Life!

A little bit of insight from the events of the past day.

2 things happened yesterday that bring into perspective exactly how short life is and how easily everything can be taken away. 2 events happened yesterday to remind me of this. One is sad, the other happy.

Sad
I'm a warden at the church I go to, having decided last year that I haven't been keeping up with my part of the bargain in my relationship with God. I joined a warden ministry where apart from my brother, me and another girl, the average age was above 50. Yesterday, I received news than the Assistant Group Leader of my warden group has passed away. He collapsed at the bus stop while on his way home. Even though some kind people took him to hopsital, he didn't make it. May God bless his soul.

Happy
I met up with a group of friends for dinner yesterday, it was kinda a farewell for me and new job treat from me to them. The bill came up to a lot of money. Now, the normal me would think that this was not worth it but not yesterday. Money can always be earned again but not friends. Good friendships are rare. Definitely worth the price of a dinner and drinks and more.

I never know when I will meet my friends again. Things may happen to us that we cannot predict. I treasure the friends I have made on this little island. Life is too short to be spent worrying about unncessary things. You never know when you might not see someone again.

The Hunt for the Elusive Laptop

*This entry was originally going to be typed on my new laptop but I ran out of time and am now a little bored at work so it being typed out on the work laptop instead.*

I wanted to buy a laptop. I know, I know. Why would a furry pawed animal want a laptop? Well, I guess sometimes we furry animals need to surf the web, check our email and stuff too.

So I ventured out of the jungle long enough to go survey what laptops I could get. As with most wild animals and some domesticated ones, I was automatically attracted to the bright shiny surfaces of the fruity laptop. In fact, I was so enamoured by the shiny surfaces, I almost didn't notice that it costs almost double a normal non-fruit flavoured laptop. Man, when I found out, I ran back into the jungle and needed to hide in there for a while to overcome the shock.

So after some time of recuperation, I ventured out again, this time much wiser and price concious. Money doesn't grow on trees, even in the deepest, darkest forest. So after much deliberation (this would probably be considered an underestimation by some), I finally decided on an Acer Aspire (what it asspires to, I have no idea) 5762 WLMI. It didn't cost too much, approximately 121.5 honeypots, which is roughly S$2430. The monkeys have it so much better because 1 peanut equals 30,000 honeypots. They could have bought the laptop with less than 1 peanut.

Anyway, the laptop looks like this:



It has got 1.0GB of RAM, 100GB Harddisk and a ATI Radeon X1400 with 128MB VRAM and extra 384MB shared. Now I should have a better laptop than the king of the jungle. Let me go show Mowgli a thing or two.

Bahloo or Bagheera? Part 2

The deed is done. The events of the day unfolded in the following manner.

9:00 am - Received a phonecall from my agent informing me that I will be receiving my contract today.

10:00 am - Hit refresh in Gmail for the first of almost 20 times, waiting for the email to arrive.

12:05 pm - Goes to the toilet.

12:07 pm - Noticed a new email in my inbox. I open my mail with trepidation and there it is staring at me, my contract.

12:08 pm - Begin downloading contract to view. Downloading fails.

12:09 pm - I try downloading again. It still fails. Curse under my breath. Frustration level increasing.

12:11 pm - It finally downloads successfully. I open it. I quickly read through it. I stop at the "how much will I get paid" section.

12:12 pm - Wonder where the calculator went. Have a quick look around. Can't find it.

12:13 pm - Finally locate a calculator. I work out my monthly salary. My heart does a few cart wheels inside my rib cage. My brain is busy trying to decipher what car to buy.

12:15 pm - Call Papa Bear to tell him the news. Briefly read out the contract to him. He has no objections. It is good.

12:17 pm - I send my acceptance and call my new employer up to confirm. A bit "kiasu" , I realized but hey, I've been on this island for 6 years. I'm entitled to be a little bit "kiasu".

12:30 pm - Happiest lunch I've had a in a long while.

6:30 pm - Meet up with boss back in office. Trying to find a good time to break the news to him.

7:00 pm - Still haven't found a good time.

7:11 pm - Yet to find a good time. Having a hard time holding it in. Colleague starts giving me funny faces.

7:45 pm - I find the right time and inform my boss. He is ok with it and seems quite nice about it. I appreciate that.

8:20 pm - I sent out the email with my official resignation. The deed is done.

Next stop, the land down under.

