Wenjie Coffee Talk

Moving.

2005-12-17T12:59:00.000+08:00

I am shifting my blog to my own hosting site:

Wenjie's Ramblings

If there are any one of you out there, please update your links. Thanks.

Welcome to the Dark Side!

2005-12-15T13:58:00.000+08:00

Guess who is joining me at the Dark Side?

Darth Kry

Normal

2005-11-14T23:31:00.000+08:00

Normal is getting dressed in clothes that you buy for work and driving through traffic in a car that you are still paying for - in order to get to the job you need to pay for the clothes and the car, and the house you leave vacant all day so you can afford to live in it.
- Ellen Goodman

Alone

2005-11-11T00:13:00.000+08:00

We are alone, absolutely alone on this chance planet: and, amid all the forms of life that surround us, not one, excepting the dog, has made an alliance with us.
- Maurice Maeterlinck

Stomach Flu

2005-10-26T22:50:00.000+08:00

It occured to me that it is only when I am suffering in pain that I will promise myself to watch my health. I had a stomach flu for the past 3 days, and basically last night was hell. I woke up in the middle of the night, seriously thinking of waking up my wife to bring me to the SGH's A&E department, since that was the nearest 24 hours clinic.

I have yet to eat anything since yesterday, and within 3 days, I lost 5 kg.

And while thrashing in pain in the wee hours of this morning, I promised myself that I will start exercising again, watch my weight, watch what I eat.

Then this evening, feeling sufficiently recovered, I had MacDonald's for dinner, justifying it by saying I will not have any appetite for anything else. Yah. Right.

Incidentally, Blogger tells me this is my 100th post. Happy 100th Post!

Memories

2005-10-13T11:08:00.000+08:00

I am moving.

The new place is ready and I will be moving in soon. My present place belongs to my mother-in-law and I have always felt that we should have our own place. After going for balloting, around 9 months later, our new place is renovated and ready.

I took a few days leave to pack. It is surprisingly how much our stuff has grown in size in the last 2 years. While sorting through my stuff to pack away in boxes, I came across various stuff that I had very fond memories of.

Old photos, old bus tickets (back in the days when the buses still have bus conductors to issue bus tickets), old cinema tickets (where they actually write the cinema seat numbers on the tickets). Also I have not thrown away any of the Christmas/Chinese New Year/Valentine's cards that were sent to me by friends throughout the years. Those were back in the days when people actually sent out physical cards to people they care about. Flipping through these cards, I realised I have lost contact with most of these people, and I cannot even remember how some of them look like. But it sure bring back a lot of fond memories. In this digital era where such cards are all digitalised and are only kept for a short while online, I wonder how the people will remember such digital cards 10 years down the road?

Old diaries (where I secretly penned of puppy loves), old autograph books which I passed around to friends to pen a few words when we were about to separate, one when I was about to leave my Primary School after my PSLE, and one for my Secondary School after my O levels.

Old letters when people actually write physical letters instead of emailing them. Reading through some of them brings a smile on my face, and some makes my eyes all misty. Again, will we remember any of the emails that we sent today 10 years in the future?

And finally, some old items that I had very fond memories of, and had stubbornly refused to throw them away. A very old cassette player, my first cassette player that was given to me when I had wanted a Walkman at that time. When Walkman first came out, I wanted one very badly but then it was very expensive. In the end I was given a cassette player. I remember I was not very satisfied then, but then having something was better than nothing. I remember bringing it to a class excursion (cannot remember to which places) and was happily listening to it on the school bus then. A very old Parker pen, the very first pen I was given back in the days when people actually write with pencils. A very old mechnical pencil, the very first mechnical pencil given to me. There are so many other old items, each and everyone of them holding memories that I so dearly cherished.

I know of people who do not keep such items, and instead prefer to look to the future. But I always believe by not throwing away such items that we will realise we have to cherish every single second of our present lives, to live life to the fullest, so that one day when we flipped through such items in the future, we will only have sweet memories.

I am sure feeling nostalgic at the moment.

Hitch

2005-09-22T21:33:00.000+08:00

Life is not the amount of breaths you take, it's the moments that take your breath away. - Alex 'Hitch' Hitchens, the movie 'Hitch'

By the way, great movie.

Note To Self

2005-09-21T14:21:00.000+08:00

All journeys begin with a small step. It just takes a small step to begin all epic journeys.

Nintendogs and such.

2005-09-19T00:30:00.000+08:00

I recently bought a Nintendo DS and the very popular game Nintendogs.

I was feeling guilty about spending just a little bit too much time playing World of Warcraft, and with me hogging the PC, my wife had nothing else to do.

I chose the game Nintendogs, well because it has to do with dogs. And basically the game plays like Tamagochi with dogs.

Initially my wife was not really interested in the game, saying that there is no substitute for a real dog, but after a while, she is addicted. Watching her say commands to her dog via the inbuilt microphone in the Nintendo DS with a smile on her face really makes it money well spent.

New Addition to My Family

2005-09-12T22:29:00.000+08:00

The latest addition to my family. Isn't she adorable?

Time

2005-09-12T14:13:00.000+08:00

I have been really busy lately. One of my friend told me previously that there is time for everything, it is just a method of prioritising and managing my tasks.

Now let me see, I work during the day, and usually reaching home around 8pm. After dinner, a shower, some quick chores like bringing out the garbage, some cleaning here and there and it is around 10pm. After which, I sit down and finally make small talk with my wife before she sleeps around 11pm.

The next few hours before I sleep are mine. In these few hours, I have to keep up with what is happening in the world via the Net, relax by playing WoW or other games, check my own personal email, read my books. I usually goes to bed around 1am. So that left me around 2 hours just to do my own stuff. Not much time is there?

Weekends are spent with 1 day cleaning up the house, doing the laundry, ironing clothes and the other day is either spent doing some grocery shopping or just chilling out at home.

So from Monday to Friday I get like just 10 hours. Hardly enough to play a game, pick up a new programming language, read a book.

Not to mention nowadays I have to deal with the renovation of my new place, getting my present place rented out, caring for the new addition to my family, and I really start to wonder if this is just a case of poor management of time on my part or really 24 hours a day is not enough?

More Doggie Photos

2005-08-17T22:31:00.000+08:00

As promised, here are a few more pics of Jojo :

I Am Back!

2005-08-14T22:28:00.000+08:00

I am back from my holidays! Feel rested and recharged. But knowing my job, I will lose all these energy within the first day I return back to work.

In the meantime, some sugar coated photos :

Holiday

2005-08-03T00:57:00.000+08:00

I will be going to Perth for a week and half holiday. Yes, yes, I will be spending National Day away from Singapore. So, shoot me.

It has been a year since the last time I visited Perth. I missed my dog a lot. The last time I saw him was last year when all of us went down south of Perth to Margaret River and Albany for a holiday.

I saw the doctor yesterday for a slight case of flu. As part of the routine checkup, my blood pressure was taken. My blood pressure went down slightly, from a 145/90 last year, to a 140/100 yesterday. However, it is still high. The doctor put me on a course of new generation of high blood pressure medicine, which supposedly has no side effects. I will give it a try and then decide if I should continue with it. It is depressing to hear from him that prolong high blood pressure actually causes stroke, and kidney failure. He was saying that out of 10 patients in Singapore who needs kidney dialysis, 4 of them were due to high blood pressure. I guess I should really seriously watch my diet, lower my salt intake and start exercising!

On a lighter side, I manage to dig up some nice photos that I took from my trip to Perth last year. The last picture is a picture of my dog. Isn't he a handsome and charming little devil?

Kodak Moment

2005-07-31T11:51:00.000+08:00

I was doing a bit of grocery shopping with my wife at Jasons in CityHall when I came upon this Kodak stand at the entrance.

It allows you to upload photos via CF card, CDs, diskettes, from handphone etc into it and within minutes develop the photo. Always one to try out new tech stuff, I happily try to upload a photo from my handphone.

The handphone option offers 2 mode, either via 'wireless' or infrared. The 'wireless' here is a bit misleading, does it mean bluetooth or wifi? From the instructions, it says to look for a device named 'Picturemaker'. If it is a device, then it should be Bluetooth. Not wanting to go through all the trouble aligning my handphone to the infrared receiver, I fired up my bluetooth on my handphone, and sure enough, a device named 'Picturemaker' was discovered.

Choosing a nice picture of my dog, I uploaded it. The transfer was fast, and painless. After then on, it was basically just editing the picture, choosing the size of the photo and the quantity needed.

Payment was either by Cashcard or NETS. I opted for NETS, and was quite pleased to find it only costs 50cents per picture. After paying, the picture was developed in less than 30seconds.

Remarkably painless, smooth and very easy to use. Thumbs up from me.

Singapore Chinese

2005-07-29T10:58:00.000+08:00

I came across an article in the ST today that mentions something about Singapore Chinese not feeling Chinese.

