The Middle Years (2006-2009)

Haven’t had the chance to post in ages - and in fact this will only be a slight return - Bangkok photos up soon, but here’s quick Bangkok impressions that I had jotted down on my laptop a week ago and hadn’t had time to post - the sea of yellow was really apparent: it’s the 60th year of King Bhumipol’s ascension, plus the King was undergoing surgery when I was there, and the Thais were all showing their support. Even at the wholesale Bo Be clothes market, down below my hotel. it seemed like the only things on sale were yellow shirts.

All right, loyal reader(s) (there must be at least one…) - will be in Bangkok for the next couple of days for work. Updates to dsng.net will be intermittent.

The original Snakes on a Plane soundtrack video is out!

Adding to the tales of fauna in my home, lately these tiny little frogs have appeared in my garden, each one the size of my thumbnail. Incredibly cute.

Signs that celebrities have run out of causes to campaign for: Kevin Federline is campaigning for the preservation of the penny. (Seems to be another one of those increasingly tiresome Virgin publicity stunts, actually, but hey - he chose to put his name on it.)

The black rhino is extinct, apparently. (Via Indri)

Went to Sun With Moon for dinner today, and for dessert I had the tofu cheesecake. Even as an admitted dedicated carnivore, the tofu cheesecake was delicious. But the best part was the presentation - the little bird cage, the folded paper crane, the tiny little mint leaf. I particularly liked the way the shadows fell on the cake.

Why do football fans sing, while American football fans don’t? The Washington Post finds some who theorise about individuality versus community (“although the social structure in many European countries is less fixed than it was ages ago… thinking in group terms is still more prevalent when it comes to self-definition. The different classes are replaced by different soccer teams one can identify with.”). If you ask me, it’s probably because Americans just don’t have any good chants…

Took this last week at the Cathay (and got gently chided by the security guards there for it - why isn’t there photo-taking at a shopping centre?) - anyway, the tagline “How to Shop Like a Cuban” amused me.

Sometimes, in my more misanthropic moments, to avoid conversation, I give out a fake number (my old pager number - the key is to deliver it smoothly). But I see that there’s a whole Rejection Line industry. (Found via the Barmaid Blog, which is pretty amusing in its own right.)

No soap, radio! On one of the most popular joke traditions. The New Yorker looks at the long tail The Pedant’s Revolt looks like the kind of book I’d like - all about misconceptions and myths Speaking of things that are false, the urban legend that Alabama redefined pi is false.

Obsessive-compulsive ways to spend the weekend: cataloguing one’s film collection. So, yes, there I was, using my Mac’s iSight camera to scan DVD barcodes… if only the Delicious Library app recognised more non-US/UK/Japan DVDs though! But that’s a function of them using Amazon for their catalogue - no region 3 DVDs on Amazon, I guess. Still, it’s nice to see a visual representation of my DVD collection (see screenshot above!). And it’ll help me track those DVDs I occasionally lend out. (Ooh - that reminds me - a friend still has my copies of Withnail and I and The Rules of Attraction!)

While talking to J- today about film effects, I stumbled onto the Digital Air site, a firm that deals with digital manipulation of multiple cameras, and I thought it was quite cool how they described and demonstrated the various effects possible.

Found myself back home fairly early, and, amazingly, without anything pressing to do for a change (well, assuming I work over the weekend, as is my usual practice). So I sat on the couch with my laptop and surfed as I watched films. And while I started with The Limey, which I hadn’t seen and was finishing up, and even though there are films in my DVD collection that I am still supposed to get around to seeing (Clean, The Fast Runner), I ended up watching two films I’ve seen many times before: Woody Allen’s Love and Death, as well as Notting Hill, which I watched with the commentary on.

Meant to blog about this a while ago, but anyway, I thought the idea of a ringtone that only teenagers can hear was a pretty nifty technological innovation. Here’s the ringtone as an MP3 - I suppose it’s good that even after all those years of DJing I can stil hear it, although I keep hearing lingering buzzing after playing that…

Everyone talks about procrastination, but no one gets around to doing anything about it.

Because we have a shared interest in the Red Sox, I guess, Seth Mnookin e-mailed me to promote his Feeding the Monster book (very different from his previous investigation into the Jayson Blair scandal, I suppose). But I ended up being distracted by this Sony ad that he linked on his blog - there’s something about superballs that brings out the kid in me… and José Gonzalez’s “Heartbeats” is a beautiful, delicate song.

What is with Myspace spam? It’s always the same suspicious pattern - out of the blue 10 different women e-mail you wanting to be your friend - and you don’t even have to click on their profiles to know what you’ll see.

While snooping around for something else, I chanced upon this description of a very short (3 minute) film by Phil Solomon, called “Yes, I Said Yes, I Will, Yes” based on the last chapter of Ulysses:

So my brother bought a new foosball / table football set (never did figure out why the German name for football got associated with the game) via Inta-web auction, and the two of us drove out to pick it up over the weekend.