I had to work this past weekend, so no book-reading day for me. It's also hard to relax when every time I so much as glanced at the news, I would get angry with the Myanmar government all over again ---
(This is what happens when you prop up crazy military regimes, you know? You can keep saying that economic development will pave the way for political liberalisation and development, but now more people are dead than the mind can comprehend and the country's self-appointed leaders have shown once and for all that they really don't give a damn about the dead, dying or the living --- in short, about anything other than themselves. How do you like them apples?)
--- and getting angry at the Myanmar government makes it difficult to blog about anything else. As a friend just said on her Facebook status, it's amazing, "the difference in coverage between the [Myanmar] hurricane and the [China] earthquake."
(This is what happens when you prop up crazy military regimes, you know? You can keep saying that economic development will pave the way for political liberalisation and development, but now more people are dead than the mind can comprehend and the country's self-appointed leaders have shown once and for all that they really don't give a damn about the dead, dying or the living --- in short, about anything other than themselves. How do you like them apples?)
--- and getting angry at the Myanmar government makes it difficult to blog about anything else. As a friend just said on her Facebook status, it's amazing, "the difference in coverage between the [Myanmar] hurricane and the [China] earthquake."
Is it any surprise that the most popular BBC News story right now is, "Great tits cope well with warming"?
Oh, human beings --- so predictable. If an alien race wanted to come down and trap us all so it could take over the planet, it would just have to label its trap with the words "great tits" and its work would be done.
I clicked on it too. But that was in the email of daily BBC news, which had it listed as the top story under Science/Nature rather than Health, so I figured it was about some odd creature rather than, well, you know.
Oh, human beings --- so predictable. If an alien race wanted to come down and trap us all so it could take over the planet, it would just have to label its trap with the words "great tits" and its work would be done.
I clicked on it too. But that was in the email of daily BBC news, which had it listed as the top story under Science/Nature rather than Health, so I figured it was about some odd creature rather than, well, you know.
Reason to buy the same brand of cell phone year after year: so that when one of the cats (Sisu, I'm looking at you) chews through the cord of my phone charger, I'm not too panicked because I've got plenty of spares.
This does make me nervous about all the other wires I have lying around though ...
This does make me nervous about all the other wires I have lying around though ...
Yesterday, I woke up at 11ish, met a friend for lunch at 1ish, came home after and surfed the web desultorily for an hour or so, then passed out for an hour and a half --- before waking up for a carbo-laden birthday dinner that nearly sent me right back to bed again. Thank goodness that the friend whose birthday it was kindly invited us all back to his place for (Irish) coffee afterwards, so sleep was postponed for several hours.
To forestall a repeat of that sort of embarrassing sleep schedule today, and since I was sick of the internet and my laptop, today I betook myself off to a cafe to read for the afternoon.
First stop: the Cedele outlet at Frankel Avenue for decent coffee and lunch to go with the reading. There was chocolate cake too, which is no Lana, but still very good indeed.
Then there was Starbucks at Parkway Parade, because the friend who'd joined me for lunch likes working there, and he needed to be working today. Which gave me plenty of time to finish Anansi Boys, and buy breakfast for tomorrow, and window-shop a little, and just daydream the rest of the time away.
I have read only 6 books this year and one-third of the year is already over. Maybe every Sunday should be book-reading day.
To forestall a repeat of that sort of embarrassing sleep schedule today, and since I was sick of the internet and my laptop, today I betook myself off to a cafe to read for the afternoon.
First stop: the Cedele outlet at Frankel Avenue for decent coffee and lunch to go with the reading. There was chocolate cake too, which is no Lana, but still very good indeed.
Then there was Starbucks at Parkway Parade, because the friend who'd joined me for lunch likes working there, and he needed to be working today. Which gave me plenty of time to finish Anansi Boys, and buy breakfast for tomorrow, and window-shop a little, and just daydream the rest of the time away.
I have read only 6 books this year and one-third of the year is already over. Maybe every Sunday should be book-reading day.
tym says:
Yeah, she's not the voice of the MRT anymore. The current voice (which kicked in some time around the start of this year) sounds Chinese and younger.
I miss the old voice ...
I know I spend a lot of time slagging off on the local mainstream media, but let's give it a little props where it's due: Lianhe Zaobao gets mentioned today on the BBC as having exposed the story of Taiwan losing US$30 million of public funds meant for diplomatic negotiations with Papua New Guinea.
It's nice to have the country's press mentioned in a somewhat do-gooder fashion for a change and without an interjection like "government-friendly". Maybe it helps that Singapore and Taiwan don't have official diplomatic ties (even though the army boys still go there for training).
It's nice to have the country's press mentioned in a somewhat do-gooder fashion for a change and without an interjection like "government-friendly". Maybe it helps that Singapore and Taiwan don't have official diplomatic ties (even though the army boys still go there for training).
