Friday, May 09, 2008
Click on it --- you know you want to
Is it any surprise that the most popular BBC News story right now is, "Great tits cope well with warming"?Oh, human beings --- so predictable. If an alien race wanted to come down and trap us all so it could take over the planet, it would just have to label its trap with the words "great tits" and its work would be done.
I clicked on it too. But that was in the email of daily BBC news, which had it listed as the top story under Science/Nature rather than Health, so I figured it was about some odd creature rather than, well, you know.
Labels: Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 9:35 AM
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Strike three, but we got lucky
Because I am a freelancer who is --- for all intents and purposes --- surgically attached to her internet connection, Cowboy Caleb calls me on occasion for last-minute restaurant advice and I spend about five minutes helping him pick a place where he can fête a client or boss on his company's tab. The other typical condition is that it has to be a place that he knows how to get to in Singapore, which can be harder than it sounds.Today he calls at about noon from Hong Kong and needs a place for dinner tonight. He can't expense the meal, but still needs it to be nice enough. Oh, and no Asian food.
We settle on Valentino's, because we've been there before and it's pretty damn good food. He asks me to get a reservation (yes, I am officially his entertainment secretary, didn't you know?) and SMS him when the table's booked. I call. Valentino's, it turns out, is fully booked for the night.
A little SMSing, another phone call. "How about Marmalade Pantry at Palais Renaissance?," I suggest, "because the air-conditioning at the Holland Village one isn't working [as I found out to my dismay on Monday night]."
"Where's Palais Renaissance?"
"Next to Orchard Towers, between Orchard Towers and the Thai embassy."
For reasons that cannot be reported here, Cowboy Caleb declines to go anywhere near Orchard Towers. We settle on Ember at Hotel 1929, another reliable choice that he knows how to get to.
I call and: "We regret to inform you that we will be closed for renovations from 30 April to ..." Cheebye. I hang up without bothering with the rest of the automated message.
"Strike two," I SMS Cowboy.
He calls back. By this point, I'm trawling through The Travelling Hungryboy for ideas. We confer. "Okay, Wild Rocket," he decides.
I call and I cannot believe my ears: "I'm sorry, but we're closed tonight for a private function."
Clearly, the moral of the story at this point is that it is not possible to get a dinner reservation at a decent place on the eve of a public holiday (it's May Day tomorrow), unless you planned your evening a week before and had time to work your way through an entire restaurant directory.
Cowboy cannot believe it; neither can I. James comes to the rescue on MSN: "Cork", he says, "63279169." Does Cowboy know where Capital Towers is? Why yes, he does. After which he SMSes: "I boarding the plane. You decide."
Meanwhile, I'm calling --- and miracle of miracles, they are open, they have tables available and they are pleased as punch to take Cowboy's reservation. I manage to sneak in a last confirmation SMS to Cowboy and the URL for Chubby Hubby's review of the place before he switches off his phone on the plane.
As far as I know, dinner went all right.
It seems Secretaries' Day has just passed us by, so Cowboy owes me a huge bonus next year. He should buy me dinner at a nice place.
Labels: Food for thought, Freelancin' living, Life in the internet age, Singapore stories
posted by Tym at 11:50 PM
Friday, April 25, 2008
Radio silence
I haven't had a call or SMS on my phone since 4:15 pm, which in itself isn't unusual. What's unusual is that I didn't notice the dearth of contact until right now, as I'm packing up to hit the sack.I've barely chatted online with anyone all night too. Maybe I'm not as much of a communications junkie as I thought I was.
Labels: Geek girl, Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 12:27 AM
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Holy crap, that was fast
So migrating to a new server didn't take as long as I thought it would, and I didn't even have to activate my brother (whom I'd put on standby, in case I flubbed something up and needed a rescuer). Even propagating the DNS change took next to no time.Compare this to a colossal more-than-one-hour struggle this morning with Priceline Singapore to book an air ticket. I kept getting error messages from their server at various points of the search or purchase processes, which exacerbated the usual nervousness I get when I'm about to place an online order for anything that costs more than a DVD box set.
Anyway, I got my air ticket and my website seems to be intact at the new server. Now I still have the rest of the afternoon before me. Whee!
Technorati Tags: Priceline
Labels: Life in the internet age, Site foo
posted by Tym at 3:39 PM
Server migration imminent
This website is all grown up and ready to move on to its own server space (as opposed to mooching off my friend's server, which is what it's been doing for something like seven years), so I'm going to be doing a little content migration this afternoon.No action is needed on your part, except to not panic if toomanythoughts.org is unreachable for a few hours. Just be patient till the new DNS changes are propagated internet-wide.
