So touching, my eyes started tearing. Slightly.



Nowhere near as cute as cutie_mish, but at least her (digital) piano is in tune! And her piano playing's heaps better too.

(Thanks to Alex for the linky)

Geez, this blog is becoming like Reader's Digest. Next up, Laughter, the Best Medicine.

I would love to change the world, but they won't give me the source code.

The glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's twice as big as it needs to be.

Girls are like internet domain names, the ones I like are already taken.

A thousand words are worth a picture, and they load a heck of a lot faster.

Who needs the library? I've got google! (Ed - And now, Wikipedia)

A penny saved is 1.39 cents earned, if you consider income tax .

It is fruitless to become lachrymose because of scattered lacteal fluid.

If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.

What do people mean when they say, "The computer went down on me." (Specially dedicated to Sandra)

Someone once said a million monkeys using a million keyboards could reproduce the complete works of William Shakespeare. Thanks to MySpace, we now know that to be entirely false.

Interregnum, n
1. an interval of time between the close of a sovereign's reign and the accession of his or her normal or legitimate successor.
2. any period during which a state has no ruler or only a temporary executive.

E.g. After Lee Kuan Yew abdicatedstepped down, there was an interregnum until his son, Lee Hsien Loong ascended the thronebecame Prime Minister.

This clip of this girl playing the one of the themes from Tetris (Troika, I believe) has been making the rounds of the internet, and since it was posted last June, it has garnered approximately 1,125,000 views. Taking it as 8 months since it was posted, that's an average of 140,000 views a month, 4,600 views a day. And the best part is, she isn't even very good. I can play (much) better. Oh, and the worst part, her piano is out of tune and my ears hurt.

But damn, is she hot! AND THAT ACCENT IS TO DIE FOR



What are the chances that if I posted a video of myself playing some super cheemology piece on the piano (Rhapsody in Blue comes to mind, though I don't know all of it.) I'll get 4,600 views a day? I think I'll be surprised if i get 4,600 views in a year.

But damn, is she hot! AND THAT ACCENT IS TO DIE FOR

I've always been a great fan of the Chunichi Dragons, he thought, but what are the Dragons to me, anyway? Say they beat the Giants - how's that going to make me a better person? How could it? So why the heck have I spent all this time getting worked up like the team was some extension of myself?

I had an hour or so to kill before the Cage, so I decided to make constructive use of my time by hanging out in the library. I figured CTR's ending soon, so I might actually need the readings to do preliminary research for the paper. And thus, time well spent infringing intellectual property rightsphotocopying the relevant bits of Kenyon-Slade.

And, since I'm a firm believe in what FDR said, I have decided to share the fruits of my labor. Lemme know if you need to zap. But before next Wednesday please.

The strong Mediterranean sun beating down. A stiff breeze bringing cool air. Sailing aimlessly from island to island. Sitting on the deck sipping ice cold coke. When it gets too hot, a quick dip. The fishing line is reeled in, and the catch of the day goes belowdecks to become dinner.

The only snag? A crewed charter runs from upwards of USD$1,500 a day.

Stupid addictive flash games. In this particular iteration, you 'manage' a poor family on Ayiti, which apparently is another name for Haiti. You decide whether they work, study, rest, go see a doctor, etc. Eke out a simple existence and try not to die. If the entire family (dad, mom, 3 kids) is still alive after 4 years (16 turns of 4 seasons a year) you win. Be warned. Diptheria and cholera are especially prevalent.

Play.

"Ticket to Ride"





Sha would like everyone to know that SHA TOOK THE FIRST PICTURE AND THAT IT'S VERY NICE.

The rest are anonymous works unless someone comes forward to take credit.

It's a little painful to watch, but oh well. No wonder the year 4s aren't respected in school anymore. Such childish behaviour!

Sandra would like to add:
PLEASE NOTE THAT SANDRA IS NOT INVOLVED IN THIS IDIOCY

Here's a pretty funny anecdote I heard today:

When you have ham and eggs for breakfast, whats the difference between a pig and a chicken?