I have always look upon myself as a Singapore chinese. The only ties that I have with China is my race. I was born in Singapore, raised in Singapore. My family is in Singapore, my friends is in Singapore. I have absolutely no ties with China. So why should I be actually trying to relate to China?

Everytime I travel out of Singapore, I have always corrected foreigners who always assumed that just because I am Chinese, I am from China. I have always firmly inform them that I am a Singapore Chinese, and not a China Chinese, and no, Singapore is not some province in China.

For all her imperfections, her funny Gahmen policies, Singapore is MY home. I served 2 1/2 years of my life and then 13 years after that protecting her. If Singapore is NOT my home, then where is? Even if I migrate over to Australia next time, I will always view Singapore as my home, and that I am a Singapore Chinese. I will always go back to Singapore from Australia and not go to Singapore from Australia.

I see nothing wrong with myself not relating to China, nor am I going to try to associate myself with China.

Bloggers.sg 2005

2005-07-18T17:34:00.000+08:00

So this was recently concluded :

What is this with bloggers finally coming out of their shell and showing themselves to fellow bloggers? I snort till I realised I had been doing it a few years ago.

It is exactly the same. The MUD gatherings, the IRC gatherings etc. Just that at this moment in time, the latest craze, the 'IN' thing, the latest trend, is to blog, just like it used to be MUD, IRC etc. I even recognised a blogger who attended this Bloggers.sg con, fatter now and holding his daughter, who used to be a famous buaya in the MUDing community and also used to attend such MUD gatherings frequently. Just like this one.

It is funny. As time moves forward, the things we used to do still exists, just under a different name.

Satellite Image of Singapore

2005-06-26T19:18:00.000+08:00

Satellite image of Singapore

Why? Nothing. I just found it interesting.

I Choose To Be Happy.

2005-06-23T13:06:00.000+08:00

I CHOOSE to be happy.

There. I said it.

Everyone has a choice. They can choose how they will react. It does not matter how bad their situation is, what kind of environment they are in, or whether they are sinking in the deepest and biggest cesspool or shithole, they can choose how they want to react.

The environment, the situation do not control our reaction. We do. We have a choice on our reaction.

So I CHOOSE to be happy.

You Think I Born Yesterday?

2005-06-14T23:20:00.000+08:00

When I shifted to this place less than 2 years ago, I often get teenagers knocking my door at night selling ice cream. The last straw came last year when a teenager knocked on my door close to 11pm asking me to buy ice cream. That was when I told him bluntly how late it was and he should be at home now, and asking him not to disturb me. That stop the frequent ice cream sales.

Until tonight.

This time round, a teenager told me a different story. He is from Temasek Poly, and he is in a race to see who is the fastest to sell off everything. He has 3 left and if he manages to sell them off, he wins. When I asked him what he was selling, he answered, 'ice cream'.

Now, I was not born yesterday. And if he wants to tell a cock and bull story, at least come up with something more convincing. Temasek Poly has a race? On a weekday night? Selling ice cream? He never even mention what the race is for. I had a good mind to ask him to give me a telephone number to call Temasek Poly to verify, wanted to ask him what the race is for. Whether the money goes to charity or not. And where is his identification? I am sure any race, if such thing exists, whether they are selling ice cream or whatever, Temasek Poly will actually provide some kind of identification.

I dismissed him off, slamming the door in his face. Trying to make a honest living by selling ice cream is fine, trying to lie your way through to sell ice cream is not.

Trackback Added.

2005-05-30T21:46:00.000+08:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Making Decisions

2005-05-29T20:26:00.000+08:00

How do we make decisions when faced with problems, whether it is a life changing one, or daily mundane ones like what to eat for lunch?

As usual, the excellent KnightofPentacles posted on this, he calls it the Thinking Tookit.

I also did some research, and there are some various interesting bits I picked up on this.

The miltary calls it command presence. When there are two passes through a mountain range, and they are both very much equal obstacles, a good commander swiftly declares, "That one, it's obviously better!", and gets everyone moving. If you do not have enough clear criteria to evaluate a situation to your satisfaction, do not waste time evaluating it by ambiguous criteria. If the situation looks very much 50-50, then either choice is as right as right can be.

Then there are those who solves it from the artistic viewpoint. In art, there is something call the "white page syndrome". You have a clean, white canvas, on it your talents enable you to paint anything. So you sit there, awash in the mental miasma of the endless possibilities assailing you. You then stop thinking, and draw a random line, and then based on what this restricts the possibilities to, you can start to build your decision around it.

As for me, I think I am more of letting the solution/decision to present itself. A decision will be made when the dateline of making the decision draws near. Of course the problem with this approach is that usually the better option that I should have opted for, becomes unavailable as the dateline gets closer. Other decisions made tend to be made emotionally, a classic case of letting the heart rules the brain.

But no matter whether it was a best option, or a wrong choice made, I would still make the best of it, and try my best not to regret the decision. We only live this life once, and it is just too short to start regretting all the wrong choices we made.

Life

2005-05-25T20:53:00.000+08:00

Much have happened in the last couple of months of my life.

The lows.

I have seen my almost ten years of programming code stolen by someone. I have gone through the emotional stress resulting from it. From the countless trips to lawyers, with money as the bottomline, and the pain that came from it. It is not just the many hours of work put in and then used by someone else without my permission, but also the emotional ties to it.

Still stuck with the same job. Have applied for many, all without any result. And I have to watch as one by one, my colleague resigned and move on to a better job. And all this while, my boss goes from bad to worst. Total ignoring the many hours that we put in, how overwork we are, how worthless in terms of skill set we are, and how my other colleagues blame me for not speaking out. My explanation has always been the same, do not burnt your bridge while you are still on it. I have just too many committments and responsibilities now that I can't afford to be unemployed.

The highs.

My wife and I were decided to start looking out for a HDB flat of our own recently. And a balloting exercise by HDB was launched just a few weeks later. We went to look at the flats available, and they were all in very good locations, near to town and MRT stations. We applied. And waited. And when the letter came, we were overjoyed. We had a very good queue number, in front, a single digit queue number. We put in our first choice unit, and we got it. Now it is just a matter of waiting for the appointment to collect our keys. No matter that it is just a piece of 115sqm unit, for just 99 years, and we getting a 30 year loan to pay it off, it still feels good to have a place to call our own. The whole process of applying, choosing our units of choice, and getting our first choice unit, to the now ongoing process of looking for interior designers, thinking of how we want our house to be, I guess in way actually strengthens the relationship between my wife and I. When we were a newly married couple, we were still probing, getting used to each other, and along the way, there were the usual bumps and potholes. The whole process of getting a flat has brought us together even closer than before. I guess when a married couple actually do things together, it really strengthens the marriage.

We learn from our past, we live the present, and look forward to the future. In that way, we can live life to the fullest.

Guess Where I Went For A Short Break?

2005-04-06T00:55:00.000+08:00

The above picture is the hint.

Singapore Serf

2005-03-09T21:13:00.000+08:00

I was recommended by a friend this site

Singapore Serf

It seems like he is in a similiar situation like me. He was in the IT industry, he has a Australian PR, he intends to emigrate to Australia. His blog documented his thought process in a concise and logical way, and his views certainly give a lot of food for thought.

Well worth the time to check it out.

Hey All!

2005-02-08T20:06:00.000+08:00

Happy Chinese New Year!

Something To Ponder On.

2005-01-04T21:52:00.000+08:00

Champions aren't made in gyms. Champions are made from something they have deep inside them - a desire, a dream, a vision. They have to have the skill, and the will. But the will must be stronger than the skill - Muhammad Ali

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami

2004-12-31T21:12:00.000+08:00

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami

Things That Makes Me Laugh.

2004-12-19T23:46:00.000+08:00

t0rbad> so there i was in this hallway right
BlackAdder> i believe i speak for all of us when i say...
BlackAdder> WRONG BTICH
BlackAdder> IM SICK OF YOU
BlackAdder> AND YOUR LAME STORIES
BlackAdder> NOBODY HERE THINKS YOURE FUNNY
BlackAdder> NOBODY HERE WANTS TO HEAR YOUR STORIES
BlackAdder> IN FACT
BlackAdder> IF YOU DIED RIGHT NOW
BlackAdder> I DON"T THINK NOBODY WOULD CARE
BlackAdder> SO WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT FAG
*** t0rbad sets mode: +b BlackAdder*!*@*.*
*** BlackAdder has been kicked my t0rbad ( )
t0rbad> so there i was in this hallway right
CRCError> right
heartless> Right.
r3v> right

An Old Classic

2004-12-18T10:21:00.000+08:00

An old classic geek joke, ala USENet (a 1998 rec.humor.funny post):

better !pout !cry
better watchout
lpr why
santa claus < north pole > town

cat /etc/passwd >list
ncheck list
ncheck list
cat list | grep naughty > nogiftlist
cat list | grep nice > giftlist
santa claus < north pole > town

who | grep sleeping
who | grep awake
who | grep bad || good
for (goodness sake) {
be good
}

A True Story.

