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Sunday, July 23, 2006

 
So many times, so few words

Oh, well. Worth a shot. I'll go backwards because it's more convenient that way.

Today, I'm waiting to see if anything comes up in the evening, however incredibly unlikely that might be. I *should* make my way to school to send out my student pass copy and photo etc., but I'm just really too incredibly lazy. I could try and do it at home, I know somebody's got a scanner somewhere, but I have no idea how hard it'll be. Let's see. I'd go in two shakes, except that my bike (Rocinante; the name has stuck enough that it's got it's own tag on Flickr now) is out of service; that happened yesterday, but I'll get to that once I get that far. I mopped out the kitchen, too, and didn't screw it up _too_ badly imho. Apart from that, usual day ... woke up late (8am), had breakfast by myself (ham+cheese+mushroom omlette), lunch with the guys (omlette fried rice), and have been pottering around the internet most of today. It's been a completely unproductive but nice day; of course, all I need to do is to get Eccl working, and I'll be happy and satisfied ... and even if that doesn't happen, ah well, it's a day for rest and all that. Had a nice chat with Amruta too, so a good day thus far, however the rest turns out.

Yesterday, I went off to see Sue the T. rex; it was fun, the bicycling more so than the dinosaur. I left home around 4:30 or so, got there at 5:10 (5 minutes before they closed admissions!). This first thing I saw was this bugger, which was great - Sue and Stan (the two T. rexes) was much bigger, but they were big enough that it was ... surreal. Like looking at a sculpture? To make things worst, Sue was up against the wall. Atleast with Stan, you could walk around him and appreciate the sheer scale of him somewhat. But the Tarbosaurus was perfect: about twelve feet or so high, he was big enough for you to go "woah", but small enough for you to know what's going on.

The show closed at 6:00, so I figured I'd head off towards Jurong Lake, because I'd liked it, and maybe the Chinese Gardens. CG was a no-go, because you couldn't take your bicycle in, but Jurong - and the lake - was BRILLIANT. Nice and green, places where you could wander off into; and just be by yourself. 6:42 (really!) found me eating choco chip ice cream sandwitched in bread, listening to a bunch playing away quite badly (but with great energy!), watching the world cycle, rollerblade, walk, and even go by on wheelchair. Brilliant stuff - so cool, nice, fun, everybody running around and having fun, and me with nothing to think about or worry about or on my mind. Brilliant stuff.

I had a durian ice cream next. Gosh, is that flavor strong. It was the last durian-flavoured one in the box. The guy selling it said it was a "lucky" one. Who knows?

The sunset was spectacular as usual, and I retired to the foot court opposite Lakeside for a fantastic nasi goreng and sugar-cane-with-lime. Lovely.

Within minutes, things went downhill. I abruptly realised that I couldn't stop Rocinante at all! Turns out the rear brake had taken a turn for the worst; with an already disfunctional front, that means my bike is basically unstoppable now. No fun, particularly as all that exercise was finally seeming to make a different :|. Cycling back was *crazy*. Nothing really bad happened on Commonwealth Ave West (praise FSM!), but the whole way back via Jalan Lempeng was NUTS. I kept coming down slopes, trying to stop myself with my feet, failing miserably, then basically crashing my bike into conveniently placed trees. Just as I came off Faber Drive onto the slope down onto the Ulu Pandan bike path, a football bounces off a wall and comes slowly towards me; I'm not particularly worried about the ball (it's way too big to get anywhere bad, like in between my wheels), but the kid - either because of my expression or heaven knows what - is shouting apologies at me (and eventually a cheery "bye bye!"). My expression is pretty worried, 'cos that's quite a slope. Made it back okay, but I do NOT trust myself to go anywhere until I get my bike fixed. Hopefully, I'll handle the submission etc. tonight, so I don't have to worry about getting into school late tomorrow. Or just be lazy now and hope I wake up in time ...

The week's been okay to good from a programming perspective; it took me ages to get 'into the mood', and I was getting pretty stressed out with Prof about it; luckily, I managed to use it semi-productively: with the new build.xml, javadocs, and - hopefully - with Eccl 1.0 (when will it be done?! It's seven already, and I plan to be in bed after dinner, which will be within half an hour ... so how so how?!) things will be better and more efficient than ever. And sometime around Thursday or Friday, the codewriting began kicking into gear too, which was fun :).