Labels: Life in the internet age, Site foo
posted by Tym at 1:47 PM
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Of neo-nomadism and neighbourhoods
It was a year ago that I decided I liked the term "neo-nomad", and now the Economist has a whole special report on it.The thing I find about living the neo-nomadic/digital-nomadic lifestyle, is that when I read a "special report" like that, I tend to go, "Ho-hum. Tell me something I don't already know."
Or else I tend to assume that these reports are confirming what I hope will happen, like this scenario from the article "The new oases":
... urban nomadism makes districts, like buildings, multifunctional. Parts of town that were monocultures, [William Mitchell, a professor of architecture and computer science at MIT] says, gradually become “fine-grained mixed-use neighbourhoods” more akin in human terms to pre-industrial villages than to modern suburbs.I count myself lucky to live in a village-like neighbourhood now. The free wifi is dreadfully spotty (why, oh why, can't Wireless@SG get it right?), but all the other elements --- brick-and-mortar stores delivering basic services, a mixture of chain stores and "local" enterprises, low-rise living and neighbourhood folk who kind of recognise each other after a while --- are well in place, and have been for decades.
(I'm still hoping the coming MRT line doesn't muck up the neighbourhood either.)
Technorati Tags: neo-nomad, nomad, The Economist, Siglap, Wireless@SG
Labels: Freelancin' living, Life in the internet age, Singapore stories
posted by Tym at 10:22 AM
Monday, April 14, 2008
Readers' poll #3: Which pic does the trick?
I've decided I would like to make a little photo wall, consisting of pictures taken by me. This lovely layout would be great, but I'm going to go with something a little less ambitious: four portrait-format photos, 5" x 7" each, to be hung in a 2 x 2 arrangement, in black frames on a white wall.So far, the shortlist consists of exactly one photo:
Hence my reader's poll: Whch picture (if any) from my Flickr account do you really, really, really like? Bearing in mind that it'll be displayed in a portrait format.
Edited to add (11:47 pm), because beeker complained that I was doling out homework on my blog: I certainly don't mean for anyone to go through every one of the 903 images on my Flickr account. I just imagined that if any particular image stood out in a reader's memory, now would be the time to say so.
Related posts: Would you watch this?, My very first readers' poll
Technorati Tags: poll, readers' poll
Labels: Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 10:33 AM
Monday, April 07, 2008
A little off my game
So last week was a bust.Monday was frightfully productive. Tuesday was a day of meetings and errands, but fortunately was topped off with good news. Thereafter the entire week kinda went outta whack: between meetings and mood swings and my usual procrastinatory impulses, I just didn't get enough work done. Add in the lassitude induced by the stifling hot weather, and you have a recipe for a major deadline disaster.
Which hasn't happened, um, yet.
Yesterday I was at the old flat for what is probably the last time. It looked very, well, empty. Not forlorn, necessarily, but most definitely vacant, vacated. The whole experience, including travelling there and back, was quite surreal. I don't think I've completely processed it yet.
Today has been absolutely productive --- except that given the amount of backlog from last week, it's still not enough.
PS: Key to being productive? Like all the lifehacking sites tell you: stay off instant messaging.
Labels: Life in the internet age, Personal
posted by Tym at 1:54 PM
Thursday, March 20, 2008
Tired as hell
It's a strange sort of day when I typo "mind-boggling" as "mind-blogging".Technorati Tags: blogging
Labels: Life in the internet age, Twitteresque, Words words words
posted by Tym at 4:24 PM
Sunday, March 02, 2008
Links of the day
I surf, I read, I share. In no particular order:- For Wahj: The charms of Wikipedia (via Salon).
- For stellou: I Write in Brooklyn. Get Over It.
- For Daniel: 40+ Excellent Freefonts For Professional Design (via How About Orange).
- For a documentary-making friend: Taxi to the Dark Side.
Labels: Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 11:47 PM
Missed the window
I spent all of yesterday thinking, "Oh, it's February 29, that only happens once every four years --- I'd better post a blog entry today."
Then I overslept, which made me late for lunch. Then I had to clear out some rubbish at the old flat and the friends who helped came over afterwards to the new place for a bit (with their dog, hence the encounter pictured above). Then I had to do the weekly flat-cleaning. Then (and oiseauxbleu will be particularly glad to hear this) I cooked. Then I had to get more groceries. Then I ran into a friend, who came over for the evening.