2004-11-25T13:09:00.000+08:00

Got this from somewhere :

A few years ago, I worked as a contractor for a certain large company. This company is notorious for driving people too hard, so I had reservations about working there.

When my contract was handed to me for signing, the default "max 8 hrs x 5 days per week" clause had been removed. I asked about that, as that clause generally serves as protection for both my customer (they don't get slugged for huge dollars and can plan their cash flow accordingly) and me (I get to see my family). The company replied that it was normal practice for them to remove any such clauses.

A few weeks in, and most of the people around me were working 18 hour days regularly (I started right around crunch time). I made a policy decision as follows:
- I'd work up to 14 hours a day
- once I'd worked 60 hours a week, I'd go home

Remember I was a contractor; I didn't feel any personal or professional commitment towards a management group that had put into place these sorts of work practices, and it was quite obvious to anyone working there that the long hours being worked were leading to mistakes that led to additional hours being worked to fix them.

Anyway, as expected, I got confronted pretty quickly about my perceived slacking off. My response was that I hadn't signed up for a lifestyle change; I was after income, pure and simple. Being close to Xmas, I was quite happy to work a few extra hours, pocket some extra cash and thus fund a nicer holiday, but that was the extent of the sacrifice I was prepared to make for the cause.

I pretty much had them over a barrel at that point; there was no time to train someone to replace me, and I'd made it abundantly clear what my motivations were and that they were essentially non-negotiable.

My personal lack of commitment was discussed in front of the rest of my workmates, by my boss, at the next team meeting. I took it on myself to respond, outlining my reasons for working as I did and that I didn't regard limiting myself to 60 hour weeks as being a lack of commitment - I said I thought it showed a lack of planning, and left it at that. When I finished, you could have heard a pin drop...

A few days prior to Xmas, my boss didn't turn up. This was strange, given that he worked huge hours himself, but not unexpected since pretty much everyone was quite ill at that point due to tiredness and shared (airborne) diseases. When he didn't turn up the next few days either, someone called his house and there was no answer. Eventually a relative of his went to his house and found he'd hung himself in the bedroom.

I've got no doubt at all that his death was 90%+ due to overwork, possibly exacerbated by my taking a somewhat defiant stance in public several days earlier. He'd lived alone and worked huge hours for the past several years, so there was no real possibility for other issues to have caused his suicide.

After a few months' thought, and subsequent discussions with my fellow workmates at that place, I decided that what had happened had been pretty grim but ultimately good things had come out of it. Work practices in that particular group had changed quite dramatically in the following few months; the new boss had put caps on the number of hours worked each day and each week, and re-introduced paid overtime for full time employees. Although several people had left (the turnover in that group ran close to 80% per year), those that were still there were now working in a way they felt was personally and professionally sustainable.

Having several of them call me up to thank me for taking a stance in a very awkward environment certainly helped me personally, although my "stance" was totally selfish.

Since then, I simply refuse to work in "death march" situations. I find the whole idea totally absurd; the end result is that a crappier product is shipped slightly sooner, but people's lives are affected too much for the trade-off to be worthwhile. I've seen two deaths (one described above), several bitter divorces, people leaving the industry, middle-of-the-office screaming matches, ... - life's just too short for this sort of rubbish, and IMHO anyone who thinks it's appropriate really needs to adjust their thinking.

Health, Amongst Other Things

2004-11-24T23:12:00.000+08:00

I was feeling breathless and some pain in the chest on Monday night. Deciding that it warranted some attention, I took yesterday to see a doctor downstairs.

After a thorough examination, the doctor told me I had high blood pressure. A normal person's blood pressure should be between 80/120. Mine was 110/170. 140 is high. 170 is VERY high. The doctor did a ECG on me, which basically checks if my heart has any problems. Luckily, it was just enlarged, a common thing for those with high blood pressure. As the doctor explains to me what are the causes and what are the remedies, I suddenly realised that I still have not done a lot of things in my life. I was too young to die. I have not yet seen so many parts of the world!

Anyway, I was quite determined to reduce my blood pressure. I was watching my diet today, and intend to do so for the rest of my life. No more excessive red meat, buffets, soft drinks, sweets. Coffee will be limited to 2 cups a day. Soft drinks, the less the better. Less red meat, none if possible. More vegetables. And regular exercise.

I guess we all take our health for granted until something like this happen to us. That is when we all wake up that we are not immortal. I think I am lucky enough to realise it before it was too late, and therefore I will do something about it.

Work and Taxi Drivers

2004-11-22T01:32:00.000+08:00

Past two to three weeks have really been crazy for me. It seems like I am the only one who is not on leave. I have to support all our clients alone, and to add to that, there were a couple of migration projects which can only be done during public holidays and weekends. My wife has been complaining that I am hardly around during weekends, and actually I am so sick and tired that I do not even bother to complain any more, save for one incident where I blew up at a client.

I think I am seriously done with support, and my job scope actually says that I should be doing more than just support. Somehow, it seems like I have been doing support more than anything else in my present job. I told myself that no matter what next job I am going for, no more support for me. I have enough of support work.

On another note, working on weekends brings up a very interesting observation. I always take a taxi from my home to the project site and then take a taxi back home. It seems like just because my destination is in the CBD/City area, and it is on a weekend, the first question all taxi drivers asked is if I am going back to work. And when I answered yes, they will shake their head and rant on about how people nowadays are being exploited or they react with a shock expression that I am working on a weekend. I guess not too many does it. Either that or the taxi drivers are just using it to strike up a conversation.

Firefox 1.0

2004-11-10T01:20:00.000+08:00

The wonderful browser Firefox 1.0 is finally out today. Go grab it at :

http://mozilla.ussg.indiana.edu/pub/mozilla.org/firefox/releases/1.0/

This is a mirror, the main site is really hammered.

It's time to take back the web!

The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord

2004-11-06T14:53:00.000+08:00

This is funny :

The Top 100 Things I'd Do If I Ever Became An Evil Overlord

My New Handphone

2004-10-31T20:42:00.000+08:00

My new handphone :

Soup

2004-10-29T23:22:00.000+08:00

You know the book Chicken Soup for the Soul that generated a whole library of chicken soup books?

Well, Campbell Instant Soup is almost similiar, except that it is for the body and not the soul. Just tear the packet, pour the contents into a coup, add hot water and stir. And you have instant soup! Best drank on a cold and raining day.

I have boxes of this at home.

Neal Stephenson

2004-10-28T14:11:00.000+08:00

Neal Stephenson is a very intelligent author, if you had read his first book Cryptonomicon, you will understand what I mean.

Recently I came across an interview with him, and in his typical intelligent fashion, he answered all the questions with wit and humour. Here is one answer that is especially funny (Warning : Very long answer (2802 words in fact)) :

Science Fiction is normally relegated to the specialist publications rather than having reviews in the main stream press. Seen as "fringe" and a bit sad its seldom reviewed with anything more than condescension by the "quality" press.

Does it bother you that people like Jeffery Archer or Jackie Collins seem to get more respect for their writing than you ?

Neal:

OUCH!

(removes mirrorshades, wipes tears, blows nose, composes self)

Let me just come at this one from sort of a big picture point of view.

(the sound of a million Slashdot readers hitting the "back" button...)

First of all, I don't think that the condescending "quality" press look too kindly on Jackie Collins and Jeffrey Archer. So I disagree with the premise of the last sentence of this question and I'm not going to address it. Instead I'm going to answer what I think MosesJones is really getting at, which is why SF and other genre and popular writers don't seem to get a lot of respect from the literary world.

To set it up, a brief anecdote: a while back, I went to a writers' conference. I was making chitchat with another writer, a critically acclaimed literary novelist who taught at a university. She had never heard of me. After we'd exchanged a bit of of small talk, she asked me "And where do you teach?" just as naturally as one Slashdotter would ask another "And which distro do you use?"

I was taken aback. "I don't teach anywhere," I said.

Her turn to be taken aback. "Then what do you do?"

"I'm...a writer," I said. Which admittedly was a stupid thing to say, since she already knew that.

"Yes, but what do you do?"

I couldn't think of how to answer the question---I'd already answered it!

"You can't make a living out of being a writer, so how do you make money?" she tried.

"From...being a writer," I stammered.

At this point she finally got it, and her whole affect changed. She wasn't snobbish about it. But it was obvious that, in her mind, the sort of writer who actually made a living from it was an entirely different creature from the sort she generally associated with.

And once I got over the excruciating awkwardness of this conversation, I began to think she was right in thinking so. One way to classify artists is by to whom they are accountable.

The great artists of the Italian Renaissance were accountable to wealthy entities who became their patrons or gave them commissions. In many cases there was no other way to arrange it. There is only one Sistine Chapel. Not just anyone could walk in and start daubing paint on the ceiling. Someone had to be the gatekeeper---to hire an artist and give him a set of more or less restrictive limits within which he was allowed to be creative. So the artist was, in the end, accountable to the Church. The Church's goal was to build a magnificent structure that would stand there forever and provide inspiration to the Christians who walked into it, and they had to make sure that Michelangelo would carry out his work accordingly.