The Pessimist

Why is it a pessimist's brain will never allow the pessimist to be happy and glad for longer than 24 hours? 24 hours ago I would say I was among the happiest fur covered mammals on this little island. Now 24 hours later, my brain is full of doubt and worries. All the watifs have started popping out.

This made me think, is it just me or are there others out there like me? I know for a fact that almost all human beings will examine anything they either dug, scratch or shat out of their bodies before disposing it. Does a pessimist take a dump, a normal healthy dump and 24 hours later, wonder if there was something in that dump that wasn't so good? Maybe he thinks he told too many people about the dump and now he's afraid people he doesn't want to know about his dump will know. What happens if this dump was imaginary and didn't happen?

A pessimist biggest enemy is not himself. Most pessimist have an ability to think of the bad stuff and then accept it. It becomes much harder when this outlook of pessimism is imparted by another pessimistic party. In short, the pessimist's pessimist. That makes a pessimist's biggest enemy another pessimist.

Anyway, here hoping the pessimist are all wrong.

Bearry Emotional Landscape

The chart above represents the emotions of a certain bear over the past week. It is over a scale of 0 to 100, where 50 represents neutral emotion, anything under 50 is either anger/disappointment/frustration (normally displayed to the outside world as anger) and anything above 50 is happiness.

As can be seen from the chart above, the bear has been through a very emotionally varying week. So much so, that given the above chart, one might be mistaken for thinking that the bear is actually female. (He most definitely is not.)

One clear trend though is that the emotions seem to improve as the end of the week approached. Guess that means if you want to find bears in a good mood, look for them on weekend.

A Pun Time Was Had By All

REPLYING TO an invitation to a Scientists' Ball:
Pierre and Marie Curie were radiating enthusiasm;
Einstein thought it would be relatively easy to attend;
Volta was electrified and Archimedes, buoyant at the thought;
Ampère was worried he wasn't up to current research;
Ohm resisted the idea at first;
Boyle said he was under too much pressure;
Edison thought it would an illuminating experience;
Watt reckoned it would be a good way to let off steam;
Stephenson thought the whole idea was loco;
Wilbur Wright accepted- provided he and his brother, Orville, could get a flight;
Dr. Jekyll declined, on the grounds that he hadn't been feeling himself lately;
Morse's reply? "I'll be there on the dot. Can't stop now- must dash."

Where's your sense of humor?

I was doing a random surf of the Internet today and a weird realisation dawn on me. The same fact was mentioned to me a couple of days ago but it never occured to me how accurate it is. The fact is this, in the small island where this bear (unfortunately) roams, no one is ever wrong.

No one makes mistakes. There is no such things a boo-boo. If you happen to notice a fault in someone else, then the fault doesn't lie with that person but with you for having noticed that fault.

This is all the more obvious on the Internet, esspecially when bloggers from this small island are concerned. Everything anyone anywhere says about them that is less than flattering (not even bad, just less than flattering), it taken as such a major insult and the rebutals and criticism to the person who dare mention that they are less than perfect, fly so far and fast, it's probably reached Alpha Centauri by now.

Guess all I can say to the dumb bloggers from the small pathetic island is this, GET A LIFE.....you are not as famous as you think you are.

PS. Not all bloggers on this small island are bad at handling criticism, it's just the more popular (subject to debate) ones that seem to have lost any trace to having had a sense of humor.

A Joke

An elderly couple is lying in bed. It is late and the man in trying to sleep. The woman on the other is feeling a little romantic so she begins to talk.

"Remember when we were first dating? You used to hold my hand all the time."

The man, wanting to get some sleep, reaches out sleepily and holds the womans hand for a short while and then lets go and attempts to go back to sleep.

Meanwhile the old woman still hasn't given up.

"Remember that after holding my hand, you would give me a kiss?"

Getting a bit irritated, the man turns over and hastily plants a quick peck on his wife's cheek and tries to go to sleep again.

The woman continued on.

"Remember how after that, you used to gently nibble on my neck."

Upon hearing this, the man angrily throws the sheets off and proceeds to get up.

Surprised and upset, the woman ask, "Where are you going?"

To which the man replied, "To get my teeth so that I can nibble on your neck."

Sh*tty Post

I was trying to think of something witty to write but all that came to mind was something someone told me recently.

Ever realise that human beings are the only creature on the entire surface of the planet that has to wipe its arse after taking a dump, coz if we don't, we leave fecal matter stuck in the vicinity of the chocolate starfish and this could lead to infections and other unpleasant stuff.

