Archive for August, 2009
So many things happening.
Let’s see. Next week I’m having a consultation session with a surgeon so my project work has to step up a gear or so. So much for hitting the ground running, right? Today I have a lab session, that is rumoured to be incredibly long. I hope it turns out okay.
Still no reply on my submission and I think I’ll make an enquiry about it soon. Maybe in a week or two, just to see if I made any mistake with the procedure.
I got invited to a birthday party of some sort, which made me feel quite special. This also means that I’ll need to be out shopping for a birthday present. (I didn’t know when her birthday was before.) It looks to be a slightly challenging shopping quest though.
I want to watch District 9. I somehow managed to trick a good friend into watching it with me. Now to figure out our schedules. I have a feeling that it’ll mess itself up somehow. Things are usually like this with our schedules, but let’s be optimistic for now.
I apparently will also be attending a concert with my sister next month, having somehow managed to trick her too.
I’m reading We Never Talk About My Brother by Peter S. Beagle. I’m only two stories in (okay, maybe four by the time this post is published). I liked the first one quite a bit, but I wasn’t too fond of the second one, for some reason.
I got some gifts from my friend who went back to her hometown yesterday. Couldn’t help thinking that it was so remarkably nice of her to remember me.
I’m thinking that Bukit Merah might see the addition of one chapter, and at least a thorough rewrite of a couple of sections before the next version, though those ideas are all sort of preliminary for now.
Right, it’s actually Tuesday night as I write this, and I have to get back to figuring out what I’m supposed to nag about for tomorrow’s project group meeting.
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Up, Up And Away
Clinical Cartoon
I went to watch Pixar’s Up on Saturday night. I can’t say it was a bad show. It was all very clinically executed, in a sense, and very tidily stitched together. The right things happened in the right places, if you get my point. The humour was in general great (though I did feel like a bit of it near the start was somewhat tired) and I quite liked the designs. To watch an old man in his precious old house float off with balloons and sails to fulfill an old dream was arguably tried, but still effective.
Yet, that sense of wonder gets lost as the film goes along. I’m not sure what it was. Maybe it was that it felt a bit formulaic, that in its clinical execution, this and that happened here and there, all a little too nicely. No risks, no gambles, nothing too refreshing. And I thought too that I couldn’t bring myself to invest too much into the characters, particularly the, err, villains, who didn’t seem to give me too much to work with. In general, I thought it was a little too neat, and a little too safe for its own good.
Still, not a bad family flick. Just… not the best. (It’s one day later, and the stork short that was screened before the actual film seems to have left a deeper impression.)
Of course, it’s probably just that I’m getting old and evolving as Pokemons do into a crusty curmudgeon.
Les Paul
Les Paul, guitarist and innovator, passed away last week. Here is an obituary. [via The New York Times] And you can read about him over at his Wikipedia page. [via Wikipedia] I’ll be listening to a couple of albums over the next few days. Take it away, sir. You were, and will continue to be, a true guitar hero.
Brookesia
Here are some photos of Brookesia minima, said to be the world’s smallest chameleon. [via Flickr] It lives in the Madagascar forests, and grow to lengths of about a couple of centimetres.
Genesis
The Sega Genesis turned 20 last week. [via Kotaku] I had one. Well, technically, anyway. I had a Mega Drive [via Wikipedia], which celebrated its 20th anniversary last year. It was my second console, as I remember, and I had plenty of fun with it, including four Sonic games (1, 2, 3 and Sonic & Knuckles) and a Spider-Man beat-’em-up that I thoroughly enjoyed with my buddy at that time. But actually, I just really wanted to say, Wow, has it been so long? I really seem to be accelerating towards that curmudgeon evolutionary stage.
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Shelf Space
It’s Crowded In Here
I got my new bookshelf about a year ago, as I remember. It was after the bulk of the renovations as I recall, and that places it just after the Japan trip, so I think a year is just about right. I actually have two bigger bookshelves downstairs, filled generously and indiscriminately with all manner of books. When the new shelf came, I thought, I’m going to be more careful this time and select the ones that I want in my personal library for this one. It was this neat little ambition, you see, to have this nice and cosy shelf, tidily arranged, richly filled and carefully personalised, as the library I would call my own. The one I would depend on, dive into, feel proud of. I can’t say for certain, but I suppose it’s the sort of feeling that people get when they collect, uh, taxidermy, or guitars, or shoes.