Similar arrangements were made by writers. After Dante was banished from Florence he found a patron in the Prince of Verona, for example. And if you look at many old books of the Baroque period you find the opening pages filled with florid expressions of gratitude from the authors to their patrons. It's the same as in a modern book when it says "this work was supported by a grant from the XYZ Foundation."

Nowadays we have different ways of supporting artists. Some painters, for example, make a living selling their work to wealthy collectors. In other cases, musicians or artists will find appointments at universities or other cultural institutions. But in both such cases there is a kind of accountability at work.

A wealthy art collector who pays a lot of money for a painting does not like to see his money evaporate. He wants to feel some confidence that if he or an heir decides to sell the painting later, they'll be able to get an amount of money that is at least in the same ballpark. But that price is going to be set by the market---it depends on the perceived value of the painting in the art world. And that in turn is a function of how the artist is esteemed by critics and by other collectors. So art criticism does two things at once: it's culture, but it's also economics.

There is also a kind of accountability in the case of, say, a composer who has a faculty job at a university. The trustees of the university have got a fiduciary responsibility not to throw away money. It's not the same as hiring a laborer in factory, whose output can be easily reduced to dollars and cents. Rather, the trustees have to justify the composer's salary by pointing to intangibles. And one of those intangibles is the degree of respect accorded that composer by critics, musicians, and other experts in the field: how often his works are performed by symphony orchestras, for example.

Accountability in the writing profession has been bifurcated for many centuries. I already mentioned that Dante and other writers were supported by patrons at least as far back as the Renaissance. But I doubt that Beowulf was written on commission. Probably there was a collection of legends and tales that had been passed along in an oral tradition---which is just a fancy way of saying that lots of people liked those stories and wanted to hear them told. And at some point perhaps there was an especially well-liked storyteller who pulled a few such tales together and fashioned them into the what we now know as Beowulf. Maybe there was a king or other wealthy patron who then caused the tale to be written down by a scribe. But I doubt it was created at the behest of a king. It was created at the behest of lots and lots of intoxicated Frisians sitting around the fire wanting to hear a yarn. And there was no grand purpose behind its creation, as there was with the painting of the Sistine Chapel.

The novel is a very new form of art. It was unthinkable until the invention of printing and impractical until a significant fraction of the population became literate. But when the conditions were right, it suddenly became huge. The great serialized novelists of the 19th Century were like rock stars or movie stars. The printing press and the apparatus of publishing had given these creators a means to bypass traditional arbiters and gatekeepers of culture and connect directly to a mass audience. And the economics worked out such that they didn't need to land a commission or find a patron in order to put bread on the table. The creators of those novels were therefore able to have a connection with a mass audience and a livelihood fundamentally different from other types of artists.

Nowadays, rock stars and movie stars are making all the money. But the publishing industry still works for some lucky novelists who find a way to establish a connection with a readership sufficiently large to put bread on their tables. It's conventional to refer to these as "commercial" novelists, but I hate that term, so I'm going to call them Beowulf writers.

But this is not true for a great many other writers who are every bit as talented and worthy of finding readers. And so, in addition, we have got an alternate system that makes it possible for those writers to pursue their careers and make their voices heard. Just as Renaissance princes supported writers like Dante because they felt it was the right thing to do, there are many affluent persons in modern society who, by making donations to cultural institutions like universities, support all sorts of artists, including writers. Usually they are called "literary" as opposed to "commercial" but I hate that term too, so I'm going to call them Dante writers. And this is what I mean when I speak of a bifurcated system.

Like all tricks for dividing people into two groups, this is simplistic, and needs to be taken with a grain of salt. But there is a cultural difference between these two types of writers, rooted in to whom they are accountable, and it explains what MosesJones is complaining about. Beowulf writers and Dante writers appear to have the same job, but in fact there is a quite radical difference between them---hence the odd conversation that I had with my fellow author at the writer's conference. Because she'd never heard of me, she made the quite reasonable assumption that I was a Dante writer---one so new or obscure that she'd never seen me mentioned in a journal of literary criticism, and never bumped into me at a conference. Therefore, I couldn't be making any money at it. Therefore, I was most likely teaching somewhere. All perfectly logical. In order to set her straight, I had to let her know that the reason she'd never heard of me was because I was famous.

All of this places someone like me in critical limbo. As everyone knows, there are literary critics, and journals that publish their work, and I imagine they have the same dual role as art critics. That is, they are engaging in intellectual discourse for its own sake. But they are also performing an economic function by making judgments. These judgments, taken collectively, eventually determine who's deemed worthy of receiving fellowships, teaching appointments, etc.

The relationship between that critical apparatus and Beowulf writers is famously awkward and leads to all sorts of peculiar misunderstandings. Occasionally I'll take a hit from a critic for being somehow arrogant or egomaniacal, which is difficult to understand from my point of view sitting here and just trying to write about whatever I find interesting. To begin with, it's not clear why they think I'm any more arrogant than anyone else who writes a book and actually expects that someone's going to read it. Secondly, I don't understand why they think that this is relevant enough to rate mention in a review. After all, if I'm going to eat at a restaurant, I don't care about the chef's personality flaws---I just want to eat good food. I was slagged for entitling my latest book "The System of the World" by one critic who found that title arrogant. That criticism is simply wrong; the critic has completely misunderstood why I chose that title. Why on earth would anyone think it was arrogant? Well, on the Dante side of the bifurcation it's implicit that authority comes from the top down, and you need to get in the habit of deferring to people who are older and grander than you. In that world, apparently one must never select a grand-sounding title for one's book until one has reached Nobel Prize status. But on my side, if I'm trying to write a book about a bunch of historical figures who were consciously trying to understand and invent the System of the World, then this is an obvious choice for the title of the book. The same argument, I believe, explains why the accusation of having a big ego is considered relevant for inclusion in a book review. Considering the economic function of these reviews (explained above) it is worth pointing out which writers are and are not suited for participating in the somewhat hierarchical and political community of Dante writers. Egomaniacs would only create trouble.

Mind you, much of the authority and seniority in that world is benevolent, or at least well-intentioned. If you are trying to become a writer by taking expensive classes in that subject, you want your teacher to know more about it than you and to behave like a teacher. And so you might hear advice along the lines of "I don't think you're ready to tackle Y yet, you need to spend a few more years honing your skills with X" and the like. All perfectly reasonable. But people on the Beowulf side may never have taken a writing class in their life. They just tend to lunge at whatever looks interesting to them, write whatever they please, and let the chips fall where they may. So we may seem not merely arrogant, but completely unhinged. It reminds me somewhat of the split between Christians and Faeries depicted in Susannah Clarke's wonderful book "Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell." The faeries do whatever they want and strike the Christians (humans) as ludicrously irresponsible and "barely sane." They don't seem to deserve or appreciate their freedom.

Later at the writer's conference, I introduced myself to someone who was responsible for organizing it, and she looked at me keenly and said, "Ah, yes, you're the one who's going to bring in our males 18-32." And sure enough, when we got to the venue, there were the males 18-32, looking quite out of place compared to the baseline lit-festival crowd. They stood at long lines at the microphones and asked me one question after another while ignoring the Dante writers sitting at the table with me. Some of the males 18-32 were so out of place that they seemed to have warped in from the Land of Faerie, and had the organizers wondering whether they should summon the police. But in the end they were more or less reasonable people who just wanted to talk about books and were as mystified by the literary people as the literary people were by them.

In the same vein, I just got back from the National Book Festival on the Capitol Mall in D.C., where I crossed paths for a few minutes with Neil Gaiman. This was another event in which Beowulf writers and Dante writers were all mixed together. The organizers had queues set up in front of signing tables. Neil had mentioned on his blog that he was going to be there, and so hundreds, maybe thousands of his readers had showed up there as early as 5:30 a.m. to get stuff signed. The organizers simply had not anticipated this and so---very much to their credit---they had to make all sorts of last-minute rearrangements to accomodate the crowd. Neil spent many hours signing. As he says on his blog

http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal/journal.asp

the Washington Post later said he did this because he was a "savvy businessman." Of course Neil was actually doing it to be polite; but even simple politeness to one's fans can seem grasping and cynical when viewed from the other side.

Because of such reactions, I know that certain people are going to read this screed as further evidence that I have a big head. But let me make at least a token effort to deflect this by stipulating that the system I am describing here IS NOT FAIR and that IT MAKES NO SENSE and that I don't deserve to have the freedom that is accorded a Beowulf writer when many talented and excellent writers---some of them good friends of mine---end up selling small numbers of books and having to cultivate grants, fellowships, faculty appointments, etc.

Anyway, most Beowulf writing is ignored by the critical apparatus or lightly made fun of when it's noticed at all. Literary critics know perfectly well that nothing they say is likely to have much effect on sales. Let's face it, when Neil Gaiman publishes Anansi Boys, all of his readers are going to know about it through his site and most of them are going to buy it and none of them is likely to see a review in the New York Review of Books, or care what that review says.