Why does fecal matter get stuck? Unlike most (I was going to say all but I'm not 100% sure) mammals, we have butt cheeks that obscure the opening so anything coming out would have to first squeeze past the butt cheeks before making it to freedom. I wonder why our butts are designed this way?

Any suggestions?

The Tale of 1 Stupid Browser

This is the second time I'm rewritting this coz the browser ate my entry twice in the time span of 15 minutes. It was an entry about how good Opera is compared to Firefox but after it ate my blog twice, I don't think it deserves it anymore.

So here's the gist. Use Firefox if you got the memory to spare. You won't lose half as many blog entries. Use Opera if memory is at a premium, like on my Dell which only has enough to prevent it from keeling over. Just type your blog in MS Word first, then paste it over.

A joke to end this entry.

What did the chicken say when it saw a pig?

Pork, pork, pork, pork, pork (sounds like a chicking clucking).

Somehow this joke works better verbally. Oh well.

Bahloo or Bagheera?

Do any of you ever sit down and look at other people and think the following:

"Damn, I wish I had all my friends from school and uni in the same town. This way, I wouldn't be so bored all the time."

I do.....all the time actually. My life has been like a computer where every few days you need to reboot the computer to prevent it from crashing. Instead of every few days, it's every few year for me.

In some cases, it's just pressing that reset button on the front of the casing. Sometimes, it involves unplugging the power point, taking the battery out and starting all over again.

I've done the major rebooting 3 times in my life so far. The biggest reboot is yet to come but I can already see its shadow in the distance. This is the kind of reboot, where you not only restart your computer, you actually take some stuff out and put some new things inside.

You switch it back on and hope that everything still works. The green light comes on and everything is ok. Sometimes, the green light doesn't come. Instead you get the red light or no light at all.

So far, I've only gotten the green light.

So what does this have to do with the first sentence? Simple, whenever you do a reboot, you lose a lot of your friends and you'll have to start all over again with new friends and hope that within the new bunch of people you meet, there are those few that you can get along well with.

I've been lucky in that each time this has happened, I've met people I've been able to get along with quite well. On the other hand, I've lost friends and lots of them. When you no longer see each other everyday, sometimes, you just start to go down different tangents, knowing that with each passing day, you go further away from each other.

With the big reboot looming in the future, I wonder what the future holds. Will I still be Bahloo or would Bagheera be a better name then?

The Elephant and the Little Boy

Here's a joke I have not forgotten since childhood. It's not the greatest of jokes but I like it so I thought I would share it with everyone. So here goes:

One day, in a vilage in India, a man arrives with an elephant. He lays down a challenge for everyone in the village.

"Whoever can make my elephant trumpet, I will give him 100 dollars."

As expected, everyone tries but no matter what they do, the elephant doesn't make a single sound, not even a whimper. They hit it, they pulled its tail, yanked its ears, they threw water on it. Nothing made the elephant trumpet.

At the end of the day as the man was about to leave, a little boy comes up to him.

"I can make your elephant trumpet"

The man says ok and ask the boy to go ahead, confident that the boy would fail. The boy goes under the elephant and proceeds to squeeze the elephant's ball. Sure enough, the elephant trumpets. Reluctantly, the man gives the boy and the money and leaves.

2 weeks go past and the man returns to the village once again with the same elephant. He presents a new challenge.

"Whoever can make my elephant shake his head, I will give him 400 dollars."

Again, everyone tries everything imaginable but the elephant doesn't shake its head. Confident that his 400 dollars is safe, the man is about to leave when the little boy shows up again.

"I can make you elephant shake its head."

Again the man says ok and lets the boy try, still confident that his money is safe. The boy once again goes under the elephant and stands next to the elephant's balls.

"Do you want me to squeeze your balls again?", the boy ask the elephant.

The elephant shakes its head.

What women want that the bear doesn't have

Was talking with a few of my friends just now and I have to come the realisation that there are a few traits a woman wants in a man that I am sorely missing. So to help all the prospective would be future girlfriends of mine (those that I do not mistake for a midnight snack), here a list of what women want that the bear doesn't have.

1. The bear does not notice what you have done to your hair unless it involves something drastic like cutting half of it off, dyeing it bright pink or green or tying it into buns like Princess Leia. Perms (digital or analog) will not be noticed. Rebonding, unbonding, singeing will not be notice. Unless you are a gadget I'm planning to buy and have done some major comparison shopping, save yourself the time and frustration and just tell what you did to your hair. I don't guess very well.

