exercise

played table tennis with my dad this morning and then met up with jasper. we walked from my house along yio chu kang road, did a stopover at the yio chu kang market, then walked all the way to thompson road, then walked to thompson plaza, did a stopover for dinner, and then walked to ang mo kio. then took a bus home.

that was kinda crazy; it's the most exercise i've done in a long long long time. i think we did about 5 or 6 hours walking in total. we even jogged a bit and sang army songs. started getting really tired, at least i did, so got quite crazy, as is natural. you lose your inhibitions (if you have any) the more tired you are.

played virtua cop in the arcade also before meeting jasper. it's fun! now at least i can almost win the beginner level in one game, though the boss is quite mean lor. it's much more fun than house of the dead because in house of the dead you need to shoot so many times before the zombies die.

also helped my mom gamble a bit. when you win something at jackpot machine you can go double or nothing, choose whether red or black. lost 10 coins. then won 30 coins. then lost 10 coins. then lost 10 coins and then 10 coins again. so better off not gambling. anyway, i think if go casino the best bet is to play odd/even at roulette, because that pays 1-1 and the odds are also 1-1. but even better is don't play lah.

well, one of the things we came up with during our walk is (jasper): love is not about possession, (me): it is about obsession. oh, and i saw this buddhist poster that said that buddhism is like fluoride toothpaste. need to apply it for it to work. equally applicable to many things. at the bookshop also they got "raising smart kids for dummies".

the weekend is over, but since i'm a slacker with nothing to do this just means i'll be doing my own thing. still have yet to totally organize and clean up my room. still have yet to go through the linux books and really play with the system.

i'll take the liberty of cutting and pasting the comments from a post on yvonne's blog: Ewong De Gu Shi [ http://juggleress.blogspot.com/ ].
the comments can be found at the bottom of this post.

--------------------------------------------
On : 8/28/2004 9:57:23 AM pf (www) said:

who got married?!
and yah there's a huge problem with the obsession to be thin in singapore. it's incredibly and scarily exaggerated.

On : 8/28/2004 2:03:26 PM juggleress (www) said:

nus classmate, not anyone from our class. if it's from our class the news will spread to everyone in 3 minutes.

ya i beginning to think so too. my friend from america keeps commenting that the girls here are just way too skinny and small. they (she and another american fren) can hardly fit into the clothes and shoes they sell here!

and of course wanyi says that 1 in 2 welsh women are fat. (and still wear short skirts)

i just watched a local chinese talent show and the judge told this girl she's too fat for tv! and she's not lor!! it's a conspiracy to make everyone anorexic.....

On : 8/28/2004 2:36:00 PM pf (www) said:

it's a whole lot of irresponsible superficiality and extremely irresponsible ignorance as well. the media either doesn't realize the kind of message they're sending out or they do and don't care, and are just concerned about making money / getting viewers and having an audience.

it's a subtle indoctrination that has led to the average citizen instinctively labelling as "fat" anyone who isn't thin, especially if they appear on TV. i heard they were saying zoe tay "still looks pretty" or something to that effect because she hasn't been able to keep much food down during her pregnancy.

On : 8/28/2004 3:20:28 PM juggleress (www) said:

yeah i agree. look at fann wong and her xando diet pills ad. there was a columnist who criticised the ad and wrote that if pple didn't know where singapore is, they might think we're from africa.

i'm surprised the girls in US are not reed thin on average (from what i heard from friends there), since all the superstars from there are reed thin. the cast of friends, nicole kidman, halle berry..all of them are like sticks.

i guess the media from every country is like that, but maybe singaporean girls buy the thin theory more.

i agree with the instinctive labelling too. there can be so many more ways to describe someone. "untoned", "flabby", "big sized", "on the plumb side", "chubby".

hmm, karen carpenter became anorexic because the newspapers said she's chubby so maybe that's not a gd word to use.

or better still, like my fren in sec 2 once said " you're not fat. well you're not thin, but you're not fat."

some pple are way way too thin. and yeah, if you're not thin, you're fat. it's all nicely back and white.

On : 8/28/2004 9:02:33 PM pf (www) said:

i think the thing with america is that the media isn't monopolized and is somewhat smarter, meaning there are subversive media and a whole lot of media criticism going on, so at least more people are aware.

this is also connected to the greater awareness of mental health issues too, in a general way. not that everyone knows about psychological well-being, but more people do, and it's talked about more.

but of course there's still stupid women's magazines that can't stop talking about how to lose weight, etc. and showing ads of super-thin models and stuff. yet there definitely isn't this proliferation of ads for slimming centers, at least not in regular newspapers like the new york times or whatever.