So I didn't blog yesterday and I went to bed feeling a little rueful at missing the opportunity to have a February 29 entry.
But it was only today, when I looked more closely at the dates of the pictures I took yesterday, then cross-checked the dates on my email inbox, and finally checked everything against the computer's date setting --- that I realised that February 29 was two days ago. So I'd missed it anyway.
Which just goes to show you where my mind's been.
For the record, I spent February 29 powering through some work in order to meet a deadline, then kicked off the weekend with steamboat at my favourite old-school steamboat place.
Technorati Tags: 29 February, February 29, leap year
Labels: Kitty corner, Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 4:25 PM
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Saturday, at last
A(nother) sign that I am getting old: today I caved in and increased the default font size on Firefox and Adium by 1 point.Ten years ago, the first thing I used to do on a computer was to superciliously adjust the Internet Explorer font size down to a more aesthetically pleasing proportion. Today, functionality trumps form. Who've thunk it?
It's been a particularly long week, hence the lack of blog updates. Tired eyes, tired body, tired mind. I updated my Facebook status yesterday to say I was "declar[ing] a one-week moratorium on 'business development'" --- because while more business (and money) is good, the distraction of following up of every single potential business lead was taking a toll on both the quality of my writing and my overall equilibrium.
Of course, not three hours after I set that Facebook status, I received emails from two more potential clients about some new projects.
This weekend will be dedicated to unpacking the last few boxes and getting things in order. This place needs to stop looking like a forgotten warehouse.
Labels: Freelancin' living, Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 12:34 PM
Tuesday, February 05, 2008
I did not know that yesterday
Blog post title taken from the eponymous blog, which I read from time to time.Last night, I left the Discovery Travel & Living channel on for white noise, which threw up a World Café: Asia episode on Singapore. Presenter Bobby Chinn went through the usual hawker favourites, then ended up on Pulau Ubin where an Indian woman cooked him nasi kerabu --- described on the show as a dish once common in Singapore that's all but forgotten now.
To which I say: nasi what? Turns out it's a synonym for nasi ulam, which I think I've seen listed at Malay food stalls before, though I've not tried it. Google actually turns up more entries related to the Kelantan variety, where the rice is apparently tinted a bright blue colour. Don't think I've seen that in Singapore.
Then today, while IMing with Suzie, she expressed a craving for kuih rose. To which I pretty much responded again with: kuih what? Once more Google threw up images of food I didn't recognise, though Suzie's well-acquainted with the snack. How did I miss this while growing up here?
All of which points to the fact that while we rave about how much great food we have in Singapore, there is always something else lurking in the next stall or shop that we haven't tasted yet.
Technorati Tags: Singapore food, nasi kerabu, kuih rose
Labels: Food for thought, Life in the internet age, Singapore stories
posted by Tym at 11:58 PM
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
A boy after my own heart
Boy likes reading. Boy reads quite a bit. Boy wants to set up a website to tell other kids about the books he reads because "there might be lots of kids out there who are wondering what are some good books to read. I can help with that."Boy gets interactive-designer dad to build him his own book-review website.
Boy, for the record, is ten years old.
Technorati Tags: reading, book review, Evan's Book Site
Labels: Books books books, Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 1:03 PM
Sunday, January 13, 2008
Prepping to move (or not)
Things I have done in preparation for moving to the new apartment:- Getting off the elevator at an earlier floor and walking six floors up to get home.
I only need to walk up four floors at the new place, but the elevator doesn't stop at every floor in the current building and I figure climbing the extra two floors is useful training. - Washing dishes in only one sink, instead of exploiting both.
- Stopped buying books and asking friends who have loaned my books to return them only after I move.
- Become a daily reader of Apartment Therapy, Design*Sponge and Ikea Hacker.
Technorati Tags: moving house
Labels: Domestically challenged, Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 12:59 PM
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Just call me Little Miss Crankypants
I wish it wasn't such an uneven week.I wish "emily" would stop "inviting" me to MySpace.
I wish I'd remembered to blog the line "If the kempeitai asked me to make a corporate video ..." earlier, because it's too much trouble to explain now.
I wish I didn't have a sludgy headache after spending a perfectly decent day with the best friend and the smallboy, looking for stuff for the new place.