2. The bear does not do shopping very well. For most days, the thought of shopping drives the bear nuts. Being required to follow someone around, trying to guess if she looks fat in something or not, if this dress is nicer than that dress, are these shoes comfy, does not do wonders for the bears mood. In fact, it could leave you with unwanted bite marks and the missing limb or 2.On some days, which normally occur only once every 6 months or so, the bear is in a good mood and is able to go shopping with you for an extended period of time. Extended in this case meaning 2 to 4 hours. No more. Anymore than that and you get back the bear on non good shopping mood days.

3. Hair. While most bears have plenty of hair all over, this bear isn't one of them. You can thank my genes for that. If anything, this bear has a lack of hair all over, even the top of the head. If you are looking for someone with a healthy head of hair and low IQ, look somewhere else. The bear is of high IQ and low hair. The reason being, the brain needed space to expand so it pushed the hair out to make room.

4. The bear will never understand why you need so many pairs of shoes. We realised that you server an important function by buying shoes. Without you buying shoes, slippers, sandals and various other footwear, whole economies would grind to a halt. People would stay. The world as we know it would end. Having said that, this does not mean that I agree with a woman having over 20 pairs of shoes. Ladies are like men and bears, 2 feet, no more, no less. Unless you are an octopus, why do you need so many pairs of shoes?

So, is there anything else you think the bear is missing that women want? Feel free to comment.

New Year, New Address, New Look

It's a New Year and after some ridiculing early this year from a group of friends as to why I haven't moved the blog to a new address, considering that I've managed to secure the address I wanted in September, I've decided to go ahead an do it.

So I present to you the new BAHLOO, now available at http://bahloo.blogspot.com. The old site is now but a redirector.

As part of the new address, I figure a new look was in order. I think the new look looks a bit more professional and less cluttered. Well, hope you all enjoy it.

Welcome to 2006.

10 Things I Didn't Know Last Year

Inspired by a recent article from the BBC entitled 100 Things You Didn't Know A Year Ago, here's my take on it as a way of saying goodbye to 2005.

10. Even in a clean and wholesome country like Temasek, corruption exist. No one uses the word but it is there. For the best example, please refer to exhibit A: TT Durai and his coterie of accomplices.

9. Men have a devastating effect on women. I've seen friends go from nice good people to depressed moody people all because of a guy. Don't think I need to give examples here as there are plenty all around.

8. Women have a devastating effect on men. I've seen friends (men this time) go all soft and gooey and teary all because a girl dumped him. You know who you are.

7. Flowers and paying special attention to someone do not score you the girl unless she already likes you. Actually I already knew this but I haven't put it to test for a few years until this year.

6. If your parent's try to set you up with someone and you are really obnoxious about it, be careful, retribution will come and the guy will have a damn good laugh with his parent's about it.

5. People who work in the Information System of a certain hospital grouping in Temasek are the dumbest lifeforms on the planet. Words fail to describe the level of idiocy observed in this group.

4. The Land Down Under has the world's most ridiculous approach to battling the war on drugs. If they are not careful, it's going to be druggie world down there sometime soon, if it isn't already.

3. All the so call popular Singapore bloggers, as in those that keep blowing their own horn, are among the most boring bloggers in the world. Which then makes the next day.sg blog aggregator site the ultimate most boring website in the world. Get over yourselves.

2. Certain women have the ability to shave most of the hairs of their legs except for one patch about 4 cm square which they then insist on displaying to whoever walks past. Eeeeew!!!

1. When you are in A Cesspool of Nicompoops, it doesn't really matter what you do because good work is never appreciated. Sucking up apparently goes a long way though. Sheesh!!!

Happy New Year 2006. Here's to discovering more stuff next year.

Once Upon a Time in Temasek

A long long time ago, in a country not so far away, there lived 2 men. They were good friends in university. After university, they both got married and slowly drifted apart. About 30 years, through a chance encounter, they met up and realise that one had a son and the other a daughter of about the same age who were yet to married. Both families thought it would be a good idea for their children to meet.

As both their children lived in Temasek, they needed to wait till both their children return to this country not so far away to arrange a meeting. A time was arranged, when the moon began afresh for the year and the man with the son took his son to visit the man with the daughter.

The strangest thing happen. While the man's son was more than willing to just meet the other man's daughter, this man's daughter refused to come down from the high pedestal which was the second floor of the man's house. The other man's son waited patiently while the man whose daughter and house it was, along with his wife, tried their best to coax his daughter of her high horse.