Well, the pig was committed to creating your breakfast, while the chicken was merely involved.

Cause, well, I'm too genteel to actually express myself properly, especially in polite company.

Anyhow, it seems 2 champions have decided to soft-drop ICF. Like, gee, who soft drops stuff? What advantage do you accrue by soft-dropping? And you have to go to the Dean's Office twice, once to soft-drop and once to add. What if you suddenly change your mind? Then how?

Which totally spoils my plans, cause I was hoping people would be discouraged from adding ICF since there are (supposed to be) ZERO spots open, and surely some slackkind soul would drop it since it's apparently worth 20 credits instead of 8. Now, I have to compete with everyone else who will go, "wah, 2 ICF spots, got hope leh!"

Ok, enough ranting for the moment. Here's something interesting. In the email with the add-drop list and other instructions, it says

The last day of Add/Drop for Phase I is Monday, 25 January 07, 12pm.
The release of Subject Allocation for Phase I will be on Friday, 19 January 07, 6.00pm

Uhh, seems like someone has trouble reading a calendar.

After monthsyears of speculation, Apple has finally, finally announced the iPhone. Yayness, for it looks mighty cool. The very thought of it makes my heart skip a bit. Sexy doesn't even begin to describe it, and from early reports, it seems like you can use it as an iPod. Plus it's widescreen-touchscreen. Yummy.

Unfortunately, sucks to be us, because while it's supposed to be released in the good old US of A in June, projected availabilty in Asia is 2008. Although, I guess you can parallel import it and all that.

www.apple.com/iPhone/ for the scoop. Like you needed that particular URL though.

Oh, by the way, I want one. Like you didn't already know that.

SO, anyway, today after CTR, I inexplicably felt like a milkshake. No particular preference for origin, macs is fine. I decided to stop at the KAP drive thru one on the way home. While waiting in line to collect my milkshake (strawberry!) I noticed this rather cute girl standing alone, as if waiting for something. Like, a cab.

Rolling down my window, I put on my best friendly, boy-next-door, can't-hurt-a-fly look and voice and asked, "Do you need a lift?"

The rest, as they say, is history.

This is the part you'll never read about in kid's story books.

(Alternatively titled, why I should get ICF)

Premise - ICF is primarily a CORPORATE module, aimed at those intending to go into corporate practice.

For the simplicity of argument, let's assume that there are two kinds of people in law school. Group 1, those intending to go into corporate practice (i.e. joining the corporate department of any law firm in Singapore) Group 2, those that are intending to do anything else. IP, liti, whatever else you wierd non-corporate types do. Or not practice at all. Whatever. Into group 2 you go.

For group 1, the utility they derive from taking ICF is definitely, without a doubt, much greater than the utility group 2 derives from taking ICF. Of course, you can't really quantify such abstract concepts as utility, but for the purposes of this discussion, let's say each person in group 1 gets 2 utility from taking ICF, while each person in group 2 gets 1, or 0 even.

Since the number of spaces in ICF is limited - 65, I'm told - the maximum utility in our little society (the society being all the people in law school who want to do ICF) is also limited. Since it is clearly in the interests of all members of society to maximize total utility, THEN ALL THE PEOPLE IN GROUP 2 SHOULD DROP ICF AND LET THE PEOPLE IN GROUP 1 WHO ARE NOT ALREADY IN ICF ADD IT.

Like yours truly.

(While trying to figure out why the US Embassy flag is at half mast)

(L)(W) - all day i dream about s says:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deaths_in_2007
school sucks says:
ooh
if i kill myself
will my name be there?
(L)(W) - all day i dream about s says:
try it
school sucks says:
"Sandra Phung, committed suicide in order to get a wikipedia listing"
whats so funny

(something I wrote halfway through the holidays, but never got round to publishing. I guess with the whole AdamAir debacle it's not so funny anymore though. Hohum.)

On Tiger Airways, the passenger safety information card says ISSUE 3 right on top. Except the contents are your regular what-to-do-in-case-of-emergency kind of thing. So what was in issue 1 and 2? And did the safety information change, or was it just updated with spelling, grammar, etc?

