The Early Years (2002-2005)

Ah, don’t you love recreating classic movie scenes? Just when you thought you got out, they pull you back in.

I admit it, I’m a design junkie. Bought the Philippe Starck optical mouse today. Complements the Alessi juicer I have. Early verdict: I love the way it looks, of course, and the tactile response of the buttons is really solid for a left-handed mouse user - satisfying click, not too much bounce. I especially like the big buttons which let you click not just with your fingertips, but with your whole hand. Even the packaging looks good. The only complaint I have really is that I now need a better-looking mouse pad to go with the mouse. Best Microsoft product I’ve owned, although that’s not saying much.

Yes, the blog’s been redesigned and flipped so that the sidebar’s on the right, so that when it loads at least you get to read the text of my posts first. Some other optimisation stuff went on too, so the page should load faster.

No Rain Waiting for a Star to Fall (Love Changes) Everything I Love the Nightlife Dancing in the Moonlight I Kissed a Girl She Blinded Me With Science I’m Too Sexy

Bleah! (More photos of Coconut)

You know, maybe I am the Lindbergh baby.

You know, there’s something offensive about the number of ads for slimming centres in the Singaporean newspapers. I mean, I wouldn’t criminalise it, but it’s just a sad reflection of the mad quest for skinniness in this society. Big White Guy, writing from Hong Kong, notes a similar phenomenon in his city of residence, quoting a South China Morning Post article on a dancer’s diet:

Randomly stumbled on this quote from Liu Xiang, the Chinese winner of the Olympic 110m-hurdles: “My victory has proved that athletes with yellow skin can run as fast as those with black and white skin.” (Link)

Handy Latin phrases. In case, like, you need to talk about that episode of “Insula gilliganis” where the Professor and Mary-Ann engaged in tomfoolery. I love the bumper sticker section:

Waterbones made some nice comments about this blog, so I’m returning the compliment - check out her piece on belly-dancing. Plus, I liked the line: “never, ever, dismiss something by saying oh, it’s just semantic to a woman with a linguistics degree”.

I’ve been annoyed by the preachers on both the Tube and the New York subway. Antagonising potential converts just doesn’t seem a very good means of spreading the Word. But to sing back! That’s genius.

“That’s great it starts with an earthquake, birds and snakes, an aeroplane - Lenny Bruce is not afraid” - REM, “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)”

Simon World is an interesting pan-Asian news blog, sort of like Instapundit for Asians, by an Australian bloke living in Hong Kong. I liked his everything you wanted to know about blogging but were afraid to ask (good links too). Particuarly this line: “Blog is an ugly word but we’re stuck with it”. How true. You take the globe. Spin it around. Drop some E. Um, I mean, drop the e. There, “blog”.

Here’s an old favourite, Acts of Gord, all about a video-game store owner and the stupidity of his customers. The tone is classic: it reminds me of the Comic Book Guy from the Simpsons.

“Thanks to my wonderful husband, Mark. Someday soon we can have a legal marriage and you can make an honest homosexual out of me.” - Tony Kushner, in his Emmy speech

Never lose your digital camera or a memory card. Someone might decide to reconstruct your life through the pictures.

Even Wired has a sex column now, in which ostensibly they talk about the interactions between technology and sex but really seem to boil it down to adult toys. Frailty, thy name is prurience.

Obsessive-compulsive that I am, I got really frustrated that http://dsng.net did not translate nicely into http://www.dsng.net. Little did I know what I was in for. First, I had no idea where to start. Some Googling let me to learning about the editing of the .htaccess file on my hosting server, which only led me to these following insistent changes:

Mmm, bad grammar enshrined on a receipt.

So Dodgeball is finally showing in Singapore. Ben Stiller really only seems to have one character: Man of Rage. That’s not necessarily a bad thing - Hugh Grant can do great work within a very narrow range - but with Stiller it’s a bit hit or miss.