rainy day

it's a wet wet day today - been pouring heavily since i woke up this morning. best time to laze in bed all day, do nothing much and just roll around in the cool bedsheets, enjoy the crisp air-conditioned-like atmosphere.

the rain tamed a little around noon just now, and now it suddenly started pouring cats & dogs again. makes you wonder where all this rain come from? so much H2O. yesterday it was equally wet since afternoon, made it so difficult and crumblesome to travel around from place to place (and i was wearing my new pair of canvas shoes! eeks!)

good thing i'm working from home today :D
gives my brolly some time to dry.....

girls vs technology?

received this in a friend's forwarded email.... as much as i don't appreciate being compared to some kind of technology phenomena, found this interesting enough (though not necessarily true) to share it here.

disclaimer: i'm not saying i agree to any of the following, just meant for laughs anyway - the last one is so mean but funny ;p


hard disk girl: she remembers everything, forever.
ram girl: she forgets about you, the moment you turn her off.
window girl: everyone knows that she can't do a thing right, but no one can live without her.
screensaver girl: she is good for nothing but at least she is fun.
internet girl: difficult to access.
server girl: always busy when you need her.
multimedia girl: she makes horrible things look beautiful.
cd-rom girl: she is always faster and faster.
email girl: every ten things she says, eight are nonsense.
virus girl: also known as "wife" - when you are not expecting her, she comes, installs herself and uses all your resources. if you try to uninstall her, you will lose something; if you don't try to uninstall her, you will lose everything....

too cute to resist :)

mid-autumn festival falls on the 15th day of the 8th month in the lunar calendar. this is a time when people go shopping for yummy mooncakes to present to friends and relatives, and kids get all excited playing with candles & paper/ toy lanterns. hotels and bakeries would come up with all sorts of mooncake flavours, designs, packaging etc. to attract consumers.

this year, there is a leap 7th month in the lunar calendar, so mid-autumn festival (otherwise known as "mooncake festival") comes slightly later - 6 october 2006. so there's still plenty of time to shop around for mooncakes.

i wasn't even shopping for mooncakes but came across these too-cute-to-resist mini cartoon ones in a regular bakery (Q-bread) at people's park this afternoon. seeing these mooncakes instantly made me feel like a happy kid - they're so cute, i just couldn't stop smiling :D of course i had to bring some home! there are 9 different designs displayed on the shelves (crab, koala, pooh bear, hello kitty, doraemon, piggie, fish etc.), i was so tempted to grab them all! hehehe... but limited myself to 4 for the time being. i'll be back for more when mid-autumn festival draws nearer. quite sure the prices will hike by then... but oh well.

these are just S$0.60 each or S$2.00 for 4... go grab some too. they're filled with semi-sweet lotus paste fillings, yummy and sooooo cute!!!

more than a canvas

while searching for the motion clip of ahree lee (as seen in my earlier post), i stumbled upon this other simple yet intricately done piece of art. equally inspiring.

words just don't do this justice, you'll have to watch it yourself to appreciate the efforts put into it. watch canvas - by divyesh k. lad.

3 years...

this was featured on the 10pm channel 8 news tonight. it all started with a very very simple idea but with some creativity and conviction, this truly amazing piece of work was born. this lady took daily pictures of herself for 3 whole years and made a collage video clip out of them. every single shot showed such consistency and the same expression for 3 years - wow! i applaud her for her patience having kept up with this for that long. i read that she's still taking pictures of herself everyday without fail. no doubt an award-winning piece.

ahree lee's ME - 3 years captured in 2 mins 15 secs.
watch it here now.

learned vs learnt?

sometimes as i'm drafting a post on my blog, i'd get stuck deliberating between the use of certain word(s). in the past, i thought the difficulty in deciding which was the correct word to use was due to my not-so-fantastic standard of english.

earlier on, i had trouble again deciding whether it should be "i have learnt today" vs "i have learned today" vs "i learned today". i finally went with the first option (by gut feel) but to get things clear, i searched google for an answer after that.

this article provides an enlightening explanation to the problems that i've been facing - attributing the cause to the differences between british english vs american english. so i'm not the only one challenged with these word-uncertainties afterall. you see, typical singaporeans are taught british english in schools but are highly exposed to the american media - movies, tv programmes, music and all. plus considering the use of our infamous "singlish" in day-to-day life, it's no wonder we get all mixed up in our grammar and vocabulary. can't really blame us, can you?

