speak english. There's a little more screwballs frequenting the place there; there was a guy jumping on the stage carrying a girl on his shoulder (a girl that I don't think he even know till that night) and I got approached by a guy who was either drunk or gay (and I'm not sure I REALLY want to know) just as I was leaving.

And, of course, there was the mandatory late night Bridge sessions (Except for the night when we got back at 3++ and KO'd almost immediately) and the subsequent headache in the morning trying to get up in time for breakfast.

RDOC #66

I think I did just about the most impulsive things I have done in about a year or so.
I was happily walking home from NUS on Tuesday when Lilin messaged me and asked "hey, you want to go to the Linkin' Park concert on 22 june? It's $150."
And me, not thinking particularly straight, said yes and the next thing I know, she got the tickets already.
I attribute it to the boredon I went through that day, sitting in the lab with only a book on Robotics to keep me company. It's good material but highly concentrated stuff, something you take your time to read and digest slowly, not eat up in 2-3 days. So anyway I was sick of reading that book and walking around the lab so I decided to walk around the campus when Lilin called.

Oh yes, I forgot to mention she's back. Less than 2 days after she's back she's already starting her internship in TTSH. She's a masochist, I tell you.
And obviously she's now a BIG fan of Linkin' Park.

Well, Jo, now I know how you felt after you blew a hundred over bucks on VS and you discovered you couldn't change the order the next morning cos' they keyed it in their computers already.

I've been 3 days in NUS and things are finally getting a little more interesting now that the graduate student working on the project that I'm interested in has returned. Things are finally starting to make sense now.
Soon I'll be turning out automatons that can work as our personal slaves.

MuaHaHaHaHa....