Technorati Tags: crankypants
Labels: Life in the internet age, Personal
posted by Tym at 6:42 PM
Thursday, January 03, 2008
Missing the news
For some reason, Gmail has been diligently filing the BBC News' daily email alert in my Spam folder since January 1. And here I thought they were just enjoying an extended New Year's in the UK ...Technorati Tags: Gmail, BBC News, spam filter
Labels: Life in the internet age, Twitteresque
posted by Tym at 8:54 AM
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Firefox is being weird
Or rather, it has been since last night. It's ignoring the domain name on some URLs and treating the subdirectory information as the full URL --- which leads to a lot of ridiculous "Server not found" error messages.For example, I'm trying to look at my friends' status updates on Facebook, which are at this URL: http://www.facebook.com/friends/?status
Firefox tries to load http://friends/?status instead --- and spits it back as an error to me.
Alternatively, if I try to load the main Facebook page (http://www.facebook.com), I get the following error message: "The URL is not valid and cannot be loaded."
Even though several minutes later, so long as the full URL is provided, the very same browser window will happily load the page without any grumbling or misfiring of URLs.
Why is this happening to some pages (so far, Facebook, The New York Times and Wired Blogs) only? Am I right in blaming Firefox? Did I break my browser without realising it?
Technorati Tags: Firefox
Labels: Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 4:14 PM
Monday, December 24, 2007
When political leaders get hip to the internet
As I was wishing dolcelatte merry Xmas online last night, I was also watching the BBC, which triggered the following exchange (pardon the lack of proper punctuation):ME: i am watching the queen's youtube channel on bbcActually, if such a channel were launched, it would no doubt debut with such nuggets as the MDA rap.
ME: it is surreal
dolcelatte: oh i heard about that
dolcelatte: havent checked it out yet
dolcelatte: i'll watch her christmas day speech on christmas day
dolcelatte: and it'll be like i never left blighty
ME: pretty cool, the queen :)
ME: way hipper than lee hsien loong
ME: hehe
dolcelatte: lee hsien loong is so not hip
ME: ya
dolcelatte: sigh
dolcelatte: and the queen is like 80plus
ME: i can imagine this will be a topic of conversation at the next young pap meeting
ME: "queen got youtube leh! We only had hip-hop and blog - how? how?"
dolcelatte: hahaahha
dolcelatte: but if they had youtube channel
dolcelatte: it would be political video
dolcelatte: and then, they'll have to ban themselves!
Technorati Tags: Singapore, YouTube, Singapore politics
Labels: Life in the internet age, Singapore stories
posted by Tym at 9:03 AM
Sunday, December 23, 2007
How the web works out
6 minutes ago, I updated my Facebook status to: [Tym] wants to celebrate Pikkojoulu next year.Which prompted Abigael to Google "Pikkojoulu".
Which threw up as the top English-language search result, my friend Jude's Flickr post.
Which is where I'd picked up the concept of Pikkojoulu in the first place, and left a comment to that effect.
As I said to Abigael, I'm just everywhere.
Technorati Tags: Pikkojoulu, Google, Flickr
Labels: Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 11:25 PM
Friday, December 21, 2007
The elaborate Venn diagram of our lives
A friend told me today about this new girl he's seeing. It being 2007, of course he had to have me check her out on Facebook. Which led to the revelation that she knows some people I know --- not surprising when two degrees of separation is par for the course in Singapore.What was surprising is that she knows an old classmate of mine from primary school, whom I haven't spoken to since the late 1980s when we bumped into each other at Centrepoint. And that, upon peeking at his list of Facebook friends, it turns out that he knows a number of people in my existing circle: a former colleague, an old neighbour and a friend's ex, among others. Which leaves me further surprised that we haven't crossed paths more recently.
I like Facebook, but sometimes it just reminds me that Singapore is just Too. Damn. Small.
Technorati Tags: Singapore, Facebook
Labels: Life in the internet age, Singapore stories
posted by Tym at 6:28 PM
Friday, December 14, 2007
How to have a little birdsong with your morning coffee
I was wondering where the sound of birds chirping was coming from --- none are taunting the cat outside the open windows, and he doesn't even seem to notice the occasional twittering or whistling. And then I realised ...It's coming from this website.
Labels: Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 11:08 AM
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Now why didn't I think of that?
So there are these two female architects in New York who make it a point of a) having lunch out of the office, b) documenting it religiously. Hence: LUNCH with Front Studio, which even has a handy-dandy map of all the places in their neighbourhood where they eat. They also keep track of their daily 4 pm espresso break snacks.Saith the ladies:
We believe leaving the office everyday for lunch is an invaluable ritual. In a time and city where people are constantly rushing around, trying to accomplish three tasks at once, taking a moment to have a civilized meal becomes even more vital. Eating at your desk while reading emails, surfing the world wide web, snarfing down a bland turkey sandwich from the deli down the street is NOT lunch.Amen, sisters. If I had a dollar for every time I've said that to myself, or tried to entice an overworked associate out to lunch with that logic ...