lifted from the article, a funny example on the different use of vocabulary in american vs british english: "Rubber: (American English - condom, British English - tool used to erase pencil markings)"

can you imagine the look on your office manager's face when you walk in to borrow a "rubber" from him? *lol* ;p

life cycle

i have no idea who's the original creator of this simple but incredible animated file. my dad received this in his friend's forwarded email.

very interesting, decided to share it here - enjoy :)
"人的一生" - life cycle.


ps: thanks to pointers from this lady's blog, i've learnt to insert animated gif files on my blog today *clap clap* :)

type like a secret agent....

stumbled upon thinkgeek.com and saw something interesting, check it out - a bluetooth-enabled laser virtual keyboard, ooh la la! this is not a new product (read somewhere that it's launched in early 2005) but since i only found out about it now, no harm featuring it on my blog, even if it's "passe".

this virtual keyboard looks real cool, reminds me of that laser scene in "entrapment" or "mission impossible" :) imagine whipping this tiny gadget out, setting it up at mcdonald's or delifrance, and then intently tapping away on the table's surface under red laser lights... so surreal! besides attracting tons of curious stares and questions, i think it'd make me feel like a secret agent too - 007 or one of the charlize's angels working on some confidential information. hehehe...

back to reality, i don't suppose this product would make it real far. granted it's interesting, cool and "geeky" but i think one would probably end up with bruised fingers with all that prolonged typing on a hard surface - ouch. also, i can't seem to figure out how the red laser lights would work if your hands are blocking the projection stream when typing? hmm...

to find out for yourself, how this thing works - click here.

links:
- i-tech
- thinkgeek

hershey's kissables

hershey's kissables - saw these at NTUC fairprice check out counter the other day, grabbed a packet out of curiosity (typical marketers will like me cuz i'm a "keen-to-try-new-stuff" consumer) :)

verdict: in terms of colours, shape & cute factor - i give it 100% (just look at how cheerfully pretty they appear in the picture!) as for it's taste... i'd say it's just so-so. i find the candy coating too thin, so these candies lack the "crunchiness" when you bite into them + somehow they're also too sweet for my liking. i'd still go for m&m's anytime :9 (milk chocolate, peanuts, peanutbutter, almonds or crispy - yummy!)

bruised

i had a fall 2 days ago at home. was on my way to the washroom, didn't realise that water had leaked from the washing machine in the kitchen (the pipe has been faulty for some time already).... it all happened so fast, before i could think - whoosh! i slipped and fell hard on my bum - OUCH! no time for me to grab hold of anything for support. fortunately the mugs and glasses just inches away didn't come tumbling down all together, otherwise i'd be in a bigger mess ;p

anyway, it was so painful i had to sit still on the floor for a couple of seconds before i could brace myself up. didn't help that mum just stood by nagging at me for not being careful *duh* (like it's always my fault... if she had slipped, it would have been my fault for not cleaning up the leak in time; but now that i was the one who fell, she blamed it on my carelessness - oh well, i know she meant well afterall)

i've been aching all over since the fall. even though i'd landed on my bum (and yes, there's a nice blueish bruise on my left thigh now) but my lower back, shoulders and neck have been aching all of yesterday and today. not the sharp killing pains, just the kind of achy feeling you get when you overstretch a muscle or something. guess it's from the impact of the fall... *sigh* age is catching up, i really should avoid home-accidents like this :p

dots dots please grow....

yay! my ClustrMap is finally showing up!! *clap clap clap* i inserted a new clustrmap on my blog yesterday and today it finally started showing up with tiny little red dots indicating where all my visitors are coming from :)

ok, looking at the miserably small dots on the map right now, maybe it's nothing to shout aloud for afterall :P but i'm just excited to try something new... you know, this teeny weeny sense of achievement when you see something - an image, a new column, a new link or some coloured text appearing on your blog just by inserting some html tags here and there (ok, i must admit i know nuts about web-stuff... most of the time i just cut-&-paste default templates, but that's not too bad already, right?)