I had an inexplicable craving for delivery pizza tonight, so for the first time in over a year, I called Sarpino's and put in an order (with a friend standing by to help with the eating). The best part was that between us, we polished off the two 10" pizzas and side order of chicken wings, so there were no leftovers for the fridge, hurrah!
I would've cooked dinner but I've run into plumbing problems again: one of the pipes running from the kitchen sink has sprung a leak. A friend is gonna help seal it up this weekend, but meanwhile I'm avoiding any kitchen activities that would entail washing the dishes with soap. The hardest part is, predictably, not being able to make coffee in the morning.
I would've cooked dinner but I've run into plumbing problems again: one of the pipes running from the kitchen sink has sprung a leak. A friend is gonna help seal it up this weekend, but meanwhile I'm avoiding any kitchen activities that would entail washing the dishes with soap. The hardest part is, predictably, not being able to make coffee in the morning.
Because I am a freelancer who is --- for all intents and purposes --- surgically attached to her internet connection, Cowboy Caleb calls me on occasion for last-minute restaurant advice and I spend about five minutes helping him pick a place where he can fête a client or boss on his company's tab. The other typical condition is that it has to be a place that he knows how to get to in Singapore, which can be harder than it sounds.
Today he calls at about noon from Hong Kong and needs a place for dinner tonight. He can't expense the meal, but still needs it to be nice enough. Oh, and no Asian food.
We settle on Valentino's, because we've been there before and it's pretty damn good food. He asks me to get a reservation (yes, I am officially his entertainment secretary, didn't you know?) and SMS him when the table's booked. I call. Valentino's, it turns out, is fully booked for the night.
A little SMSing, another phone call. "How about Marmalade Pantry at Palais Renaissance?," I suggest, "because the air-conditioning at the Holland Village one isn't working [as I found out to my dismay on Monday night]."
"Where's Palais Renaissance?"
"Next to Orchard Towers, between Orchard Towers and the Thai embassy."
For reasons that cannot be reported here, Cowboy Caleb declines to go anywhere near Orchard Towers. We settle on Ember at Hotel 1929, another reliable choice that he knows how to get to.
I call and: "We regret to inform you that we will be closed for renovations from 30 April to ..." Cheebye. I hang up without bothering with the rest of the automated message.
"Strike two," I SMS Cowboy.
He calls back. By this point, I'm trawling through The Travelling Hungryboy for ideas. We confer. "Okay, Wild Rocket," he decides.
I call and I cannot believe my ears: "I'm sorry, but we're closed tonight for a private function."
Clearly, the moral of the story at this point is that it is not possible to get a dinner reservation at a decent place on the eve of a public holiday (it's May Day tomorrow), unless you planned your evening a week before and had time to work your way through an entire restaurant directory.
Cowboy cannot believe it; neither can I. James comes to the rescue on MSN: "Cork", he says, "63279169." Does Cowboy know where Capital Towers is? Why yes, he does. After which he SMSes: "I boarding the plane. You decide."
Meanwhile, I'm calling --- and miracle of miracles, they are open, they have tables available and they are pleased as punch to take Cowboy's reservation. I manage to sneak in a last confirmation SMS to Cowboy and the URL for Chubby Hubby's review of the place before he switches off his phone on the plane.
As far as I know, dinner went all right.
It seems Secretaries' Day has just passed us by, so Cowboy owes me a huge bonus next year. He should buy me dinner at a nice place.
Today he calls at about noon from Hong Kong and needs a place for dinner tonight. He can't expense the meal, but still needs it to be nice enough. Oh, and no Asian food.
We settle on Valentino's, because we've been there before and it's pretty damn good food. He asks me to get a reservation (yes, I am officially his entertainment secretary, didn't you know?) and SMS him when the table's booked. I call. Valentino's, it turns out, is fully booked for the night.
A little SMSing, another phone call. "How about Marmalade Pantry at Palais Renaissance?," I suggest, "because the air-conditioning at the Holland Village one isn't working [as I found out to my dismay on Monday night]."
"Where's Palais Renaissance?"
"Next to Orchard Towers, between Orchard Towers and the Thai embassy."
For reasons that cannot be reported here, Cowboy Caleb declines to go anywhere near Orchard Towers. We settle on Ember at Hotel 1929, another reliable choice that he knows how to get to.
I call and: "We regret to inform you that we will be closed for renovations from 30 April to ..." Cheebye. I hang up without bothering with the rest of the automated message.
"Strike two," I SMS Cowboy.
He calls back. By this point, I'm trawling through The Travelling Hungryboy for ideas. We confer. "Okay, Wild Rocket," he decides.
I call and I cannot believe my ears: "I'm sorry, but we're closed tonight for a private function."