As karma would have it, today might be a day when I skip lunch because I have meetings that run 11:30 am - 1:30 pm, followed by many urgent errands thereafter. Poo.
(Via Popgadget.)
Technorati Tags: lunch, LUNCH with front studio, lunch who lunch
Labels: Food for thought, Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 8:03 AM
Sunday, December 02, 2007
The week in pictures
On Monday, I went out to sea. But only for a little while and it was choppy enough that I had to stop taking notes and concentrate on the horizon to quell the potential seasickness. Now I know exactly where some of the Southern Islands are, like Kusu and St John's. They always seemed such a long boat ride away when I was a kid.
PS: Our port is truly, irredeemably ugly.
On Wednesday, I popped in on Culturepush's Next Stop: Wonderland tour of Majestic Bar. Groovy art. Besides Yuki Chong's stained-glass ceiling installation (above), I'm also in love with Sandra Lee's third-floor blue-room set-up, staircase and all.
Yesterday, there was ROJAK. I hadn't been to one in some time, and since my Singapore Writers Festival panel put me right across the street from the old City Hall where it was happening, I had no excuse not to drop by for a bit (until my stomach demanded to be fed anyway). It was very, very cool to be sitting in the same room that I've seen in so many black and white photographs of historic events.
Things that I forgot to take pictures of this week:
- The also very cool Dual City Sessions party on Friday night, where I ran into all and sundry, and managed to finally meet a couple of people that I'd been hearing about for the longest time. Other people have pictures on Flickr; all I've got to show for myself is a pair of well-worn wedges (lots of traipsing up and down the stairs), a resolution to bring my mom to see what her Old School has become, and the vicarious thrill of reporting that I loaned Daniel the camera to make his art.
- The Reel Blogging panel I did yesterday evening, which I completed failed to even, er, publicise. Good thing Stefan was, as usual, quick with the blog post and the camera to record what went down.
No pictures of the new Macbook yet. Let me post this, then I can go play with it.
Technorati Tags: Singapore, Singapore port, Culturepush, Majestic Bar, ROJAK, City Hall, Dual City Sessions, Singapore Writers Festival
Labels: Freelancin' living, Life in the internet age, Nightlife, Singapore stories
posted by Tym at 6:00 PM
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Better than the SAT
Via Mr Miyagi, I've found FreeRice, which pledges to donate 10 grains of rice through the United Nations World Food Program for every vocabulary word that you define correctly (don't worry, it's multiple-choice). In 10 minutes, I've clicked through 500 grains of rice and my vocabulary level is hovering around 45. I'm particularly stoked that they had "grok" and "reave".I'm not sayin' that this is the best way to do something for charity. But if you're going to fritter your time away on the internet anyway, and you like word games, this is as good a place as, say, Scrabulous to spend your time on (you know who I'm talking about).
Plus I got to learn what "nictitate" means.
Technorati Tags: vocabulary, Free Rice
Labels: Life in the internet age, Words words words
posted by Tym at 12:38 PM
Thursday, November 08, 2007
Rhymin' games
I typed this in an email today: "online moniker Ondine".Now say it five times fast.
Technorati Tags: tongue-twister
Labels: Life in the internet age, Twitteresque, Words words words
posted by Tym at 2:00 PM
Monday, October 22, 2007
Confusing the cat
I was watching Evan flip over on YouTube and Ink trotted over excitedly to investigate, very much wearing an expression that said, "I can hear the human noise, but where's the human?" He has the same reaction if my cell phone ringtone with the screeching "Ohaaaaaayyyyyo!" voice goes off.
It was only after two minutes of replaying the video that he lost interest and moseyed off.
Technorati Tags: cat, Ink the cat, baby video
Labels: Kitty corner, Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 9:34 AM
Monday, September 24, 2007
Disturbed sleep
It's really not a good sign when one starts dreaming about Facebooking ...Technorati Tags: Facebook
Labels: Life in the internet age, Twitteresque
posted by Tym at 11:41 AM
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
Behold the marvel that is Google
1. Go to the Google search page for images.2. Enter the following search terms: swan lake on ice singapore
3. Click on the third page of results and scroll down to near the bottom ...
4. Where my blog picture appears --- I would assume, because the contents of that page mention "Swan Lake Avenue", "ice cream" and, of course, "Singapore".
