Year's End

It's that time of year again. When it all draws to a close, yet again. It's a time of feasting and dancing, and laughing and sales-hopping.

Sometimes I wonder if we lose ourselves in all the celebration and merriment so that we don't have to actually think about how another year has gone by. And how much faster time flies year by year.

So in between the frenetic festivities, I'm going to try and find a little time for myself and well, perhaps not exactly soul searching, but it might be good to do a little personal spring cleaning -
taking another look at the good times, putting behind the bad times, and let go of things that need letting go. Hopefully, lah!

I'm not one for resolutions - never any good with them. But at my age, it's probably a good idea to have a think about where I'm at and where I'm going. There's a lot to be done. I'll just have to take it one step at a time. And the turning of the year is always a good time to make that first step.

Anyway, hope everyone out there is enjoying the year end with all its specials. Here's a song to close the year with...

I'd like to build the world a home and furnish it with love
Grow apple trees and honey bees and snow-white turtle doves
I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony
I'd like to hold it in my arms and keep it company

(It's the song I hear) I'd like to teach the world to sing
(That the world sings today) In perfect harmony
I'd like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony

New Seekers : I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony)

May the new year bring with it a little more joy, a pinch more of peace, and a whole lot more of love. Happy holidays, each and every one!

Apparently I've Been Misinterprating 'Local' All This While

In the news today - a supposedly upbeat piece about relaxing of rules for foreign ownership of property here. I have nothing against opening up of markets if it would lead to greater competition and better quality.

But wait. Here's what a minister had to say about ensuring local citizens remain protected:

... there will be protection for locals as there will still be bumiputra allocations and discounts.
Excerpt from The Star, 21 Dec 2006.

Forgive me if I don't find that reassuring. In fact, I feel quite the opposite. And it has nothing to do with foreigners buying property here.

It's just that I'm horribly concerned about my loss of recognition as a rightful citizen of the land I call home.

Almost Butch

Spent the past few days scouring the shops for a good drill. I meant the power tool. As in hardware. Oh never mind.

You'd think purchasing a drill would be some seriously butch thing that a guy bent on doing DIY home projects (and I don't mean crochet) would do. Well, I thought, anyway. But noooo, even under such cirumstances, the more... ahh... "celebratory" side of me insisted on surfacing.

-walks into store-

Hmmm... drills, drills... ah. Here we go. Let's see... boring, boring, pricey, dodgy...

Hey look at that one! Cordless drill. So cool. No pesky cables to get in the way of that ultra-butch look when I'm wielding it. And I can use it to drive screws too! Lord knows I have enough trouble trying to do that with my dainty hands.

Then again, it's battery operated. Probably ok for light work but would it drill a hole in the wall? I need more power. Like this one - 700 watts! Woah, like, what a monster, dude! Variable speed reversible, drill/drive/hammer, it's got the works for home use. Price isn't cheap, but not too bad either. Ah, no drill bits included. Have to think about this one.

Waitaminute. What's that?

-scurries over to next aisle-

Oooh. Butch toolboxes. *Gasp* Lookatthisone - check out it's size! So big! And solid! And strong! Oh oh... even got neat little compartments on the top to organise all the screws and nuts and nails (not the ones on your fingers lah). And the price is only... *choke*... Two. Hundred. Ringgit. For an empty, plastic toolbox.

-backs off quickly and goes back to the drills-

Hey, here's one. Low price. 500W - no bigass juice guzzling machine but respectable enough. Also VSR, drill/drive/hammer, etc... And it comes in a nice box to keep it in. Ooh and the box has a compartment on the top to store away my bits! And omg... accessories included! Accessories are good! I love accessories!

-out comes the credit card for the (lost count)-th time this month-

Hey, at least I didn't approach the store assistant, put one hand on my breast chest, and wave with the other (wrist limp and pinky extended), and go, "Boy! Boy! Oy! Now be a dear, will you, and get me one those... things... that go drrrrr..."

Hmmm... With the amount of posts in my blog lately that involve acts of indiscriminate shopping, I feel like I should somehow be hearing alarm bells ringing away (lots of them) and start being more (much more) thrifty with my expenses.

Then again, that constitutes a resolution. And resolutions can wait till January :P

[ haiku ]

serendipity
chance encounter led you here
sitting close by me

Stop! Slow Down Baby

Slow down baby
And don't act crazy
Don't you know you can look all you want but you just can't touch
Christina Aguilera : Slow Down Baby

There are times in a man's life when he just has to stop and smell the roses.

To cruise down the slow lane and enjoy the scenery.

To throttle down, lean back, and watch the world go by.

...

Damned run-in period and its abysmal speed limit.

Joy & Loathing In The Valley (A Really Small Perspective)

Joy:
Woke up late on a Monday morning. But no worries, it's a public holiday!
(:D

Loathing:
Spent half the morning of said holiday locked between the grille and my own front door.
>:(

My First Time

Somehow first times are mostly overrated. I mean, just how many people out there remember their first step on one foot, or their first word. And if ever those giant-leap moments were ever captured by ever-attentive parents on their ever-present camcorder, well, most of us would probably be embarassed to see that tape being pulled out year after year.

First kiss? First fuck? Well,undoubtedly memorable, but honestly, only the lucky ones have it memorable for the right reasons.

Still, every once in a while there comes really great first moments - like the first time I drove a car as a licensed driver, which was a pretty proud moment especially since I got my license earlier than most of my friends being a March baby and all.