At the same time, I was hanging out with lab mates more, which is always fun. Nothing specific, just ... in the general, which is sometimes the most fun of ways.

Next week's challenges: balance lab work with Fd; get Eccl out the door, and working beautifully; and get the Randomizer working great. A tall order, but that's what all those days are for, eh?

It's been a great week, though. What a great life! Happy, happy, happy.

This post was posted by Unknown at 7:13 pm | 1 comments | Post a Comment

Sunday, July 16, 2006

 
I *heart* Runaway Jury

Why?

So: saw nice movie today! Yay!

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Saturday, July 15, 2006

 
And then I slept ...

From 2pm to 7pm or so. Gasp!

Can't figure out why my body's going nuts like this. Oh well. Just rearranged the wires at the top of my bed, hopefully making them make more sense.

Last problem left: I'd love to play the music off Methuselah, but I'm not sure how to pull that off! There's no likely to be a command line iTunes, this I know. Ah, well. Let's see what I can come up with.

On the upside, having a proper speaker set-up is pretty nice! Although I'm surprised how good my laptop speakers sounded to begin with!

On another upside, who knows how late I'll stay up now!

This post was posted by Unknown at 8:25 pm | 0 comments | Post a Comment

 
10 uses for an unwanted England flag
Ha, ha. Wicked funny.

This post was posted by Unknown at 11:15 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment

 
What a scary thought.

For the first time this week, it feels like I'm doing something RIGHT. This staying-at-home-and-working-on-Fd plan is really working out, although I'm feeling somewhat tired already (it's only 8:15am!), and there's a right long day to go, followed by another, and then a whole friggin' WEEK.

On the uphand, I've realised just how much happier I've been with the regular cycling. Although it might be one of the reasons for my sleep issues, atleast it's keeping me from slipping into actually going into a my-life-is-meaningless line -- although, of course, Fd might have something to do with that as well. And I suppose despite the aches and pains, I *feel* healthy by the end of the day, somehow.

Well, it's hard to tell; I've got to solve one problem at a time, and maybe things will get better, and maybe they'll get worse. I know they can go either way, and considering how bad (and good!) things are right now, I'm fully expecting either. Literally. I am sitting here with the phone 'cos I'm half expecting a happy or sad SMS from someone. Anyone. Just, you know, waiting. It's no fun.

Today, I'm going to be looking up the *good* web design houses in Singapore. Until now, I've been looking at the small ones. Today's guys are the Big Boys. As long as we can compete with the little guys, Fd will *survive*, or scratch a living. But if we can compete with the big guys, we are REALLY - scarily, excitingly - in business.

What a scary thought.

This post was posted by Unknown at 9:01 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment

Friday, July 14, 2006

 
Oh noes!

I'm happy. I hate it.

Being happy is probably the only thing worse for me than being depressed, and hey, I'm *used* to being depressed. It's part of life, etc. No surprises, and so on.

My bestest state is being ... satisfied. The world is turning out okayish, I'm one step ahead in my list of goals, nobody's _actively_ shouting at me for any reason, and life - while a bit of a squeeze - seems entirely manageable. Good times.

Being HAPPY - actually, bouncy, sickeningly jumpy, pleasurably happy - is quite another. When I'm happy, I feel like I'm on top of the world, generally without a reason (WITHOUT a REASON, if you'll credit it!). I feel ... sick.

Am trying to install IceCast on Methy before going to work. Let's see how that goes.

p.s. It didn't work. Or rather, it did, but not all the way. Isn't it fantastic that with a lil bit of luck, I can get Methy to route through Karnath on its way over wireless to the Router and out the pipe ... ? Yay GNU/Linux!

This post was posted by Unknown at 9:05 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment

 
Wowie

My appreciation for Linux just grows and grows.

Methuselah is finally born; although I'd planned on keeping him as a simple fileserver, 'tis obvious that with his MUCH faster hard-disk, it would make a lot more sense to make him do much, much more; I'll wait and see how the monitor's issues works out.