Clearly, the moral of the story at this point is that it is not possible to get a dinner reservation at a decent place on the eve of a public holiday (it's May Day tomorrow), unless you planned your evening a week before and had time to work your way through an entire restaurant directory.
Cowboy cannot believe it; neither can I. James comes to the rescue on MSN: "Cork", he says, "63279169." Does Cowboy know where Capital Towers is? Why yes, he does. After which he SMSes: "I boarding the plane. You decide."
Meanwhile, I'm calling --- and miracle of miracles, they are open, they have tables available and they are pleased as punch to take Cowboy's reservation. I manage to sneak in a last confirmation SMS to Cowboy and the URL for Chubby Hubby's review of the place before he switches off his phone on the plane.
As far as I know, dinner went all right.
It seems Secretaries' Day has just passed us by, so Cowboy owes me a huge bonus next year. He should buy me dinner at a nice place.
Taken by ampulets2
You know the weather is too hot when:
- Ink has taken to sleeping in the bathroom sink throughout the day.
- Running two standing fans in the living area doesn't do much good except to channel the warmth around the room more quickly.
- The tiniest rumble of thunder sends me into rapturous joy (it didn't rain in the end, but it was a little cooler around noon).
Photos
tym says:
Yes! I just had my second breakfast (aka a late lunch) of apple cinammon pancakes and bacon at Cedele, consumed at about 3 pm. It looks as good as it did in <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/toomanythoughts/238303344/">this pic</a> from 1.5 years ago.
It used to be that I didn't eat breakfast at all, and it was a point of pride for me to declare as much. My mother was a little surprised by this, seeing as she'd faithfully fed me breakfast through most of my growing years, but I'd fallen out of the breakfast habit when I went away to university and didn't quite pick it back up when I moved back to Singapore.
Until now.
I blame it on all the good food easily available around me. Within a 5-10 minute walk from home are an excellent German bakery, a Cedele outlet and, if all that fails, two grocery stores. Within a 10-minute bus ride are a lovely Malay eatery with tip-top epok-epok and shops with various Peranakan kueh options. A 10-minute car ride away is Scruffy Murphy's at East Coast Park, home to the oily English breakfast (the photo above was taken last year; when G-man and I ate there yesterday, the grilled tomato and mash had been replaced by baked beans).
So eating breakfast has become quite a delightful way to start out the day, despite the fact that it's usually eaten while I'm doing work, and now I often find myself wondering, "Hm ... what else can I eat for breakfast tomorrow?"
Clearly, I need to start cooking my own breakfasts, especially on the weekends. I haven't made French toast in months, and after having a passable croque madame for lunch today (disguised on The Caffebar's menu as "ham and cheese sandwich with egg"), I'd like to try making that too. I also need to replicate the scrambled eggs with smoked salmon that James had earlier this week.
Breakfast today consisted of two epok-epok and two slightly overripe bananas. Breakfast tomorrow will be an orange cranberry muffin from Cedele. After that --- who knows?
Last night: Four jugs of Heineken. Three glasses. Conversations about cats and films (but not cats in films).
Today: One small hangover. Dammit.
I wouldn't even be up now, except that G-man hauled me out of bed for brunch. I ate more than I expected (thank you, Scruffy Murphy's), but I think I need some Panadol and to stay out of the sun for the rest of the afternoon.
Today: One small hangover. Dammit.
I wouldn't even be up now, except that G-man hauled me out of bed for brunch. I ate more than I expected (thank you, Scruffy Murphy's), but I think I need some Panadol and to stay out of the sun for the rest of the afternoon.
As I reported jubilantly to a few cat-loving friends last week, Ink and Sisu seem to be finally settling down. There's been much less scuffling and many more instances when I stumble upon them grooming each other. Of course, what usually happens is that mid-grooming, Ink will decide he'd rather nibble upon Sisu's neck instead, or Sisu will be more persistent at licking Ink's ear than he'd like --- and then they're off in a tumble again.
The important thing is that they haven't knocked anything over.
However, today I learned at the vet that Sisu shouldn't be eating Ink's prescription food (Royal Canin's anti-urinary tract infection diet, with the extremely appetising name of Urinary S/O). I thought it was harmless and she really loves it anywa
y, but no, the vet says it could affect her urine pH balance. My brain does not intuitively comprehend why that's bad but, er, it is.At the same time, Ink absolutely cannot have regular cat food anymore. So the bottom line is that I have to get Ink and Sisu their own food, and make sure they don't eat out of each other's bowls when I'm not watching.
Which means that if I'm not home, Ink and Sisu don't get fed, unless I put them in separate rooms with their separate food --- but then that entails having a second kitty litter set-up in the separate room too. And in the small flat where I live, the only possible separate room is my bedroom. I really don't want a kitty litter set-up in there, even temporarily.