Here's another 'first' to make it into my book of good memories:

After they’d lugged the components to my room, Skinhead and Younger Guy offered to put it together for me, which was not part of the deal. Naturally, I jumped at it and in short order, everything was set up.

“All we need is a bedsheet,” I said.

“No we don't,” said Skinhead with a wink. He proceeded to pull me to him, while Younger Guy – exhibiting no hesitation whatsoever – whipped off my shorts with remarkable skill. And for the next hour or so, in the name of research, we vigorously tested every part of the bed, from the headboard (strong) to the frame (sturdy) to the mattress (springy).

On that cold December morning, my new bed was christened over and over again.

In case you're wondering, that wasn't about the first bed I bought. In fact, it wasn't even my bed. That was my first Jay. Possibly the first blog I ever read, and what luck, it turned out to be one that was full of creativity, wit and gaily-skewed perspective. Definitely one of the best blogs I've been reading. And I've been reading it for a good two years now, which, by no coincidence whatsoever, has been almost the same amount of time I've been blogging.

Happy Blogiversary, Jay darling! It's been a fabulous two years with you around, no doubt about it ;-)

Anyone up for a 'My First Jay' meme? Consider yourselves tagged :-)

The Best Things In Life Are Free

But sometimes you just have to do that little bit of extra work to get it.

I'm talking about AVG Free - the software that finally made virus protection free to the masses. I use it because it's free, but I like it for other reasons as well.

1. It's a basic system, which means it's light. No additional features or heavy-duty, multi-featured, multiple-software-on-one-platform stuff, which eat up disk space, slows down the system, and makes startup godawfully sluggish.

2. It's fast (see Item 1). Also fast to download upgrades and new definitions over a broadband line - the whole process finishes itself in a jiffy which means you won't get bogged down by it.

3. It's non-obstrusive. A good security system should protect your computer as quietly as possible, rather than serving you with all sorts of pop-up alerts, pesky reminders and perhaps even crashing your PC.

I admit a free software probably would never be as good as one that you pay for, but hey, it's been working alright.

Recently, however, AVG has taken to sending occasional reminders to upgrade from the current version which would be taken off in about a month's time. Fine. Seems that I can upgrade to AVG Free 7.5, not like they're removing support for free software.

Here's the thing - clicking on the link takes you to AVG's site where you can get version 7.5. The paid version. So is there no free version of 7.5?

Actually, yes. They do have it. Just that it's off the main AVG site and in Grisoft's free software site. The tricky bastards. Good thing I sniffed around and found it.

So to those out there who are using AVG Free and are still wondering how to upgrade it to 7.5, here's the link to take you straight there.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-virus-free

Now everyone can play safe :-)

Eating Words (& Other Fun Stuff)

Sometimes, a long while isn't quite that long. Wasn't it just last week that I said I wasn't gonna bring my notebook out anytime soon?

Well, granted that I didn't know then that the PC Fair would be in town. So instead of bringing it to go sit in a cafe to (hopefully) attract the attention of gorgeous gymbag-toting technogadget-loving men of the same sex persuasion, I did the next best thing - I took my notebook shopping!

Must say I've never actually been to any PC Fair before this but this one's definitely huge and packed with people. Kinda felt like a kid let loose in a candy store. External hard drives! Flash drives! FM modulators! Printers! Sound systems! Cool cooling systems! They really do have everything in there - and many at pretty good prices too.

I was tempted to get a modulator, which is a kind of gadget that allows you to hook up a flash drive, fit the modulator into the car DC power supply (the part where there's a knob with a picture of a cigarette on it, though I don't know anyone, smokers included, who ever use that to light their cigarettes, much like there are still ashtrays in the car which are almost always used to keep coins, sweet wrappers and bits of fluff; but I digress...) and the modulator would then transmit a radiowave to your car so you can play all the music stuffed in your thumbdrive through your car radio. Who needs CD changers these days? A basic unit only costs less than $50 though the one that was priced over $100 had cool features like an LCD screen, song randomisation function, and yes, it looks real pretty.

I would have bought the basic unit. The only thing that stopped me was the fact I didn't buy it there and then, and believe me, backtracking to where you first found something you wanted isn't really an option.

What I did buy were some DVD-R's so that I could finally burn that FMA movie for my friends. And of course, to archive some of the more interesting movies I found, of questionable nature or otherwise. Ahem.

I also got my notebook a new companion in the form of a 2 GB flash drive. To think I can like, share a whole movie with my friends without having to burn a DVD. Hehe. Oh wait. So now I don't have to actually burn the DVDs for them? Erm.

The other thing I was considering was one of those all-in-one printers. The thing is, I don't really have anywhere to put it. Also, I barely use printers at home - maybe like once or twice a year. I've been getting by on the goodwill of people such as, well, Good Will, who was considerate enough the other day to be not in London or somesuchplace, when I had a very last minute printjob to execute. Well, that's what friends are for anyway.

In any case, that little consideration was thrown out the window the moment I found something better to throw my money at, namely this. I honestly didn't think I'd get a backpack of this quality for a price that's less than an all-in-one printer (and please don't tell me if I didn't get a good deal anyway, not after buying Absolute Sandman and seeing the book go on sale a few weeks later... and oh, the bag's cheaper than Absolute Sandman after discount so I'm taking that to be my consolation). It is a Targus after all, and it's really well-designed, what with plenty of storage and compartments and being all properly padded, the better to protect my notebook with, and all that.

So yes, my notebook now has a cool bag to travel in, you know, for all those times I'm not bringing it out.

Everybody say it together now: A gay and his money are soon parted!

Amen.