What on earth do pilots mean when they say "flight attendants cross check?" I hear it on every single flight I take. According to Sandra, it just means check that the doors are closed. Which seems to be an extremely duh thing to ask. You'd think that they'd close all the doors automatically.

The motto of the new Budget Terminal at Changi is "Enjoy the difference". Uh, excuse me for being slow, but what is the difference we are meant to enjoy exactly? hello! [ed - Eileen is bored] I mean, I enjoy the fact that my fares are a fraction of the full price, but what else is there to enjoy? Having to walk to the plane instead of using the jetway? Or sitting in cheap canteen-style plastic chairs instead of plush comfy ones? Maybe the lack of air-conditioning at the gates? I'm lost.

Ok, so your budget air ticket doesn't include food. Fair enough. Nor peanuts. I don't like them very much anyway. But apparently, just because you don't get airplane food, you can't eat any outside food either. If you do try, the stewardess will kindly inform you to put your food away, "for the comfort of other passengers." What comfort? Is it cause the aroma of my mushroom swiss double is too much for the other passengers to take and if I continue to eat I will incite a riot of hungry passengers?

Ok, I took out the more sensitive ones so it's still sorta-kinda funny. Enjoy.

Apparently, my blog serves as out-of-point entertainment for bored people. And unlike yours truly, there were bored people during the holidays who craved for something interesting to read. So, with the advent of a new semester, look forward to more pointless blogging and extremely random thoughts!

The previous post reminded me of something I saw on Threadless once:

"Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Age 10"

If I didn't know better, I'd suspect that this Murakami fellow is psychic and knows exactly how I bumbled through my music education. Maybe, just maybe, it'd be nice to be not hard-work-averse.

There just happens to be people like that. They're blessed with this marvellous talent, but they can't make the effort to systematize it. They end up squandering it in little bits and pieces. I've seen my share of people like that. At first you think they're amazing. They can sight-read some terrifically difficult piece and do a damn good job playing it all the way through. You see them do it, and you're overwhelmed. You think, 'I could never do that in a million years.' But that's as far as it goes. They can't take it any further.

And why not? Because they won't put in the effort. They haven't had the discipline pounded into them. They've been spoiled. They have just enough talent so they've been able to play things well without any effort and they've had people telling them how great they are from an early age, so hard work looks stupid to them. They'll take some piece another kid has to work on for three weeks and polish it off in half the time, so the teacher assumes they've put enough into it and lets them go on to the next piece. And they do that in half the time and go on to the next piece. They never find out what it means to be hammered by the teacher; they lose out on a crucial element required for character building. It's a tragedy.

I'd like to think I'm pretty well read, and I read a wide variety of literature and trash. But it's been quite some time since a book last captivated me like this one has. This, in question, is Norwegian Wood, by Haruki Murakami. I can't quite put my finger on it, but it's almost impossible to put down. The plot isn't particularly exciting, nor is the writing particularly eloquent (plus, its translated out of -surprise surprise- Japanese)

Yet it is strangely captivating, and I find myself reading late into the night - something else I haven't done in quite some time, with the possible of exception of the Singapore Master Tax Guide - and stealing a couple of minutes to read a page here and there.

Read it if you haven't already done so. I got the book as a gift a while back (before exchange, to be precise) yet I didn't get down to reading it till now. Bah.

This is quite a few years old, but it still cracks me up. If you don't understand it, maybe it's time to go and brush up on some physics and math.

M(2.71828)r^2(1/y)^-1 x(force/acceleration) everyone! See you in the new year!

Now that school's out and I have a million and one things to do, I probably won't have very much time in front of the computer, ergo, little time to blog. Check back here from time to time, but frequent updates probably won't happen til January. Anyway, all you psycho blog stalkers out there probably won't be checking up on blogs all that often.

Til then, enjoy your holidays! I'll most definitely be back at Christmastime for Season's Greetings :)

True story!

I really can't stay