On : 8/28/2004 11:19:31 PM Beautiful Hair (www) said:

erm,spelt plump not plumb(means draining toilets)

LindowsOS (now Linspire)

heard about this some time ago and chanced upon it again and it looks great. it's probably the best OS for most computer users. now called "linspire".

"While our name is changing, our passion for bringing choice is not. We strongly believe that most desktop software is too expensive because there has been a lack of healthy competition. Software should be much more affordable than it is and Linux is the solution. But Linux has been much too complicated for all but the most technically savvy, which is why we built CNR, a one click way to add software for hundreds of improving Linux programs, allowing you to update your system or sign up for services. Our mission at Linspire is to bring Linux to the mass market - be it home, school or business users. We want to commercially support Linux, so retailers will have confidence and will stock pre-installed Linux computers to give people an alternative to the expensive, virus-prone alternative. "
[ http://www.linspire.com/lindows_michaelsminutes_archives.php?id=125 ]

An overview of the OS:
[ http://www.linspire.com/sales_intro.php ]

also, Linspire is based on Debian, which happens to be the linux distro i've installed!

"Which Linux Distribution is Linspire based upon?
Linspire is based upon the Debian Linux distribution. A large amount of the code base of Linspire is Debian, but many usability and functionality improvements have been added on top of the Debian distribution."
[ http://info.linspire.com/publish/developers.html ]

so, might i recommend that you try linspire, though i haven't done so myself! the selling points are that it's effectively linux, meaning it's more or less open source, it's stable, it's cheap (upgrades are free, i believe, so don't pay for 98 then 2000 then XP and so forth...); and the reason why i'm recommending it to everyone is that it's just as simple to install and use as microsoft windows!

The Linux Home Page at Try Out Linux
[ http://tryoutlinux.com/ ]

microsoft software is incredibly expensive if you have more than one computer; linspire allows you to install on all computers in the family. so you might one day be able to use the same license to install linspire on your robot brother! (for checking email interactively.)

windows costs at least $100 for each computer (when packaged with a new computer), and microsoft office is an even greater ripoff. even if you don't feel like switching OS now (which i understand, no need to fix something that ain't broke, even if it's quite outdated), i highly recommend openoffice as a replacement for microsoft office.

OpenOffice.org: Home Page
[ http://www.openoffice.org/ ]

stopping halfway up the stairs
i gazed at a string of cobwebs attached to the wall
which shifted in the wind of my motion
and rose, in a silent, delicate trajectory
defined by my eyes
floating down onto the palm
of my upturned hand.

hugs

yay, my lovey has made me feel special and snug with a virtual hug.

censorship in singapore is bordering on ridiculous. is "shit" a bad word? in avril lavigne's song, my happy ending, there's this line "all the shit that you do", and when it's on radio or mtv, it's either "all the stuff that you do" (nowhere near as powerful or melodic), or "all the *no sound* that you do".

i appear to have gotten diarrhea from the "wild plant" soba i had last night. should have stuck with udon with fried beancurd skin.

i like rap. in general i like songs with lots and lots of lyrics too. and rap has lots and lots of lyrics. and it's so bitch-ass.

it's over!

australia won with a golden goal at the end of the first period of extra time. got a shot corner right before the time was up. a setpiece, the keeper had a touch of the ball but it went under his extended leg, which deflected the ball somewhat. there was a defender behind him but the deflection took the ball out of the defender's path and into the goal.

sleepy

i'm like falling asleep, and didn't catch much of the middle of the second half. australia was much in charge of this half. took an early reverse-stick goal and had another reverse-stick shot that flew beautifully but was stopped by the goalie's glove. no luck with their shot corners, the goalie saved several shots.

the australian goalie blocked some shots too, notably two in succession. extra time and perhaps penalty shootout? yawn... this is exciting but i'm sleepy... i'm totally gonna crash when this ends.

half time

the netherlands scored a nice goal, with a long run to the goal and then to the right past the goalie and a tap in. the netherlands goalie saved lots of shots. and an australian crashed into another australian, who got injured from it.

it's gonna take some time for jasper to remember that i'm vegan. or as he calls it, a vegetable. been going out with him an average of 2 times a week but his first suggestion for food is usually some place like kfc.

anyway, there's too many games playing now, they were showing boxing just now so missed a bit of the first half. and now they're showing beach volleyball...

we watched secret window, which featured good acting by johnny. of course, i'm probably slightly biased but i think depp is simply awesome. he's cute with his messy hair and careless unclean look.

hockey

eh, i really hope that they're showing the hockey finals on TV lor... this is the first time i looked at the schedule online and actually planned to watch something, and it's not looking good... ah, ok, it's on now.

