Why so bright?

I saw an illuminating piece of news on the 10 o’clock Chinese news this evening (29/08/2008).

By next year, you will be able to walk along the length of the river haloed by blue, pink or green lights (for an example, pop into Bar Opiume @ the Asian Civilisations Museum).

Apparently, programmable lights will be installed at "Read and Cavenagh bridges, special lighting for four underpasses at Boat Quay, Empress Place and Clarke Quay, under-bridge lighting for the Clemenceau, Coleman and Elgin bridges, floating lights on the river, as well as new street lamps and lighting of trees along the entire three-kilometre stretch of the Singapore River" (from STB press release).

On TV, the PR person proclaimed that it was necessary because "the river has alot of history and this lighting will enhance the uniqueness of Singapore’s tropical features."  Was the Singapore River lit up like an overly garish blue, green and pink birthday cake in the past? I don’t know.

But they must be right. The river is being outfitted with candles, lamps, lanterns and will-o-wisps to modishly light it up like an oversized, watery birthday cake. Ah well, at least, I can safely assume that the authorities will not program the Singapore River’s lights to exclaim "I Love Singapore" in Morse code.

Or will they?

Resources: URA Lighting Plan | STB Press Release

$8 a day

is my budget for the next few months. Why? Because I’ve been spending way too much money on alcohol, food, taxis and movies. This stringent $8 / day covers all expenses: travel, food and whatever else.

But a problem has cropped up: I want a beer. A tall cold pint of beer.

And it’s killing me. I wake up thinking of it, I lumber home thinking of it, I eat my measly smashed-up tuna and exploded eggs – thinking of a tall, cold pint of beer.

Now, how am I going to get me a pint of that stuff without busting my budget?
Suggestions, anyone?

Bouncing Breasts

My little cousin must like me quite a bit.

She – knowing my predilection for women with nice tits – has sent me an animated .gif file of two rather huge hooters. As much as I appreciate her sharing stuff with me, it is rather disconcerting to see them hooters move as if they were elasticised beach balls.

Here it is dear perverts. I also pose a question, "can plastic surgery re-create this pair on non-hentai women?"

(Click on the picture below to see it animate)

Exploding Eggs

Duck!

That is just bad.

Anyways, despite the horrible pun, you should never, ever heat up eggs in a microwave oven. Yours truly, did it for his eggs. And one of them blew up in the oven!

The white, slightly-flat sphere spun out of the dish, spewed its yolk, ricocheted off the oven’s roof before settling into a rounded nook.

It was entertaining; as much as as a sadist enjoys watching cats burst apart in space. As for me, I’m just happy that the oven was built like a tank. Other egg-eaters had it worse (NewScientist Report). Now back to breaking up egg stalagmites and stalactites in the oven.

Warning: Long article

 

This 7,000 word article from the Washington Post asks "Is art contextual?".

 

Instead of going the academic route and pouring over curators, the writers get a famous violinist to busk in subway with his violin. Not surprisingly, most of the rush-hour crowd barrels past him and he earns a grand total of $40. Guess we’re not that appreciative of art taken out of the concert hall.

 

An intriguing story angle. Excellent writting. Stuff that you wouldn’t see in The Straits Times.

 

Read it at the Washington Post website.

Timescape – Gregory Benford

 

Messages from the future, oceanic blooms, a womanising councilman and bitchy scientists

 

Benford’s SF novel combines all the elements so loved by SF authors – time-travel; ecological disasters; and grandfather paradoxes – with believable characters communicating across two eras: 1963 and 1998.

 

In 1998, the world is dying from fast-growing oceanic algae that kill off the fishes and spreads onto land. A group of physicists use Tachyons to send dire warnings, as Morse code, back to 1963. The warnings arrive in La Jolle where a young professor, Gordon Bernstein, picks up and decodes the warnings through his magnetic resonance experiments. Later, we see that it changes history in a big way: John F Kennedy survives Oswald’s assassination attempt. This causes the timelines to split. Gordon’s 1963 has a different (and presumably brighter) future than bleak 1998, although they both exist. What a way to side-step the grandfather paradox.