For better or for worse, I basically installed an Ubuntu, and then manually upgraded it to debian by replacing ubuntu's sources.list with Debian's, and doing a dist-upgrade.

So it goes.

This post was posted by Unknown at 7:56 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment

Thursday, July 13, 2006

 
Today, etc.

Woke up at 6:00, coming out of one of those dreams ... you know the ones, where it's a pretty obvious message from your subconscious, except that you're conscious knows this already, would rather not be reminded, and does not want to have a dream in which you break on through to the other side of walls you are literally too careful to break through in the real world. Which means you wake up thinking something, then go through *all* the mental cortusions necessary to bring your brain back to reality, mentally turning off and around facts as you go. A whole lot of effort for no good reason whatsoever.

To tell you the truth, I'm a little apprehensive about today. I don't know why. Only time will tell?

This post was posted by Unknown at 7:33 am | 1 comments | Post a Comment

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

 
A day rotations

Today ends as it began: with me lying on my bed, naked except for my towel, waiting for a nice hot bath.

In between, I:

  1. Didn't sleep yesterday night. At all. Sigh. I hope Prof won't mind me sleeping in tomorrow TOO much - and I hope I have time to get everything done before that!
  2. Went hard-disk shopping with Prof and Sq. Ended up buying a switch for 34$. Had dinner with Sq at the Rochor Road/Albert Court food court, which had all kinds of weird bits in it. Pig stomach is quite tasty if you can manage not to think about what you're eating! Dinner was fun. Afterwards, went back to lab carrying *everybody*'s packages, and then was working on the SPS website with Viks.

All in all, a busy, fun, if HIGHLY sleep deprived day. With my mind continually dodgy, not much thinking or planning etc. got done though. Here's hoping for great things ahead!

This post was posted by Unknown at 4:02 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment

Monday, July 10, 2006

 
Ugh.

So, here I am, one day before turning up at lab after a long pause.

At 5 am.

How incredibly depressing.

On the up-hand, I just downloaded by entire Gmail onto Karanth, and then sorted out OVER ONE THOUSAND EMAILS in four hours thanks to the genius that is pine.

And I'm hungry, although that NEVER gets me up when I need it to.

And it's raining, which introduces more issues.

And I keep bumping into things when I walk into my room.

You know, if life weren't so great, I'd be positively depressed.

This post was posted by Unknown at 5:07 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment

Sunday, July 09, 2006

 
Yay day!

Great friends, great job, great life, decent (but filling) food. What else can one ask for?

This post was posted by Unknown at 3:55 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment

Saturday, July 08, 2006

 
Commencemented

So: it's begun.

Am dead sleepy, and looking expectantly forward to doing absolutely nothing tomorrow.

This post was posted by Unknown at 11:28 pm | 0 comments | Post a Comment

Friday, July 07, 2006

 
How different are things?

I have to relearn all my Opera shortcuts (well – get used to them again, rather, I guess). I mean, I got over using Ctrl-T instead of Ctrl-N once, didn't I?

Crap. I just did the wiggle-finger-on-trackpad thing, without realising that MY LAPTOP DOESN'T HAVE A TRACKPAD. I still love you, baby, I promise.

I'm also hitting the pg up/pg dn keys perfectly for the laptop at home ... and then wondering how come I go to the top/bottom of the page instead!

Gah. Oh, well. Another day, another destiny, and such simpering simplifications

p.s. I have to say, Srilankan isn't that bad! Like, somewhere between Indian Airlines and Jet Airways. That I had to bring up the I.A. name is a bad sign unto itself, but considering that it's a good 100$ cheaper than the Almighty Singapore Airlines (which knocks Emirates flat, imho), it might show up on my itinery more often.

p.p.s. When I went thru Bandaranaike last, it was late at night and All Was Good. This time, though the stopover was much shorter, there were people around. Apparently there's guys who'll help you in the toilet (greet you, walk you around – I wish I were joking – and get you paper to dry your hands with) in return for a tip. I gave the first time some money 'cos he was old and I was taken by surprise. The next guy I offered a really low sum, and when he refused it, I just shrugged and walked off.

Of course, what this means is that these guys now STAND OUTSIDE THE TOILET AND HAWK THE TOILET. I mean, wow. In a another couple of years, it'll be all, “Come piss in my stall, good sir!” Ah, the joys of marketing.