Who'd've ever thunk it?
Technorati Tags: Google
Labels: Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 5:27 PM
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
I have a bad earworm
Blame it on the iCommons party I attended last night, but I woke up with an insipid mash-up of Garbage's "When I Grow Up" with Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark's "Enola Gay".And it won't go away.
Technorati Tags: iCommons
Labels: Life in the internet age, Pop culture, Twitteresque
posted by Tym at 7:54 AM
Sunday, August 19, 2007
Not the coolest thing to do, I'm aware ...
But is anyone going to be watching the National Day Rally at 8 pm so that we can heckle it together online?Technorati Tags: Singapore, National Day Rally, heckle
Labels: Life in the internet age, Singapore stories, Twitteresque
posted by Tym at 5:34 PM
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Because anything can be a song
Everyone needs to go listen right now to the Barenaked Ladies' "Testing 1, 2, 3" (recorded at a concert in Lexington, Kentucky in 2004).It's nice when Last.fm makes me laugh in the middle of clearing work email.
Technorati Tags: Last.fm, Barenaked Ladies
Labels: Life in the internet age, Twitteresque
posted by Tym at 5:36 PM
Wednesday, August 15, 2007
Playing with Jajah
(Note: Not Jar Jar Binks, whom I still loathe with the vengeful fury of a thousand suns.)Is anyone else out there successfully using Jajah to bypass their cell phone service provider's rates and has never looked back? There are all these promises of free calls if both phone users are Jajah members; even for calls to non-Jajah numbers, the rates for Singapore-to-Singapore numbers are lower than what my provider (M1) can offer.
If you're one of the people I regularly chat with and you're on Jajah, let me know. Let's see if I can't save more money so I can take more frequent vacations.
Technorati Tags: Jajah
Labels: Geek girl, Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 7:09 PM
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
So long and thanks for all the tea
I'm not sure what the deal is with tea and me lately, but the last work-related meeting I had this week was on Monday at Zen Bone Tea Mind. It was budak's suggestion and a very fine one, because the place is a) pretty, b) quiet on weekday afternoons, and c) operates on the assumption that people will order one tea and then sit there for as long as they like while the waitstaff keeps efficiently topping up the hot water. Now if only it had wifi ...
Tonight, I'm sitting here with a mug of most excellent Stash peppermint tea (thank you, sarah and Little Miss Drinkalot!) and trying to remember if I've forgotten anything work-wise before I go on vacation. It's oddly quiet because Ink isn't here (Terz is cat-sitting him while I'm going to be away) and the flatmates aren't home yet.
Okay, let's see: Yahoogroups switched off, vacation email autoresponse set, perishable food consumed or otherwise cleared from the fridge. Now I just need to pack my vacation wallet, phone and camera chargers and a few remaining toiletries, and we're good to go.
PS: I am bringing 3 pairs of footwear for a 4-day trip, which edges out the previous record.
Labels: Life in the internet age, Travel babble
posted by Tym at 11:29 PM
Monday, August 06, 2007
I'm a weak-minded fool and you're all sly, crafty old rats, encore
Previous posts here and here.So I spent the morning Facebooking instead of rushing all the work I need to finish before I go on vacation. I blame this firmly on all the invitations I've been getting, as well as the alleged promise of finding old primary school classmates (as kk has done). Not that I can remember the name of very many primary school classmates to begin with ...
In other news, I desperately want to say "vacay" instead of "vacation", but I think it would make me sound totally Valley Girl.
Technorati Tags: Facebook, vacay
Labels: Life in the internet age, Words words words
posted by Tym at 9:52 AM
Saturday, August 04, 2007
Friday night tea time
It's not a good sign when I'm standing in a 7-Eleven store complaining about their paltry yet baffling selection of Lipton teas, and the friend I'm with says, "You're going to blog about this later, right?"Which I wasn't going to --- honest! --- but since it's apparently expected of me, here it is.
I wanted some good ol'-fashioned Lipton Yellow Label tea --- you know, what used to be the default tea option when I was growing up, before I knew what Earl Grey was, and well before Celestial Seasonings and its ilk of infusion confusions came along to clutter up our shelves.
7-Eleven was the only place still open that might have tea for sale. Except that the first 7-Eleven store I walked into had exactly three varieties of Lipton: Red Tea, White Tea and Gold Tea. No humble Yellow Label options in sight, and the descriptions of the Red/White/Gold Tea consisted of sufficiently purple prose that I immediately replaced the boxes on the shelves.