i don't exactly go around inviting people to visit my blog, in fact it's quite a personal space that only a few of my friends are aware of. i guess different people create different blogs for different reasons - some are to showcase their talents, some to sell things, some to interact with the world, to be different, to share ideas, to create awareness, to generate income, to market something, to be heard, to become famous etc etc. for me, i started blogging because i wanted to experience this new way of life, to keep up somehow with technology and the new-age media, to create something of my own, and of course also, because S. has a blog (a few blogs actually) and i wanted to be able to share a common interest/ activity in that sense. then eventually, it grew on me and just became something fun to do - like nurturing a plant, you invest time & effort on it everyday, and it'll just keep growing & flourishing :)

anyway, back to the topic of my clustrmap... i should have inserted that the very first day i started this blog, then i wouldn't have missed out all the "footsteps" from the past 7 months. oh well, it's never too late i guess. so dear friends & new visitors, please do drop by whenever you're free, check out a post or two, leave some comments, spread the word... and help those red dots grow bigger & bigger :D

mobiblu

i have a secret crush - on this mobiblu MP3 cube player (DAH 1500/ 1500i) since perhaps 1 year ago :) while everyone's crazy over ipods, minis, shuffles & nanos.... mobiblu seems such an unheard-of brand in comparison. i can't even remember how i stumbled upon this cute little cube's picture many many many months ago.... but it sure was love at first sight. this tiny 2.4cm dice-like cube somehow just appeals to me *smile*.

i have never owned any MP3 players. since my workplace was within walking distance from home, i never really saw the urge to get one while commuting, even though the ipod fab was huge. lately, i revisited my "secret crush" and found that the mobiblu MP3 cube2 now comes in more colours, features and functionalities (though i can't imagine who would want to watch a motion video on a 2.4cm-wide screen??!!). nonetheless, the cube's cute factor still wins me over hands-down.

i also just found out that mobiblu is a korean brand - that explains the cutesy-prettiness in it's packaging :) if i ever were to buy my first MP3 player, i guess it could very possibly be this <3

oh... while you are at the mobiblu website, don't forget to check out this very innovative cassette-type MP3 player (looks like a cassette tape, works like a cassette tape, and doubles-up as your MP3 player! incredible!) :)

more images can be found on mobiblu's korean website.

discover your ego

can't decide between a laptop or an apple macbook? how about a tulip ego?

a friend sent me a link to this dutch-brand tulip ego website. pretty interesting notebook designs up there. the machine itself comes with an integrated carrying-handle so you can skip the laptop bag and just show it off in your hands as you travel - looks like one of those classy cosmetic cases :) you can even clip on extended straps by the side to sling it across your shoulders. the egos run on AMD chips, i don't really know enough to comment on it's functionality - do check out the specs. yourself... but with it's clean, sleek design (i like the idea of "sliding doors that hide connectors" at the side) and interchangeable skins & diamond studded-covers, it sure seems to be on the right track in wooing the women-crowd.

ok, i just found out how much one of these machines costs. weighing 2.6kg, each tulip ego retails at a jaw-dropping price of Euro 3,975 (ie. US$5,103.50)!! *gulp* looks like egos don't come cheap afterall (pun intended) :P

my D-I-Y belts :)

i was never really a belt-person. i figured if i don't have a 24" waist, then i better not be drawing too much attention there :P but recently, i've been getting frustrated with jeans that kept getting looser around the lower waist/ hips area (after prolonged washes)... just don't look too flattering with all those loose bits jutting out.

so i've been thinking of getting some nice and versatile belts to help with the problem. then i got inspired by the girls on cozycot who started getting all creative making their own belts. it's so easy, you don't even have to actually "make" anything. there are 2 shops at people's park complex level 2 (chinatown area) that sells all these pretty buckles made of plastic/ wood/ steel. you select whichever buckle you like, then coordinate them with matching woven/ lace/ stretch canvas belts.... and tada! there you go... your very own D-I-Y belt, no sewing or stitching needed. simple, yet lots of fun. best of all, each complete belt only costs S$7 - 12 on average. (i know some girls are selling them for twice that price on yahoo auctions :P)

check out my creation! :D i love the butterflies <3
plus the black and red belts are reversible... so you can switch sides for different colours. pretty, aren't they? now, no more drooping jeans :)