I'm going to clean out my Gmail in a bit, which means making decisions like – do I want incessant mail from

I liked “Keeping Mum”. As Gerard pointed out, it's definitely going to have problems with Rowan Atkinson's stereotyping – but once you realise that he (and his son) are the only “straight” guys (straight as in not funny, not heterosexual) in the movie. And I thought he did it quite well, all things considered – it was good fun watching Rowan Atkinson being out-funnied by Kristin Scott Thomas (who was cute, btw! Maybe just the accent) and sweet-ol-granny Maggie Smith (who was hilarious, I thought. It might have been the stuck-on-a-plane thing).

Airbus (or Srilankan) really need to get seating more comfortable. Why should you HAVE to force your chair to angle back when the guy in front of you does, cos otherwise you've got a chair just barely in front of your face? And why aren't my feet as comfortable as they are on a Boeing? Is it the lack of a footrest?

Drank too much Gin-and-Tonic on flight. Or rather, only drank one but it was strong. Shouldn't have tried to finish it. Oh well. Lesson learned.

Something important I had to write down before I forgot. Singapore sunrise amazing as usual, had conversation with airhostess (and taxi driver, though that goes almost without saying), sat next to cute-ish girl before getting onto Colombo-Singapore flight – without noticing, but ... they weren't it. What was?

Oh - the pilot on Bangalore-Colombo taxied the plane FAST. I mean, he was pretty quick for a plane on the TAXIWAY ... but when he got to the runway, he basically put the pedal to the metal while taking it to the end before turning and taking off (he/she/etc.; I'm used to using 'he', I'm sorry)

That might be it. Oh well. Hardly worth remembering.

This post was posted by Unknown at 9:03 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment

Thursday, July 06, 2006

 
Wops, almost forgot

Also: tomorrow I leave India, which will make me sad. Day after tomorrow I reach Singapore, which will make me happy.

Hopefully, on Friday:

Saturday will be mostly taken up by the Commencement, although I should probably try and do something interesting in the evening. Gerard for one will be glad to see me work hard on the SPS website. It'd also be nice to go/be somewhere interesting at night. Can't for the life of me imagine where, though. Is Singapore finally feeling tiny to me?

Not when there's a ton (gratituous exaggeration) of places still left to cycle to on 43Things!

That last sentence might be indicative of desperation. I should probably go sleep – I will have precious little of that until I hit Singapore on Friday.

This post was posted by Unknown at 5:55 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment

 
Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooo....!

Portugal lost. Ouch. Sigh. Pain. Etc.

On the upside, there's probably something to be said for falling in love (sort of) with a team (I'm only doing it for Saramago!), watching them scrape a victory (against England), go down fighting (but, imho, beaten by a stronger team – though that's no excuse, France was making so many mistakes! Aiee!), and plonk out of the cup. It's an emotional rush, which – as always – is a bit more fun than you'd expect. Like the World Cup, really.

And any time you get emotionally involved you either win, lose, or end up cycling somewhere else. So is not all bad.

As a bonus, had a surprisingly nice dinner with family. These folks aren't so bad after all! And the lobster was fantastic!

This post was posted by Unknown at 5:07 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment

Sunday, July 02, 2006

 
Ugh

Feel sickish. Presumably lack of sleep yesterday night coupled with ... I dunno. Kabini wasn't too bad, but I went a bit nuts, which wasn't so good, so maybe it's that then. Sigh.

I need a vacation. By myself.

Commencement this Saturday. Fill out papers etc. next week. PRship by the end of this month. Fresh Durians starts shortly afterwards.

If I could think more coherently, I'd blame it on the stress and thinking-about-the-future etc., but I can't and I won't. I have also been thinking far too much about the Bubbles - both of them. Two bubbles. Ugh.

The Portugal-England match was amazing. Too bad the Brits lost. Looking at the Brazil-France match, though, it doesn't look like Portugal has much of a chance. Oh well.

Sick. Sick sick sick sick. Come to think of it, might just be overeating, combined with the stress etc. aforementioned. Hopefully will be better tomorrow.

This post was posted by Unknown at 3:57 am | 0 comments | Post a Comment