The next 7-Eleven store, mercifully, had many boxes of Yellow Label tea, but also the Red and White varieties. (Neither store had any non-Lipton teas for sale.) Now that the Yellow Label was safely within reach, I took a few moments to peruse the Red and White Tea descriptions a little more closely. Red Tea promised a spicy flavour (I almost fell for it), White Tea hailed from Kenya, which made me think of a rich coffee-like flavour because of the Rift Valley blend coffee I'd had at Starbucks this morning.
Then the friend helpfully pointed out that the Red and White Teas were $4.60 a pack, while the Yellow Label was $2.45.
Half an hour later, I had my Yellow Label tea in a Starbucks mug. It tasted just like it used to.
Technorati Tags: Lipton, tea, 7-Eleven
Labels: Food for thought, Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 1:34 AM
Saturday, July 28, 2007
Let's call this a want ad
I'm looking for:An invite to Pownce.- A small office space in town without being in the heart of town (where it would be both annoying and unaffordable).
- A morning where I can sleep in without having to set my alarm clock.
Technorati Tags: want ad, Pownce
Labels: Freelancin' living, Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 9:16 AM
Saturday, July 07, 2007
Pictures from the past
Yahoo! Photos is closing, which doesn't surprise me that much since Flickr's been in the Yahoo! stable of companies for a while now. What did surprise me was that I got an email alert about it through my Yahoo! account, because I didn't think I had any photos there.Oh wait, I did --- but they weren't photos that I'd taken myself or even, particularly, want to admit to possessing now. In fact, this admission makes me sound like I'm still in Facebook's target demographic: who knew that downloaded pictures of Goran Visnjic and Milo Ventimiglia from the late 1990s still resided on my Yahoo! Photos account?
Ah, those halcyon ER days ... and this is pre-Heroes (i.e. Gilmore Girls-era) Ventimiglia to boot.
Clearly I have (had?) a thing for dark-haired men of European ancestry and with difficult-to-spell-without-Googling-to-check surnames.
Technorati Tags: Yahoo! Photos
Labels: Life in the internet age, Pop culture
posted by Tym at 10:53 AM
Sunday, July 01, 2007
Wordiness: An introduction
I like words. I like learning new words. But I don't learn words so well when I learn them out of context, which is why trying to read through the dictionary never did help me very much.Fortunately, since words are the tools of my trade, learning new ones is very much part of the job. The only problem is my Swiss-cheese memory's inability to retain more than a few of the good ones. Since I rely on the internet to keep track of so much of my life anyway (including my recent albeit late-to-the-party delight with Google Calendar), I figured I might as well use my blog to keep track of cool new words that I come across.
Ideally, there will be a Wordiness entry everyday. On the other hand, this is very much an experiment plus no one pays me to write this blog, so --- we'll see.
Technorati Tags: word, wordiness
Labels: Life in the internet age, Wordiness, Words words words
posted by Tym at 11:10 AM
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
I forgot to pay my bill
First, it was due, but I thought I'd paid it, so I ignored it.Then I got another bill informing me that payment was now overdue, but I really thought I'd paid it, so I ignored it.
Then I thought I'd better check, so I got in touch with the government agency concerned (after the due date of the second bill). They told me that I hadn't paid it, no sirree. Whoops.
Then I procrastinated.
This morning I tried to pay the bill online, but apparently online payments are not permitted for overdue bills (why the hell not?). The not-so-small print on the bill informs me that "legal proceedings may be initiated to recover the outstanding amount if payment is still not received". Oops.
I've emailed the government agency concerned to ask how I can make payment. Hopefully they won't take that as an invitation to sue the pants off me.
Related Posts: Procrastination, Chinese New Year-style, Why I should not procrastinate, The afternoon: a chronology, *poof*, They won't throw me in jail for my birthday, I procrastinate, therefore I am
Technorati Tags: procrastinate, procrastination
Labels: Domestically challenged, Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 11:43 AM
Tuesday, June 19, 2007
An afternoon at Geek Terminal
When Adri first told me she wanted to check out Geek Terminal (first seen --- by us, anyway --- at theory.is.the.reason), my initial reaction was: Great concept, but couldn't they have come up a name that was more Wired and less Hackers? Then I said, "Oh, I'm not usually in the Market Street area."And then at 3 pm today, I found myself at Chulia Street with several hours to kill before meeting Little Miss Drinkalot for dinner. So I ended up at Geek Terminal after all.