36 Gmail invites

that's 36 GB of storage space. I wish I could redeem that for a new hard disk or something. Anyway, the women's field hockey finals ended 2-1 for Germany, who were supposed to lose, or so the commentator claims. There was a cute narration by him, when Scully had the ball, and passed it, he was like "Scully... over to Mulder... just kidding".

I'm meeting Jasper tonight. He asks if we should watch Secret Window or 13 going on 30. My preference is probably for Johnny, but he probably prefers to watch the latter show.

So, just to repeat, I have 36 Gmail invites to give out, and they'll most probably be useless soon, after Google decides to take Gmail out of beta and allow anyone to sign up. Google's launched its IPO some days ago, in case you haven't heard.

One of the biggest problems I've had with linux so far was shutting down. As you can see, I haven't really played with it much yet. The Debian login screen didn't allow me to log in as root, and as a user I don't have shutdown privileges. Luckily my network card or whatever was properly detected and I could go online and surf for a solution. Of course, I could have simply fired up the other computer to go look too, had I not been connected to the internet.

The solution is to open up a terminal and issue the command 'su', which stands for 'switch user', and if you just write su then it automatically switches to root (and prompts for password). Then as root, issue 'shutdown -h now', with the -h switch standing for 'halt', which is a state from which you just press the power switch to power down.

Feel like playing hockey after watching hockey games on TV. The women are quite good, though definitely not as good as the men. Their equipment quite cool, lor. They were wearing this glove-like thing on their left hand, which is puffy on the knuckle side. Prevent grazing when putting the stick to the ground on the left side.

And the Spanish men's team had these masks they wore during the shot corners. Presumably to protect the face, but it also looked very garang and fierce. That's the idea. It was a red and yellow swirl design, to go with their outfit.

men's field hockey finals

public service announcement: men's field hockey final 1:30am saturday "morning" singapore time; there's the 3rd/4th game before that.

women's field hockey finals playing now, germany is leading 2-0 against netherlands and still more than 10 minutes left to the first half.

lonely and depressed

i feel lonely and depressed. could've guessed from the title, but i'll say it again. why not. got nothing else better to do.

i think i'll try to cheer myself up by reading the linux book and playing around with the newly installed OS.

debian: smoooth

watched the men's field hockey semi-finals. damn good. dunno how come no pakistan or india, thought they quite good one? anyway, the finals is netherlands and australia, and third/fourth is between germany and spain. australia scored a big win over spain, 6-3. the game was incredible.

the debian installation is going well, no major problems yet, breezing through the prompts. though haven't tested the system yet, but that will come later.

tiredness

i'm so tired now. good thing, since i'm planning to sleep earlier. though i guess now would be considered late by most, but it's a start. so good night.

drowning in Gmail invites

it's like being a rich man with too much money and not knowing what to do with it. and, like money, it's just paper afterall, unless it's coins, then it's just metal. anyway, lots of gmail invites to give out, so don't shy, ok?

the day was relatively routine, going to seletar club and playing ping pong and working out at the gym and going swimming. except that it's jasper's birthday, so there was a considerable amount of activity after that.

had vegetarian food at the bishan s-11, and had my first taste of fake fish. fucking awesome, if i say so myself. an amazing recreation: it looks like the real thing and tastes just like it! it's the sorta fried style of thin fish steaks (cut slices perpendicular to the length of the fish). the "skin" surrounding the edge even tasted like fish skin!

went to play pool after that, and raced virtual cars, and played photohunt. photohunt is one of those games that's suck ass boring if you play yourself, but rather fun if there's like 4 of you playing at the same time. of course, it's easier too, but definitely more fun. because it actually becomes fun.

now to work on LaTeX formatting for say yang's book. i'm now a part-time odd-job person, let me know if there's anything that needs to be done, i can probably do it. though i still intend to install gnu/linux and neaten up my room eventually...

$$$ --> $....$....$

"Follow the Money" by David Sirota and Jonathan Baskin
[ http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0409.sirota.html ]

ow

it doesn't really hurt anymore, but got a few scratches from a fall. was rollerblading and everything went fine until i came to this downhill in nanyang poly, and thought what the hell, why not go for it, then halfway down, realized i didn't know how to stop, and i was kinda like on the road though it was deserted, but i was headed for a fork, and i valued life too much to risk it so just fell backwards and to the left in case a car came by, so i fell, and it wasn't a bad fall, though the stuff fell out of my shirt pocket, my cell and my sunglasses, but they were fine. i was not bad either, just a few scratches on my left elbow and fingers and my shorts took most of the abrasion instead of my thigh, thankfully.