So what of MosesJones's original question, which was entitled "The lack of respect?" My answer is that I don't pay that much notice to these things because I am aware at some level that I am on one side of the bifurcation and most literary critics are on the other, and we simply are not that relevant to each other's lives and careers.

What is most interesting to me is when people make efforts to "route around" the apparatus of literary criticism and publish their thoughts about books in place where you wouldn't normally look for book reviews. For example, a year ago there was a piece by Edward Rothstein in the New York Times about Quicksilver that appears to have been a sort of wildcat review. He just got interested in the book and decided to write about it, independent of the New York Times's normal book-reviewing apparatus. It is not the first time such a thing has happened with one of my books.

It has happened many times in history that new systems will come along and, instead of obliterating the old, will surround and encapsulate them and work in symbiosis with them but otherwise pretty much leave them alone (think mitochondria) and sometimes I get the feeling that something similar is happening with these two literary worlds. The fact that we are having a discussion like this one on a forum such as Slashdot is Exhibit A.

24th October 2004

2004-10-24T23:33:00.000+08:00

Below is a short picture blog of what I did on Sunday 24th Oct 2004.

I had to work in the morning (which I did not take any photos of course), but I manage to chance upon the Action Asia competition that was going on in the morning around the Merlion area.

This guy was preparing to do a flying fox down the Esplanade. Those protuding edges seem sharp.

Here he is gliding down the flying fox. Must be one hell of an experience.

If you try hard enough, you can spot him just before he lands his butt in the water.
Yes, I have a lousy digital camera and yes I am a lousy photographer.

He lands in the water, splashing as he comes to a stop.

A chopper, I believe from the TV crew, was filming the action. In the background is the city landscape.

One of the team crossing the finishing line. Must have been a relief for them.

Then it was off to the Singapore Expo for a Discover Dogs event, where people bring their dogs and have a good time. There were events, stalls etc for all the dog lovers. Most of my photos turned out very poorly, due to poor lighting, except for this shot of a golden retriever. He reminds me of my own dog back in Perth.

And there is a short picture blog of what I did today.

Simply Heaven.

2004-10-21T01:35:00.000+08:00

I Saw.

2004-10-17T14:31:00.000+08:00

As I was entering the NTUC near my place, I saw a young kid, in his teenage years, took a copy of The New Paper. I noticed because he was rather rude, almost shoving me aside as I was standing there, taking my copy of Straits Times.

I saw him again, in one of the corner of the NTUC, reading the New Paper.

And I saw him the last time, when I was paying for my grocery items at the check-out counters, putting his copy of the New Paper back onto the pile and then walking out.

What kind of youth are we producing these days?

Farewell Superman.

2004-10-12T11:12:00.000+08:00

I Want To.

2004-10-09T13:14:00.000+08:00

Sometimes I wonder if at the end of my life, when I finally leave everything behind, would I have done all those things that I always wanted to do, see all those places that I always wanted to see, eat all those things that I always wanted to eat?

I wanted to do a lot of things, I want to travel to places, like Europe, watch a live football match in London, go to Normandy in France to see the beaches where the Allied forces landed on D-Day in WWII. I want to go Canada again, this time in spring/summer and visit the Canadian Rockies. I want to go Japan, and visit those hot springs that they always show in Japan Hour on CNA. I want to go Hawaii, and visit those nice beaches they always show on the TV.

I want to buy a farm, write a book, get my Masters, have many dogs, design and build a few websites, have kids, raise my kids, watch sunsets all over the world.

There is just so much that I want to do, so much that I want to see and here I am, with almost half of my lifespan gone and not accomplishing one of them. Here I am, stuck in the rat race, with no prospect of ever climbing up the corporate ladder in my current job, stuck at home on a Saturday because I am on a standby in case clients call and have to go onsite at client's place later in the evening. I come home from work during weekdays, too tired to do anything else. I spent my weekends doing household chores, washing clothes, ironing clothes, doing grocery, cleaning the floor and the house. And then before I know it, the new week arrives, and the cycle repeats again. And meanwhile, the hourglass that contains the Sands of Time, continues in the background.

Sure, there are those who says, just do it, just throw everything away and accomplish what you want. But, how? I just cannot throw away my career and then say, ok, I am going to travel around the world. It is not as if I have that much money. It is not as if I have no responsbility, no family committments. And then there are those who are more zen like, who says, be happy with what you have and such things. But I am not. I only lead this life of mine once, I just don't want it to be this way. I want it to be more than this, I don't want to lie on my dying bed with my last breath and regret that there are things that I have not done, places that I have not gone to.

I wonder how many people out there are really living the life that they always wanted, always dreamed of. I wonder how many people out there, religion aside, are really happy with their lives now.

Benji Off The Leash!

2004-10-07T01:40:00.000+08:00

Isn't he so cute?

Benji Off The Leash!

Stephen Chow

2004-10-05T22:33:00.001+08:00

I have always been a fan of Stephen Chow. From his initial days of mindless comedy to his recent works where he juggled action, comedy and traditional melodrama together, I have always watched faithfully each and every one of his movies.

After his hugely successful hit, The Shaolin Soccer, he sort of faded into the background. It was only recently that I read news regarding his latest movie funded by Hollywood, specifically, Sony Pictures to make a movie call Kung Fu Hustle.

It's a big budget film, with lots of CGI, more than his previous movie The Shaolin Soccer, and has Sammo Hung and Yuen Wo Ping as action choreographers. It was shown in last month's Tornote Film Festival where it was a huge hit. It is going to hit the cinemas here on the 23rd Dec, and I can't wait.

Renting DVDs Online II

2004-09-29T23:38:00.000+08:00

So I received the first 3 DVD discs from this online DVD rental store, Hollywoodclicks that I mentioned in my entry a few days ago. It came in a small little brown envelope together with another white prepaid envelope that I am suppose to send back with the DVD once I finished watching it. They will then send the next available DVD in my DVD queue list. Pretty neat.

But the problem was, I had a list of DVDs that I want to rent. It included the 4 discs of the first season of Friends. However, they send me the second to the fourth disc. The first disc of Friends must have been not available. Now, if this was a continuous series, like say West Wing, or X-Files, how would I be able to watch the fifth epsiode without first watching the previous four? As for Friends, it is still not too bad, since each one is a self-contained story. Perhaps they might tune to the system so that if the first disc is not available, they do not send me the next few discs in the series.

I just mail them back the first disc that I finished today. Let's see how fast is their turnaround time.

Telemarketer Part I

2004-09-27T23:58:00.000+08:00

Man : Hi, I am so-and-so from so-and-so. We want to reward you for being a loyal customer throughout the years.
Me : Thank you.
Man : Just for you, we are offering you this phone model xxx at a special rate of $xxx!
Me : Do I have to sign a plan?
Man : Oh yes, you will need to sign a 2 year plan for this offer.
Me : You people want to reward me by asking me to spend extra money on a new phone that I don't need, and not only that, get me signed a 2 year plan with you people? Thanks, but no thanks.
[pauses]
Man : But this phone model xxx has so-and-so, with the latest so-and-so.
Me : I am perfectly happy with my present phone.
Man : May I ask which phone model you using?
Me : SE T68i
[could almost hear his delight through the phone]
Man : Ah ha! Your phone does not have a camera, but this new phone model has a camera with so-and-so.
Me : I don't need a new phone with a camera. I have no use for that. If I want to take a picture, I will use an actual camera, not a phone. Besides, you can't bring a handphone with camera for reservists.
[pauses again]
Man : In that case, how about another phone model, so-and-so. It has so-and-so, but it does not have a camera.
Me : Listen, I don't need another new phone. Everything I ever wanted in a phone and don't want in a phone is in the phone I am currently using. I have no wish to pay extra money to upgrade to another new phone when my present one is working. And I have no wish to sign any contract with you guys so if your service ever screws up, I can easily change to another company.
[pauses again]
Man : Oh, well thank you very much bah bah bah...

The above took place recently, and though I may not remember word for word, that was roughly what was said. I received a SMS a few minutes after the call ended, asking me to rate the call just now. I replied with the best score. I may a bastard, but I am not THAT bastard. Yet.

I am a telemarketer nightmare. If you want to waste my time by calling me, I will make sure I will derive the most sadistic pleasure by abusing you.

Renting DVDs Online

2004-09-26T01:51:00.000+08:00

Last night I came across this site Hollywoodclicks from a text ad from some search I did with Google.

Hollywoodclicks is an online DVD rental store in Singapore. For S$35 a month, members rent as many DVDs as they want, and keep them as long as they want, with three movies out at a time. There are no due dates, no late fees and no shipping fees. DVDs are delivered for free by SingPost usually by next-day service. When you want to return the DVD, you just put them in a prepaid envelope and then just mail them back. It is that simple. This concept is not new, as I believe Netflix in USA was the first to offer it. At that time, I told myself it was only a matter of time before someone come up with the same system in Singapore.