Okay, that's way too much thinking and agonizing. For today, I've stocked up on their separate types of food (Sisu gets Avoderm, for those of you who care) and fed them only under strict supervision. We'll see how things go over the next few days.
hucks says:
i need to do some research on some of the questions, but i call dibs on the following:3) the same difference between one kilogram and the weight of one litre of water: the ounce is a measure of weight, while the fluid ounce is a measure of volume.5) three feet make one yard; so that’s almost one metre. who uses it? err, people who use yardsticks as a measure of performance? heheheh
I haven't had a call or SMS on my phone since 4:15 pm, which in itself isn't unusual. What's unusual is that I didn't notice the dearth of contact until right now, as I'm packing up to hit the sack.
I've barely chatted online with anyone all night too. Maybe I'm not as much of a communications junkie as I thought I was.
I've barely chatted online with anyone all night too. Maybe I'm not as much of a communications junkie as I thought I was.
So the friend slash co-author for one of my projects recently lent me his copy of Shakespeare: A Biography, which is the first Peter Ackroyd I've read and very, very good. So good, that while I'm reading it, I've been rendered incapable of writing the book I'm supposed to be working on.
Which turns out to be the same curse that afflicted my friend slash co-author while he was reading the book a couple of months ago.
Which made me think last week that I'd better finish reading the book stat, or I'm not going to finish writing the other one that's due, er, stat.
The effect is not quite the same as your garden variety writer's block. When we're thusly afflicted, we have our research, we have our chapter outlines, we know what we're going to say --- we just can't make the words happen.
So it was with grim determination that I finished reading Shakespeare: A Biography today. Now those writing juices better start flowing again ...
Or maybe I should henceforth refer to this as "the Ackroyd book" instead of by its title.
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Technorati Tags: writing, Peter Ackroyd, Shakespeare, Shakespeare: A Biography
Which turns out to be the same curse that afflicted my friend slash co-author while he was reading the book a couple of months ago.
Which made me think last week that I'd better finish reading the book stat, or I'm not going to finish writing the other one that's due, er, stat.
The effect is not quite the same as your garden variety writer's block. When we're thusly afflicted, we have our research, we have our chapter outlines, we know what we're going to say --- we just can't make the words happen.
So it was with grim determination that I finished reading Shakespeare: A Biography today. Now those writing juices better start flowing again ...
Or maybe I should henceforth refer to this as "the Ackroyd book" instead of by its title.
Technorati Tags: writing, Peter Ackroyd, Shakespeare, Shakespeare: A Biography
Cool Insider says:
eastcoastlife,Sigh... I guess you are right about the uncivic-minded neighbour, who still exist in droves in the different estates in Singapore. I suppose I was inspired by how States and cities in Australia like Melbourne, Sydney and Perth have marketed and positioned themselves so well, and how we can have a little bit of that "zonal consciousness". Speaking of which the Peranakan Museum will be opening next Friday, with a carnival over the whole of next weekend (Saturday and Sunday). Let me know if you are keen to pop by and I'll try to arrange something. :)
So migrating to a new server didn't take as long as I thought it would, and I didn't even have to activate my brother (whom I'd put on standby, in case I flubbed something up and needed a rescuer). Even propagating the DNS change took next to no time.
Compare this to a colossal more-than-one-hour struggle this morning with Priceline Singapore to book an air ticket. I kept getting error messages from their server at various points of the search or purchase processes, which exacerbated the usual nervousness I get when I'm about to place an online order for anything that costs more than a DVD box set.
Anyway, I got my air ticket and my website seems to be intact at the new server. Now I still have the rest of the afternoon before me. Whee!
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Technorati Tags: Priceline
Compare this to a colossal more-than-one-hour struggle this morning with Priceline Singapore to book an air ticket. I kept getting error messages from their server at various points of the search or purchase processes, which exacerbated the usual nervousness I get when I'm about to place an online order for anything that costs more than a DVD box set.
Anyway, I got my air ticket and my website seems to be intact at the new server. Now I still have the rest of the afternoon before me. Whee!
Technorati Tags: Priceline
This website is all grown up and ready to move on to its own server space (as opposed to mooching off my friend's server, which is what it's been doing for something like seven years), so I'm going to be doing a little content migration this afternoon.
No action is needed on your part, except to not panic if toomanythoughts.org is unreachable for a few hours. Just be patient till the new DNS changes are propagated internet-wide.
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No action is needed on your part, except to not panic if toomanythoughts.org is unreachable for a few hours. Just be patient till the new DNS changes are propagated internet-wide.
Thirtysomething, Singapore-born and -bred (barring five years spent in wintrier climes), and thus far resisting all forms of government propaganda exalting procreation. I watch too much American TV, eat too much local food (to which the concepts of low-fat/low-cal/low-anything except low price do not apply) and read too many blogs, most of them American or local. I'd love it if Singapore were visited by the monsoon more often and if I could wear jeans to work.
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