 

Like the best stories, there are plenty of dilemmas – the impending end-of-the-world, prejudices, fears and annoying colleagues – for each character. For example, the 1963 version of Gordon Bernstein becomes a pariah, because of his messages from the future, amongst the local physicists until another scientist received the same messages. Academic bitchiness and closed-mindedness? Most definitely!!! 

 

Pub. 1980 | Call no: BEN | Synopsis: Wiki Entry

 

Conversations with sacred mountains – Laurence J. Brahm

 

Mystical, spiritual, sometimes as incomprehensible as a Zen koan.

 

That sums up the people whom Laurence meets on his journey on the tea-horse trail in Yunnan: lagubrious, doped up couples in Dali; a Tibetian girl with a metal stud through her lower lip; Naxi couples who commit suicide to live together forever in paradise; Tibetian lamas clear the clouds with a can of coke; a man devotes his life to cleaning out a temple; a famous Mosu woman who’s been out of China and now returns home.

 

Along the way, he discovers worlds where spirits still roam freely in people’s imagination.  This book is different from other travelogues in that there’s hardly any fact-giving – just a page in the beginning of new places. The bulk of the information comes from his interviews with the characters whom he meets.

 

 

Mostly Harmless – Douglas Adams

 

The wrap-up of ‘The Hichhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ series.

 

it introduces a new character: Trica Macmillian.

 

The guide’s been taken over by Vogons. Arthur Dent has a daughter in the worst possible way: Trillian used Arthur’s DNA (ugh) to create her. Nothing in it for Arthur except for the joys and despairs, mostly despairs, of parenthood. And just when Arthur finds his niche as a Sandwich-making man on a primitive world.

 

Ah well… it just goes to show that you can’t have everything your way.

Life, the Universe and Everything – Douglas Adams

 

This one lies somewhere in the middle of ‘The Hichhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ series.

 

Arthur has been stranded for the longest time in pre-history, meets Ford Prefect who drags him out to save the world again. Expect snide commentry about cricket and its silliness. Trillian turns up to put things in perspective and save the day somewhat. Zaphod keeps getting knocked out by stun guns and Marvin depresses a legion of killer robots.

 

The amazing part about the book is how the different bits and pieces in the book: history of a warlike race, frogs, rabbits, cavemen, cricket, a floating party and a ever-changing bag become essential parts of the book – usually a few chapters after they’ve been introduced. The funniest part is an ever-reincarnating rabbit who keeps getting killed by Arthur.

 

He swears revenge but still ends up getting destroyed by Arthur. Well, at least someone cares enough about bland old Arthur to hate him.

Take me with you: A round-the-world journey to invite a stranger home. – Brad Newsham

 

Brad’s a San Fransisco Bay area cabbie who decides to make good on his promise – made in Afghanistan mountains, 1974 – to invite someone to come visit him in America.

 

To achieve this end, he takes 100 days to go around the world: Phillippines, India, Africa then home. He, essentially, judges people based on 2 questions (‘what is the best thing in your life’ & ‘what is the worst thing in your life’) and their relationships to other people and places. He meets up with bigots, incredibly wonderful people and goes looking for adventure in the smallest places.

 

While he writes beautifully about the places that bring him peace; his greatest strength lies in his ear for dialogue, naive and cutting thoughts interspersed in-between and his declaration that he suffers from the same problem as a common traveller: forgetfulness and complacency "Each morning I awoke to a day of mystery – saw new landscapes, ate new foods, met only strangers and rarely knew where i might lay my sleeping bag at night. But a month at home and this adventure would surely fade. Days would pass when i would speak only to the same two or three familiar people and months during which i would eat in the same two or three predictable restaurants. I might even forget which closet my sleeping bag was stored in. I would gradually come to fear the uncertainty and unsettling freedom of the road, would be able ot cite a hundred reasons why I couldn’t go traveling this year. Next year, maybe. Now I closed my eyes, listened to the ocean’s hum, the boys’ yelps, the shrill complaints of the harbor birds and the rustle of palms. A two-fifty room. Fresh fish dinners. Fifty cent beers. Remember all this, I thought. Enjoy it. Never take it for granted." 

 

This is a story with a big heart. A story that tells everyone ‘Travel is the best thing that can happen to everyone.’