Anyway, I signed up. They are having a 14 day free trial, where I get to try out this service for free. I went through the catalog, and it seems pretty big, with the usual blockbusters, classic movies, concerts, musicals, even TV series like X-Files, Friends etc. Since they do not deliver on weekends, I guess I will have to wait till Tuesday at least to receive my DVDs from my mailbox. If I find it good and worthwhile, I might just cancel my SCV subscriptions for that 3 English movie channels and rent DVDs online instead.

There is 1 more online DVD rental store, at MovieMaster. They do have some variations to the subscription plan, offering plans for 1disc, 2 discs, 3 discs and 4 discs plans. It seems like Hollywoodclicks took a majority stake in MovieMaster recently, so I guess the 2 stores sort of merged.

I will update again when I receive my 1st DVD through the mailbox.

Fashion?

2004-09-24T23:25:00.000+08:00

A model wears a design by Carlos Diez during the last day of the Pasarela Cibeles fashion show in Madrid Thursday Sept. 23, 2004. (AP Photo/EFE, Angel Diaz)

This is fashion? Is this model a male or female? Are those boobs or just chest muscles? What's with the cigarette?

True Story

2004-09-22T14:41:00.000+08:00

Got this from somewhere, amazing information.

My grandfather worked for the telephone company 45 years. For a long time, his job involved dealing with customers who came in off the street.

In the days of rotary phones, the dialed number was detected by the amount of time it took the dial to return to the resting position. (Number of pulses sent as it made the trip, actually, I believe.)

So one day this woman comes in complaining that every time she dials a number which she knows is the right number, (in her words) "Some hussy comes on there and tells me there's no such number!" This woman was seriously offended by the (recorded, I think, and probably new in those days) suggestion that she was getting the wrong number, when she simply knew it had to be right.

So my grandfather handed her a phone and offered to let her make the call there in the office. The woman snatches the phone and angrily starts dialing her number -- but she's in such a big snit that every time she turns the dial around, she doesn't wait for it to finish; she grabs the dial and forces it back around to the resting position so she can get on with dialing the next number. I'm sure this technique resulted in an enormous time savings to her, probably adding a full five seconds of free time to her life if she did it for every call she made in forty years, but of course it prevented the phone from properly dialing the number since everything was based on the timing for that dial.

My grandfather started to explain this to the woman, but she was enraged and said, "Are you trying to tell me how to dial a phone?" Well, er, yes, ma'am, amazingly phone company employees probably knew a little bit more than you about how to dial a telephone. Not much more, but enough to know that what you were doing would never work. I think the woman finally got fed up and stormed out.

Safety Critical Systems

2004-09-22T11:00:00.000+08:00

Came across this from somewhere. The guy who wrote it has been working for around 5 years in Air Traffic Control projects, both in delivery of radar processing and displays and in R&D for next generation systems.

Here is his overview of the failure approach of a safety critical (if it fails, people could die) system :

1) Everything on Unix, ruggedised releases of UNIX

2) Every box must be able to FAIL ON ITS OWN

3) Every box must have a direct replacement, or replacements, which carry the SAME LOAD.

4) ZERO total system downtime allowed, partial systems failures are allowed, but core systems must keep running.

5) 5 stages of power supply failure, double mains, double generation and lastly a great big warehouse of car batteries if all else fails.

6) 4 Years of testing of FULL system before live.

Today Rants

2004-09-20T23:14:00.000+08:00

Quite a few things to talk about today, so I will just lump everything into this post.

There is this colourful character that sometimes sits at the HDB block beside my office around the time I knock off from work. He is an old Indian man, and with a can of beer, he will rant about the Government most of the time. He will complain that the Government cheated his money, how he is not afraid of the Government etc. Today he talked about something different. About how he has to wash his clothes and underwear because he never marry a woman. In Hokkien, Malay, Cantonese and English. Colourful character indeed.

On the way back home, I was walking through some HDB flats and this was what I overhead coming from one unit (it was very loud, I bet everyone in the nearby blocks heard it) :

(in Chinese)
kid : sorry!
woman : why you always do that! {stomping of feet}
kid : sorry! sorry! sorry! sorry!
{cut short by something dropping into the ground and break}

Child abuse?

Last but not least, farewell Brian Clough. One of the most colourful and best English manager of all time. Some of his sayings were a classic. Some of my favourites :

'If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he'd have put grass up there.'
'I only ever hit Roy the once. He got up so I couldn't have hit him very hard.'
'We talk about it for 20 minutes and then we decide I was right.'
'I can't even spell spaghetti never mind talk Italian. How could I tell an Italian to get the ball? He might grab mine.'

Rest in peace, Brian Clough, you will always be remembered.

I Want Some of This

2004-09-19T21:17:00.000+08:00

I want some of this :

Property owner agrees to remove hallucinogenic plants that caused female high school student to threaten to get naked.

It will be useful...

Staples Are Facist!

2004-09-19T20:31:00.000+08:00

Read this from somewhere :

Staples are fascist. Fastening your papers with staples means that no one else is allowed to determine the order in which the papers will be sorted, only you; and one sheet may never be detached from the stack. "This is how I have decided you will view these papers, and you may not choose otherwise." Rearranging them is wrong.

Staples are also for one-time use only, and make is less convenient to recycle the paper, displaying a wanton disregard for the environment. And they make shredders unnecessarily exciting.

Paperclips, otoh, are very democratic and ecofriendly. Fastening papers with paperclips means that you have organized a stack in a means which you believe to be optimal, but if someone else wants to change the order, or even take some away from the stack, that's fine by you. They are readily available to rearrange, experiment with, prioritize, or spread across a library table. "It's all good."

Paperclips are also reusable, and are easily removed for reuse, or to allow paper recycling or shredding. They can also be reshaping into all kinds of useful cubicle hangers, lock picks, or whatever, promoting additional creativity.

Staples are handy for replacing surgical sutures or nailing down external cable. But with what we know about the environment and landfills, only sad, culturally-bound dittoheads use staples for paper.

My brothers and sisters: free yourself from those chains of oppression formed by crumpled staples! Allow the bright light of democracy to guide you away from the fascism of your Nixon-loving parents. Power to the paperclip! Power to the people!

On the subject of staples, anyone seen a stapleless staple? Tha Japanese loves it.
Stapleless staple

Remember Him?

2004-09-19T16:05:00.000+08:00

Former child star Macaulay Culkin has been arrested in the US on drug possession charges.

Why do all these actors and actresses all seem to have a mess up life, filled with drugs, booze etc? I remember there was another child actor who screwed up her life before coming clean. Yup, I am referring to that angel, Drew Barrymore.

What A Joke

2004-09-19T02:22:00.000+08:00

After the announcement that the media is again consolidating, here is another joke.

Politicians are confident that while the two media players have joined hands in their television and free newspaper businesses, Singaporeans will not be deprived of different sources of information.

They also say the experiment with competition by MediaCorp and SPH, though costly, was necessary.

Singaporeans have many sources to turn to for information.

Local media players know this and have already been working hard to ensure they are credible and entertaining to Singapore audiences.

No lack of alternative info sources in wake of media consolidation: Acting MCYS Minister

Necessary? What a joke. At the expense of so much money, becoming a laughing stock of others, it is necessary? What does it prove? Why is it necessary?

Seriously, I have stopped reading the newspapers, watching local television programmes (yes, this include not bothering about Singapore Idol) since I had cable television and a broadband connection. What I need is available from the Net, sometimes even those I cannot get from local television, so why bother watching local television?

Burnout 3 :Takedown

2004-09-18T02:09:00.000+08:00

Just got my hands for this XBOX game, Burnout 3:Takedown for $70. Worth every single cent, and thoroughly deserved the rating of 9.5/10 at gamespot.

Basically, there are car racing, road rage (where you bump other cars off the road), and my favourite, crash, which is trying to get as much money as possible from crashing into other vehicles and causing as much havoc as possible on the roads.

A great game to destress. Just love it to wreck all those vehicles and watch them explode. Now my thumb hurts from playing 5 hours non stop of it. Love the game!

I Sold Out

2004-09-18T02:05:00.000+08:00

Well, not exactly. But if you noticed, I had decided to sign up for Google Adsense and now I have text ads on the right hand side. Please do click it once or twice everything you come here, so that the money I earned from the clicks can contribute to my 'Wenjie's Serve The Nation Fund' (which is actually a fund used to convince me to have kids).

Will have shameless plug once a while to remind everyone to click it. Thanks in advance for contributing to this fund.

What A Joke

2004-09-17T16:18:00.000+08:00

And so the joke that we all wanted to be true has finally ended.

MediaCorp and SPH sign deal to merge mass market TV and free newspaper

We knew all along that the Singapore market is just too small for both of them, didn't we?

Something Worthwhile

2004-09-16T23:15:00.000+08:00

I think this is a very worthwhile small project. Please do give her and SPCA your support.