This worked very well. I set up sections in my shelf, with the top tier being all the prose, poetry and plays, followed by academic literary texts, then science books, then comic books. In the lower compartments, I had a photography section, a children’s literature section, humour, popular culture and random other stuff. Along the way, I added a small postcard section, plenty of personal memorabilia, bookmarks, notebooks, origami and some other little things.
For a year, I lived happily with my library. It’s great to have it right beside where I work, and it’s a wonderful feeling to just randomly open the doors and dive in. But this isn’t about the library, no. This is about the shelf.
You see, I’m a little short of space. I didn’t imagine that it would happen so soon, but it’s all getting a little tight, and I actually have some books on loan to others already. Apart from that, one or two books are so long that they actually can’t sit inside normally, and some are so tiny that they’re hard to find. But the main problem still is that I’m a little short of space. Didn’t think it would happen so soon. I suppose this means I need a second shelf, which can be arranged for, but I definitely have no space for a third, so I guess I’m going to have to start thinking about what happens then right after we settle a second one.
Oh New Album
The lovely and talented Alison Sudol/A Fine Frenzy has a new album coming up. It’s called Bomb In A Birdcage. [via Wikipedia] I very much enjoyed her first album, so I’ll be sure to check this out.
Harry Patch + Radiohead
“Recently the last remaining UK veteran of the 1st world war Harry Patch died at the age of 111.”
If you don’t know already, Radiohead released a song in memory of Harry Patch called Harry Patch (In Memory Of). [via DEAD AIR SPACE] It’s available for download here, for a pound.
Summertime
J.M. Coetzee reads for 26 minutes from his new book Summertime in this podcast. [BOOK SA, via The Elegant Variation]
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Special Delivery
Many Books
Yesterday, my Amazon order rang the doorbell and I got a slightly hefty box of goodies to dive into. I had four items that I’d bought on behalf of my sister and my brother-in-law, and they came in mostly quite nicely. I also bought two presents, one of which was beautiful and I have to make it a point to get one for myself.
Then I also bought three books, one of which arrived slightly damaged, but I suppose I could live with it. I think my giant edition of Wind In The Willows arrived just fine, though, and that’s good enough for me.
Haircut
I’m going to try to get a haircut today. Something always crops up and prevents me from doing so. Wish me luck.
Dropped
I dropped my notebook yesterday. One of the corners of the hardcover has something of a dent in it now. It makes me a little sad to see it, but then again, I suppose getting it a little battered kind of helps with being less protective of the book.
First Day
It was the first day of school yesterday and it felt like the first half of the semester. That was quite an awful feeling, I suppose. Well, I’m sure it’ll pick up. At least I hope it does before we actually reach the first half of the semester. So much for hitting the ground running.
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Mark Twain Hair
A Glorious Mess
These days I wake up, grab a shower, comb my hair and wait for it to dry. Then in the next couple of hours, my hair slips out of the shape I combed for it and goes into its own regular pattern. At this stage, it usually falls into a slight bit of a mess, and I can muss it up and it turns out a bit like Mark Twain’s hairstyle in his old age, except not white. Mark Twain hair usually means it’s time to go for a haircut, but I think I’ll hold that off for a few days and enjoy this only similarity with the literary giant before the hair gets too long and (imaginably) floppy.
Google Logo
Yesterday being National Day, Google did this to their logo:
It’s pretty cute.
Mystery Gift
Kinokuniya are currently having their 10th anniversary/National Day sale, and my sister was there on Saturday before I was. Apparently, if you spent 50 bucks, you’d get a free gift (while stocks last!). I was too late to get mine, but my sister got one, and it seemed to be a figurine of… erm… Iron Man… What?
Urgh
This post is a little shorter than usual because there’s that funny twist in my gut that I get whenever I am about to be beset by stomach flu. And I do terribly with stomach flu. I don’t know why. I suppose everyone has a worst enemy of a fashion.
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