The Early Years (2002-2005)

Wow, I’m on Daypop’s Top 40 Links, thanks to some weird way they’ve counted citations of my blog from Blogcritics. Number 35 with a bullet, baby! Welcome all. I’m probably going to be ousted tomorrow by news of Tom Cruise dating Katie Holmes, but I’ll bask in the one day of Internet fame.

You can tell that airport security has reached new levels of strictness when even penguins have to go through metal detectors. What, penguins can pack heat? If they could, leopard seals would be in for some serious whoopin’. At least they were smart enough not to wear shoes. Boy, that would be troublesome.

Speaking of space, I’m a big Craigslist fan, and it’s funny to note that their expansion has brought them to outer space: Recent posters to craigslist may have noticed a little checkbox that asks if it’s “ok to transmit this posting into outer space.” In a few weeks everyone who answered “yes” will have their messages beamed into the heavens by the Florida-based Deep Space Communications Network via a five-meter parabolic dish antenna. A March test transmission of the first 138,000 messages went swimmingly. Act now and you, too, can offer our intergalactic pals a low, low price on your used computer peripherals. (East Bay Express)

Wrote a review of The Far Side of the Moon, a wonderful film that I watched on Sunday during the Film Festival. The Far Side of the Moon, Robert Lepage’s adaptation of his own play, is a beautiful, quirky meditation on a pair of brothers in Quebec coping with the death of their mother from kidney disease. Reflecting the title, Lepage plays both lead roles: Phillippe, a grad student of the philosophy of science, and his brother Andre, a glib weatherman. The two form opposing faces of the same family, Phillippe the more distant, uglier one - the far side of the moon - and Andre the less cerebral pretty boy, and LePage distinguishes them successfully.

Thanks to Otterman leaving a comment and some clicking around his blog, I’ve discovered a whole set of Singapore nature blogs. So, for all the marine biology fans in my life (you know who you are), here’s three of them: Pulau Hantu, Labrador Park, and the Blue Tempeh. Some great pictures in all of them - the one above, of a seagrass filefish, is taken from the Pulau Hantu blog.

The Guardian visits Liverpool, in preparation for the upcoming Champions League semi-final. Stories such as this one make me nostalgic. Despite the stereotypes, Liverpool was a really great city to visit. Unless you have no interest in either football or the Beatles. Then I weep for your soul. Random travel tip: if you do go, check out the loo in the Philharmonic.

The Vanda Miss Joaquim is Singapore’s national flower, appropriately for a city that’s a hodgepodge of ethnicities, since it’s a natural hybrid (of Vanda hookeriana and Vanda teres). But here’s the part I never did figure out: how do you pronounce “Joaquim”? Apparently Agnes Joaquim was a member of Singapore’s small Armenian community, but that gives me no sense as to whether I should pronounce the name “JOE-kim” as I’ve always heard around here, or “wah-KIM”, as in Spanish names (as in Joaquim Phoenix, even though I think he isn’t Latino).

Remaking the pill bottle. Bill Watterson, artist of Calvin and Hobbes, gave this commencement speech at his old college, Kenyon College. Viagra is good for climbers and those with pulmonary hypertension. “It was good to be able to breathe freely again and no longer feel that oppressive feeling on my chest.” I don’t want to know where all the blood went. KarmaBanque sells the idea of selling boycotted firms short. Interesting economic experiment - it’s the reverse side of the idea of “ethical investing”, but I’m not sure it’ll be as successful. Famed New Orleans restaurant Uglesich closes. Po’boy, you bound to die. RanKing RanQueen in Tokyo, where only the most popular products make it on the shelf. The very opposite of the Long Tail idea that we’re moving away from mass to niche markets.

Was in Anderson Junior College for work today. Funny that while we Singaporeans don’t use the word “college” to mean “university”, we still have the phrase “junior college”.

Some noodling on my guitar this weekend, as I figured out (mostly) how to play Franz Ferdinand’s “Dark of the Matinee” and Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” (ah, 4 chords and the truth).

BusinessWeek has an article on how “Blogs Will Change Your Business”. Some predictable blogs-as-Gutenberg stuff follows, but I’m more interested in how blogs change BusinessWeek - and the magazine industry - itself. As I noted before, the Guardian has adapted quite nicely, and so it’ll be interesting to take a look at BusinessWeek’s newly started blog.

Grey Album and Jay-Zeezer be damned, I don’t think I heard a better mash-up last year than Party Ben’s “Boulevard of Broken Songs”. His “Finding Out Sharona is Blind” - which combines the contagious sound of Louis XIV’s “Finding Out True Love is Blind”, the Knack’s “My Sharona”, Devo, and Fatboy Slim’s “Rockafeller Skank” - is a bit on the side of stoopid fratboys jumping around, but damn if it isn’t catchier than fleas.

A shot from the Fabric of the Nation exhibition at the HDB Hub. Massive project - reminds me of the AIDS quilt in its collaborative aspect.

The Guardian has a good interview/feature on Nick Hornby since Hornby’s about to release A Long Way Down, his new book. The article uses Hornby’s dual life as a theme - the duality of being a Cambridge-educated football supporter at a time when football was equated with yobbery, and this bit:

I went to a hair show at Zouk yesterday - my friend was launching a line of Italian hair care products in Singapore. A slightly surreal experience. The Italian hairdressers that had been flown in from the event were clearly very skilled - it’s quite interesting how good hairdressers can cut so swiftly and deftly, with their scissors flying seemingly randomly but with a hidden sort of order. Still, I can’t say watching people get their hair cut on stage is my cup of tea.

Blue Oyster Cult’s response to the famous “cowbell” sketch on SNL. Man turns self into cat. As expected, the Wendy’s “finger in food” case is probably a hoax. Cookie Monster goes on a diet. What’s next, the Salad Salamander?

Poor Coconut is sick with an upset stomach, most likely caused by eating worms during his walk (vet’s best guess). Ah, dogs, they’re such scavengers. All that reminds me of the classic campfire song “Nobody Likes Me, Everybody Hates Me, I’m Gonna Eat Some Worms”. Here’s the lyrics and an MP3 version. Searching for the lyrics led me to the entire treasure trove of bawdy songs that is Immortalia. I love folk music archives.

In the cab today, the radio was playing the Alison Krauss version of “When You Say Nothing At All”, which basically pummels the Ronan Keating version into the ground and makes it beg for mercy.

I suppose I talk less about what goes on in my personal life than other Singaporean bloggers, but to let everyone know, yesterday featured a meetup at NYDC (free Wi-Fi) of some bloggers to discuss a potential Bloggercon as well as Tomorrow.sg, a sort of Boing Boing/Slashdot for Singaporeans.

Trying out tools that use the Blogger API… this post was written on Avantblog for the Palm, on the back of a #77 bus. Edit: Woohoo! Clearly it works.