SPCA Postcards - valska's productions

Did you know that SPCA takes in more than 1000 pets (dogs, cats, rabbits etc), every month? And only 10% of them are ever adopted?

If you are thinking of a pet, think again. It is a lifetime responsbility. Pets are NOT toys. If you treat your pet well and love them with all your heart, the joy they bring is priceless. I know because I have 2 dogs.

Rediscover The Web

2004-09-14T23:03:00.000+08:00

Download now and feel the difference!

Web Hosting Update

2004-09-09T23:45:00.000+08:00

Right, so after almost 3 days and still no word from ipowerweb.

I am thinking of using lunarpages. Perhaps I will just hold on for a response from ipowerweb till this weekend.

New Web Hosting

2004-09-08T01:08:00.000+08:00

Right, so my other website, www.ourjojo.net is up for renewal. After 2 years with macecom, I decided it was time to move on. I mean, their site to check my website stats have been down for eternity, and they running Windows, which means if I was to ever setup my own blog site, or my own little forum, it will be a nightmare. Also, I have to pay for a subdomain. Sure, the unlimited bandwidth was attractive, but hey, I don't think my website is ever a heavy traffic site.

So as I was searching for another web hosting site, macecom pulled the plug of my website. Thanks very much! I mean I have been with them for 2 years, gives no trouble to them, and then once the expiry date has been reached, they just pull the plug. Luckily, I always backup my website.

I am more or less settled with hosting it at ipowerweb but I needed them to answer some of my queries. So an email was sent to them on Monday afternoon, and they replied they will get back to me within 24 hours. It is way past 24 hours now, and granted Monday was a US holiday, Labour Day, I think, so I guess I will just give them another 2 or 3 more days. A quick reply to my email is a very major contributing factor on whether I will host with them.

Now This Is Useful

2004-09-06T21:56:00.000+08:00

Now this is very useful :

http://www.mytrashmail.com/

You want to download a free software on a site. In order to download the software you must give an valid email to receive the software serial key. This is the point where the spam circus begins.

If you now give your personal email you will be spamed in the future. For sure!

Instead of giving your personal email address you should consider using an free address from myTrashMail.com instead.
In case you need an email for re-confirmation or receive the serial code, just pick it up here. Your email is stored for a maximum of 1 week on our server.

All follwing spam mails are going to be sent to myTrashMail.com and not your personal email account.

Anytime you need a valid temporary email address, you can use our free service at www.myTrashMail.com

Life Goes On and On

2004-08-30T23:26:00.000+08:00

It has been more than a month since I last blog. During this time, I spent 2 weeks in Perth for a well deserved break.

I went with my in-laws, my mother, wife and our golden retriever to Margaret River and Albany for 3 days. We drove down south, and stayed in a very nice farm in Margaret River. That was when I had my stomach flu. Things did not improved the next day, and the 3 days down south was spent vomitting and having a terrible stomach upset. The stomach flu aside, it was a pretty nice experience to spend 3 days with the whole family.

After that, the rest of the 1st week was spent bringing my mother around Perth. It was her first visit to Perth, and we tried to stuff as many places as possible within what was left of her 1 week stay, with trips to usual places like King's Park, Fremantle, Burswood Casino etc.

After my mother flew back to Singapore after the 1st week, my wife and I spent the next week practically doing nothing. We rent a DVD to watch every night, and the day was spent idling, relaxing and playing with our dog. Life was good.

It was also during this 2 weeks that I made up my mind to resign the day I go back to work. It was a giant leap of faith, resigning without a job, and with my wife's employment contract just ended, we will be both unemployed. I was also making plans in case both of us cannot get a job within 6 months.

However, I returned back to work to find out that my colleague had took back her resignation letter, and certain promises were made by our boss. These promises were nothing much, however, they were a big step in the right direction. I decided to hold back the resignation. Work conditions were still shit, but at least now we are compensated slightly for all those extra hours we were putting in, though I must say, there is a lot of room for improvement.

I also requested my boss to approve my application to pursue my Microsoft Certified Applications Developer in .NET through my company's online training, something which he promptly approved. I am hoping to pass my first of my 3 papers by end of October, if nothing goes wrong.

In the meantime, I am earnestly looking for a new job, without any success.

That was what happened in the last month since I blog, and life still goes on and on.

I Dream.

2004-07-28T00:42:00.000+08:00

Sometimes, when I get sick of my work, sick of my life, I dream of a place that I went before. A place that still brings joy and happiness when I think of it. A place call Mount Whistler in Canada.

Betrayal

2004-07-22T23:08:00.000+08:00

Now this looks much better than the previous two.

My Hero.

2004-07-22T21:08:00.000+08:00

Everyone has a hero. My hero is him :

It's all about the pain.

His mother was 17 when he was born, and his biological father left two years later. A step-father whipped him. Too small for football and too poor for the in-group in Plano, Texas, he discovered early that he could smother psychic pain with the real pain of long-distance swimming, running, cycling. That pain was self-inflicted yet comforting because he controlled it. Of them all, cycling was the best because "a bike is freedom to roam, without rules and without adults."


	*How can you not* be impressed?**

Lance Armstrong created his own monster out of his humilation, his fears, and his pain, as well as a heart almost a third larger than average, a resting pulse of 32 beats a minute that can accelerate beyond 200, and lungs that can consume record amounts of oxygen. From such materials he created, in my mind and in a majority of yours, the greatest athlete of our time.

Read the rest of the article here.

The Power of Words

2004-07-21T00:05:00.000+08:00

Just got off my sorry ass to update my resume. The failure rate of my jobs applications with the current resume was almost 100%, and had decided long ago to update my resume. Besides, since the last update, I have done more things in my present job, got a promotion, gained more experience and done work for more clients.

Anyway, after trying to dress up my resume, I sort of got the hang of things. Using certain words in place of some words, though they mean the same thing, the look after seems different. For example, I added the words 'local and regional' in front of 'clients' to show I worked in projects that were not just restricted to local clients, even though previously I just dump 'local and regional clients' as just 'clients'. My friend suggested using the word 'operationalise' somewhere, which I did. It basically means 'to define concepts and ideas, and then put it into operation so it can be measured and expressed quantitatively', something that I do everyday, designing solutions to fit clients' requirements and then proceed to develop it. Such is the power of words.

Now hope my success rate with my resume begins to pick up.

Arrogant Bastards

2004-07-16T21:22:00.000+08:00

The China people call us Singaporeans arrogant people. So now who are the arrogant bastards here? What right does China have in telling the Singapore Government what to do and what not to do? We already said that DPM Lee to Taiwan is purely a private visit, and even informed the Chinese communists bastards beforehand. They have the cheek to tell us to cancel the trip. And when DPM Lee refused to do so, they cancel their top official visit in t he 11th hour to protest, and said how disappointed they are blah blah.

So who is the arrogant asshole here? Singapore is a nation, those Chinese communist bastards have no fucking right to tell us what to do and what not to do. Assholes. Arrogant assholes.

3 more weeks

2004-07-10T17:32:00.000+08:00

Exactly 3 more weeks before I take a 2 weeks holiday in Perth. This time round my mother is coming with us, but she will be staying for just 1 week.

Booked a farmstay in Margaret River and a cottage in Albany. Whole family is bringing our golden retriever, Jojo on a 3 days trip down south of Perth.

Looking forward to it! In fact, I wish it will come quicker.

Holiday

2004-07-06T00:44:00.000+08:00

One reason why I do not like to plan my holiday too early is that I get all holiday mood once my leave and air ticket is approved and bought. Still got almost 4 weeks to go before I take a well deserved 2 weeks rest in Perth, yet I am already in holiday mood.

Doh.

2004-06-26T21:34:00.000+08:00

Was doing our grocery shopping at Plaza Singapura's Carrefour. Had to go down town because client had a problem, and was asked by my boss to fight some fire that I don't know how to. I mean, he never tell us if we are on standby on Saturdays, yet expect us to just give up our weekend plans and solve clients problem within a moment's notice. I was just so tempted to resign, but after talking to two friends who resigned without jobs, I have to put away this thought.

Anyway, was looking at some of the mustard choices available on the shelves when this Indian family, in full view of everyone, proceed to break the seal of a bottle of vinegar sauce, open the cap, sniff at the sauce, then proceed to close the cap and walked off. I was just too shocked to open my mouth to scold them before they quickly moved away. Sheesh, and I thought Singaporeans were bad enough, but this Indian family, who are not locals, are worst!

This is Funny.

2004-06-22T00:08:00.000+08:00

Got this from somewhere :

When are people going to realize that blogs are the equivalent of public urination on the web. People post stream of consciousness bullshit dressed up as "information" or even "facts" and because it's on a blog, well then, it must be true.

History Made

2004-06-21T23:48:00.000+08:00

Private rocket ship breaks space barrier

Not only it is a very significant event, but the technology used is so innovative!

Gmail

2004-06-16T20:28:00.000+08:00

Weee! I got myself a Gmail account! 1 GB of pure bliss!