After many moons, when it became painfully obvious that the daughter would not come down, the man and his son left. The man, whose daughter it was, was very disappointed and so was his wife. Nothing more was thought of it by the other man and his son.

Fast forward the story 11 moons. The son, who is working in the island of Temasek, in an effort to expand his social circle (and also because of the constant coaxing from a close associate), engages the help of a professional friend maker to increase the number of friends he has. Unbeknowst to him, the daughter of the other man had also enlisted the help of the same professional friend maker for the same reason.

A meeting was arranged between the 2, without anyone realising the events of 11 moons past. The daughter and son met over a meal. From the word go, the son realised that this was a women he would not get along with. There was a snobbish air about her that was replusive. Little did the daughter know that this was the same person she was suppose to meet 11 moons ago.

They chatted as you would over dinner and said their goodbyes at the end. The son deciding that that would be the last she evers hears of him. On his way him, he sends a pigeon to his mother, telling her about the dinner that just ended. It was via the pigeon messages that he realise who the girl he just had dinner with was.

He start laughing. His mother start laughing and so does his father. To save the face of the other man as he was the son's father's good friend, they decided not to inform the other family about what had just transpired in the small island of Temasek.

The moral of the story is:
If you decide not to come downstairs, make sure you don't end up meeting the same guy again 11 moons later through a professional friend maker and end up with the guy thinking you are a snobbish fool.

A Tale of 2 Mice

Today I turn 29 and to be frank, it was the best 29th birthday a guy could get. Whoever wrote that it is the thought that counts hit the nail of the head. Of course, getting a great present helps a lot.....and did I get a great present!!!



My birthday present in broad daylight.



My birthday present with the lights off.

From the surprise on Saturday in Seremban to the dinner last night to the present today, it has truly been a memorable birthday. Thank you all very very much.

Meet the Liquefier

Monday I was hot stuff. Tuesday, I discovered a new skill. I'm the liquefier. Anything that goes into me, no matter how hard, tough or otherwise, gets liquefied within a matter of minutes. No blender could do a better job than I have been able to do the whole of Tuesday. After performing this act more times than I dare to remember, I am now completely pooped (pardon the pun). Makes me wonder what's worse and harder to do. Burning stuff or liquefying stuff?

PS. There are 161 tiles on the floor of my toilet.

I'm Hot Stuff

Today, the bear is officially hot stuff. Went to visit the doctor earlier today coz was feeling like shit (and looking like it too, if you asked some people). Had my temperature taken and the termometer read 39.3 C. Doctor has this look on her face. The kind of look that goes, "What? You waiting to lose a limb before coming to see me?". I got 3 days MC. Oh well, something good has come out of it after all.

Nostalgia Rules The Day

Argh!!! This is the 2nd time I'm typing this post because the first got eaten by the back button. Let this be a lesson. Save. Save. Save.

Anyway, like I was saying before.....I've reached an age where I believe I'm allowed to be nostalgic (i.e. I'm old enough that I actually have more stuff to be nostalgic about than the available time over a weekend would allow.)


First of all, today I built myself an iPod dock out of Lego. This is like the first time I've built something not displayed on the Lego box in about 15 years. It's been a long time since I've tried to built something from scratch out of Lego. Admittedly, I no longer have as many pieces as I used to. I think I made a pretty decent job of it. It's still a work in progress, so I might add some stuff at a latter date....for now, it does it's job of saving me $60 and buying a real dock.

Also, Channel 5 decided to be nostalgic and broadcasted 2 movies today. Both were movies I enjoyed as a kid, one I'm not embarrassed to say I liked, the other I am a bit embarrassed to say I liked.

The first was Goonies. I have to admit, that from my point of view, this movie has aged well. Seeing after so many years (I first watched it when I was 10), I found I was still able to sit and watch the entire movie. Few movies nowadays grab my attention for more than 20 minutes.

The second was Power Rangers the Movie. This one hasn't aged so well. In fact, I actually cringed a little when I was watching this today. I guess I had less refined taste as a kid. The soundtrack is pretty good though.

While both movies had pretty corny dialogue, the Power Rangers had to be at least 10 times cornier than Goonies. It funny to think that an adult actually thought that "Go go Power Rangers" was an acceptable line to put in a script. Oh well!

Anyhow, nostalgia is good and all but I think it's time to return to the present.