got a coke and walked a long time looking for a place to recycle the can. didn't find anything on campus, didn't find anything at yio chu kang mrt, so i pretty much walked to ang mo kio mrt and there was this coffee shop with a place to recycle cans.

interestingly enough, i went online to apply for an exit permit and incredibly enough my application got instant approval. so if i really wanted to i guess i could push back my re-enlistment arbitrarily! this exit permit that i just tried to apply for i just anyhow put the date, so i said i'll come back in november. and it just went through, a javascript application without bugs.

song lyrics: (mario winans, i don't wanna know)
And I don't want to let you leave
Can't say I didn't let you breath
Gave you extra cheese
Put you in the SUV
You wanted ice
So I made you freeze
Made you hot
Like the West Indies

(i especially like the part where he gave her extra cheese.)

massive amounts

it really takes a long time to download a CD worth of data... i probably chose the wrong mirror... took an australian one, which is giving me about 14K/s.

anyway, i wrote some time back about women's weightlifting, something like 200kg by a 48kg woman. i watched women's weightlifting last night and this 200kg figure is actually the combined lift of the snatch and the clean+jerk. so it's about 100kg they were lifting each time. usually the clean and jerk can lift more. there was a world record, i think, by a chinese woman, in the snatch. if i recall correctly, it was something like 130kg and she was in the under 68kg category, i believe.

the korean women's handball team is really something. truly truly amazing to watch. they just slam in the goals so accurately and powerfully and effortlessly. it's amazing how precisely they throw the ball and the goalkeeper truly has no chance, even though she's flailing her arms and legs all over the place. in case you're wondering, handball is like a combination of basketball and soccer.

success!

it works! partition resizer rocks! now all i have to do is download and install linux, which should be more glitchy, since this went on without a hitch. i also have to create ext2fs partitions using linux fdisk.

partition resizer

the partition resiszing is going well, the program has a nice and simple UI, and it seems to know what it's doing. the ultimate test is to see if anything's damaged, but probably everything will be fine. it's still running, taking some time because i'm moving quite a bit of stuff around, but managed to free up more than 4.5 GB of space for debian "woody" .

working on the desktop now, naturally. i shouldn't be sleeping too late tonight, for i plan to go blading in the late morning, then come back, freshen up, and meet jasper. freshen up. i've never actually used the phrase, it's usually something my mom tells me to do.

i think i've kinda settled down and started applying myself. here i am about to install debian linux, looking forward to hacking and heartache (from frustration), and i also intend to bring a book around with me to read while waiting (so i at least attempt to read all those books gathering all sorts of tropical microbes on my shelves), and i intend to go rollerblading, which should improve my fitness ever so incrementally.

i think i can only do about 2 or 3 pull-ups now, which is nowhere near acceptable if i go back to OCS. of course, it's much more fun working on my computer.

there is still a stream of ants on the wall. chickens from malaysia are banned because they discovered bird flu there. and the malaysians are saying it's ok one, don't so kiasu. it's pretty much the same thing with any business, the one selling the stuff is usually more interested in making money than watching out for the people the stuff is being sold to. which is why unnameable ingredients go into animal feed, and a few wounds and sores on an animal aren't enough to keep it away from the dinner table. and that whole big "unsafe at any speed" business with the cars from Ford.

the TV content providers have found what kind of TV programming really sells, and it's sad. it's the creation of "real" human drama, and singapore idol is milking this to the point of exaggeration. and the process of selecting and ridiculing participants is dragged out as long as possible for maximal airtime.

but, such is TV. how lovely it would be if i had cartoon network and adultswim. it's semi-interesting to play roller-hockey sitting on a castor-wheel chair.

censorship

what is the point of beeping out words? beep beep. it's so beeping obvious what they're saying. ate lots of mangosteens just now.

will really be going blading tomorrow, i swear. bought a 50-pack of CD-Rs for $20. it even came with a mystery box, which turned out to be a CD-wallet. neat.

have defragged my drives, and will soon be launching into the partition resizing. i might even do more resizing than i planned to, to leave even more space for cute little linux.

bought a battery for the cordless phone for about the same price too, which is probably worth it for the freedom it provides.