I Went Mental

2004-06-16T00:48:00.000+08:00

I went mental just now. Finally had enough of the noise that my upstairs neighbours were making, ran upstairs and scolded them. Keep hearing this 'kok' 'kok' noise, found that that a small girl was wearing extra high and thick heels shoes and walking all across the house.
The man who opened the door kept asking me to cool down, do not get worked up, do not shout, I told him straight in the face if he tried to sleep for the past 1 1/2 hours and stll cannot, will he be worked up too?

Told him that the next time I come up, I will bring along the police. There, I went mental.

Two things to do if you are bored :

1) You know you love this

2) - Open the site: http://www.google.com/language_tools
- Type in "my mom is nice and cool." and convert it from English to Spanish.
- Then copy & paste the answer into the translate box and convert from Spanish to English.

Euro 2004

2004-06-13T10:00:00.000+08:00

So it has begun. Day after day of not sleep enough sleep, day after day of working in a zombie state. And everyone will understand.

Euro 2004 has begun.

Singapore Idol. Again.

2004-06-07T16:55:00.000+08:00

Hah! Someone actually wrote in to the ST Forum to ask why it is called Singapore Idol and not Singaporean Idol.

Singapore Idol

2004-06-06T01:07:00.000+08:00

I got this from a friend of mine who went for the Singapore Idol auditions.

He heard me complaining why it was called Singapore Idol and not Singaporean Idol, and when he was at the auditions, he actually asked the Mediacorp people there. Their answer was because it is opened to everyone who stays in Singapore, including PRs, and therefore it was called Singapore Idol and not Singaporean Idol. There, sort of 'official' explanation.

For your information, my friend got through the first round into the second round of auditions.

I. Am. Vintage.

2004-06-05T22:52:00.000+08:00

Under some prompting from my wife, I went ahead and bought the album 'Vintage Rock', a 2 CD collection of 30 classics rock from the past 3 decades.

Like my wife said, I am at the age where I can actually appreciate, remembers and listens to this CD. How many people actually remember classics like 'When The Children Cry' by White Lion, 'Silent Lucidity' by Queensyche, 'I Remember You' by Skid Row, 'When I See You Smile' by Bad English, just to name a few classics from the CD?

I am vintage.

Ever wonder why...

2004-06-04T20:14:00.002+08:00

it is called Singapore Idol and not Singaporean Idol?

They do call it American Idol and not American Idol or USA Idol or United States of America Idol. They also call it Canadian Idol, Australian Idol and not Canada Idol nor Australia Idol.

If it is called Singapore Idol, does that mean Malaysias, Indonesians, China idiots etc can come to Singapore and go for the auditions?

Wikitravel

2004-06-02T23:50:00.000+08:00

I think this is pretty cool, imagine a free travel guide that anyone can edit. I just did a minor edit, for what else, Singapore's East Coast.

Wikitravel

A Lazy Public Holiday

2004-06-02T17:50:00.000+08:00

When there is a public holiday in the middle of the week, it makes sense just to lie at home, sleep a lot, and that was my intention for today.

Until I realised that the the construction site below works on public holidays. The noise woke me up early in the morning at 8am, and continue throughout the day, making even naps difficult.

So a lazy public holiday ruined, just because some idiots decided that they should work on a public holiday.

Remember This?

2004-05-29T21:50:00.000+08:00

Remember this? What a crazy save!

Explanation of Singlish

2004-05-27T23:13:00.000+08:00

This must be the most concise and detailed explanation of Singlish.

Explanation of Singlish

I am impressed, did not know there is so many different forms of Singlish, there are even names for them!

Shrek 2

2004-05-24T12:10:00.000+08:00

Caught Shrek 2 yesterday. It was so funny! And the references, each scene of the movie seems to a spoof of something, and if your eyes are not sharp enough, you will miss most of the subtle jokes. Oh, Puss In Boots was the scene stealer, just like The Donkey was in the first movie.

Intend to watch it again, either in the cinema or on DVD when it comes out, I am thinking I missed some of the jokes the first time round.

I Love Peanuts

2004-05-23T23:42:00.000+08:00

Yesterday ST's Peanuts strip :

Charlie Brown : Do you ever try to imagine what your dream girl would look like?
Snoopy : She'd have round ears like two cookies, big eyes like two more cookies and a nose like a cookie ...

This is why I love Peanuts so much.

Photoblogging.

2004-05-22T13:41:00.000+08:00

Isn't he adorable? He is my baby in Perth and his name is Jojo. Testing out this new BloggerBot thing where you can publish photos almost instantly.

Anyone Remember This?

2004-05-20T20:03:00.000+08:00

Anyone remember this character?

It was one of my favourite cartoons.

Job Promotion

2004-05-19T16:06:00.000+08:00

Is it still consider a job promotion when there is no pay increment, still doing the same old shitty stuff, still getting the same shit from everyone and basically nothing changes except for the internal change in job title?

I. Want. To. Do. This.

2004-05-14T12:32:00.000+08:00

To see a world in a grain of sand
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand
And eternity in an hour.

- William Blake
Auguries of Innocence

Innocence Lost.

2004-05-13T23:32:00.000+08:00

When I first started working, I used to wonder why people can be so detached from their job. I wonder why people can be so bitter about the company they worked for, why they treat their job and the company with such malice. I always told myself no matter what job I am in, I will give my best, I will slog through without any complains and be happy merely at the fact that I have a job.

But I realised that for the last 1 or 2 years, I have lost all hope in my job. I struggled to get to work every morning, I complained bitterly to anyone who bothers to listen about how overworked and underpaid I was, how I had not a single pay rise for the past 3 years. How my salary is peanuts compared to so many other people. And how stressful my job is, facing abusive clients day in day out.

I guess I changed. Or just perhaps, I lost my innocence.

Summary of My Job Now

2004-05-12T20:58:00.000+08:00

Me : I hate my job.
Friend : Look on the bright, at least you have one.
Me : This kind of job, have or don't have doesn't make a difference.
Friend : At least you get paid.
Me : When I receive my pay, I feel like a whore.

The above conversation sums up how I feel about my job now.

Heroes

2004-05-11T14:09:00.000+08:00

What makes ordinary people turn into heroes?

What was on the thoughts of those policemen and firemen when they rush into the Twins Towers after the first plane crash into it? What makes them rush in to save others risking their own lives?

What about those doctors and nurses who were fighting against SARS? What was on their mind that make them continue to do what they are good at, even though they know they are at a risk of contacting SARS and lose their lives?

What makes ordinary people turn into heroes?

Reading the recent article about those doctors and nurses at Tan Tock Seng Hospital during the SARS period last year gives me hope for human kind. Perhaps, just perhaps, humans are not selfish assholes after all.

New Blogger

2004-05-11T14:04:00.000+08:00

Wow, the new blogger seems cool, even the new blog templates are cool. Chosen one that is pretty unique. Perhaps I will play around with the template when I have more time.

Suddenly, I feel like blogging more often.

Career Change

2004-05-06T14:20:00.000+08:00

I need a career change.

I just found out that someone working in HR for 4 years is earning 50k a year. Much more than me working in IT for 5 years. And he is working in public sector, which usually don't pay as well as private sector.

Why is it that HR, who does nothing daily, well at least in my company they don't do anything, gossips the whole day, have little impromptu gatherings all over the office, gets paid more than me, who is on standby for 24 x 7, supports clients in weird hours of the night, who actually goes out and bring revenue to the company?

I need a career change.

Weekend

2004-05-03T23:04:00.000+08:00

My mother-in-law as usual called on Saturday from Perth. She does it once a week, and usually just chat with my wife on how happened throughout the week and get an update on what has been happening in our lives.

Lately, and it is getting a bit worrying for me, she has been asking my wife when are we having kids. I can ignore all the government brainwash about how it is a national duty for me to ensure my bloodline, however when it comes to my own mother-in-law, it is kind of hard to ignore. I have told her when we are both mentally, financially, emotionally and physically ready, we will have them, at first it seems she accepted our excuse. Not anymore. Oh well, as long as we both stay in Singapore, I guess there is nothing much she can do about it. Unless of course, my own mother starts to behave just like my mother-in-law.

Spent the weekend hurting my thumb. Attended the xbox LIVE launch on Friday night, got my hands on the xbox live kit, 2 xbox live games, and whoa! Not only do I hurt my thumb trying to do a cross court shot in the game Top Spin, I also suffered from a lack of sleep since I played till 3am. Me bad.

Weekends always seem to go past way faster than weekdays.

Comments Up

2004-05-02T13:56:00.000+08:00

Right, comments in place. Hmm, still deciding if I should switch my blog over to here.

Gmail

2004-04-26T00:15:00.000+08:00

Hey! I read that gmail, the 1GB email service by Google, is only available for beta testing to certain selected users of blogger. Hey hey I am a user, just not very active!

Sheesh, I guess I was not chosen. Oh man, I want that 1GB email!