The verdict:
- The decor --- Futuristic-ish. A bit too much silver and a few too many plasma screens for my personal liking, which is why I ended up sitting in one of the red chairs and stared at my own laptop screen instead.
- The coffee --- Illy! I approve.
- The wireless - Free and fast on my laptop. However, my Nokia N95 didn't get along well enough with the cafe's wireless network to be able to upload an image directly to Flickr. Oddly enough, the usually more patchy Wireless@SG did the trick instead.
- The Eubiq power plug system --- Very cute! And idiot-proof.
I wasn't at all hungry, so I didn't try the menu. But if the cafe's raison d'etre is to serve neo-nomads like me, it seems to be on the right track. There's even a Nokia Nseries/Eseries display where customers can wander over and fondle new phones.
We'll see what Adri thinks when she gets here.
Technorati Tags: Singapore, Geek Terminal
Labels: Freelancin' living, Geek girl, Life in the internet age, Singapore stories
posted by Tym at 4:38 PM
Sunday, June 17, 2007
My very first Hindu wedding
In which I did not understand a whit of what was going on, because I failed to do a little educational Googling before showing up this morning.At any rate, it was as colourful as I'd expected, despite the drizzly weather, and the videographer, just like his fictional counterpart in Bend It Like Beckham, firmly instructed the bride as she got out of the car, "Don't smile ah, don't smile." I wanted to chime in with the rest of the line from the movie: "Indian bride never smile! You ruin the bloody video!"
No video was harmed in the making of this married couple.
The rites were pretty, the legal solemnisation ceremony that followed banal and flat in comparison. And because I was sitting in the midst of a number of guests who were government employees, I started wondering who were the poor government employees who had to draft and finesse those civil marriage vows in the first place.
In future, I'll remember not to heap my plate so high at the lunch buffet because the stuff I like (potato curry, prawn vadai, papadums) are mostly carbohydrates after all. Good thing I went shopping after that to work it off.
Labels: Life in the internet age, Pop culture, Singapore stories
posted by Tym at 6:39 PM
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
I'm a weak-minded fool and you're all sly, crafty old rats, redux
Previous post here.No time to blog.
So I Twitter. Do you?
Technorati Tags: Twitter
Labels: Life in the internet age, Twitteresque
posted by Tym at 1:06 PM
Thursday, May 24, 2007
I took the weekend off
I wanted to blog about the weekend, but then the week of work overwhelmed me, and here we are on Thursday, and I'm feeling like I desperately need a weekend off again.Yes, a weekend off --- that is what I gave myself for the first time in months (years?) last weekend and it was very surreal.
For one thing, a weekend off meant no touching the laptop between Friday night and Monday morning. No email. No Googling. No catching up on friends' blogs or writing a post for mine. No immediately checking out a cool website when Wahj told me about it over lunch. No using the cell phone to surf the web, either.
It was very weird.
Did I get a little antsy about how much email might be stacking up over the 60 hours that I didn't check my inbox? Yes, but it didn't take me that horribly long to clear it all on Monday morning, plus I was in a much better frame of mind to do it.
It's not clear yet if I'll be able to take this entire weekend off in the same way, but I heartily recommend it for everyone. The Internet? Who needs it!
All I need is my cell phone.
Labels: Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 7:26 PM
Wednesday, May 16, 2007
Oops
I forgot to blog.More accurately, I have been trying to spend a little less time on my laptop, so when I'm not having to do work, I try not to be at the computer, which kinda makes it hard to blog.
As for how I am doing generally, leave it to the inimitable Suzie to put her very finger on it, even over MSN:
ME: i think i am more "two steps fwd, one step back"?
Suzie: it's more of, two steps forward, maybe one step back, oh maybe not, wait, wait, er, how about another one back, oh whoops, back and forth, aiya, just sit down lah.
Labels: Life in the internet age, Personal
posted by Tym at 6:49 PM
Thursday, May 03, 2007
How to get quoted by Reuters
1. Write a quirky! blog! post! about the haze.2. Make your email address available on your blog(s).
3. Answer email promptly when interested journalist wants to chat about living under haze conditions.
4. In fact, spend half an hour (or so) on the phone with very nice and interested journalist, chatting airily (pun fully intended) about living under haze conditions last year.
The result: I get to inspire the opening anecdote in the news story, "Asia struggles to stop relentless 'pollution calendar'" (thanks, Dad!), even though in terms of being quoted, there's only a brief and none-too-sparkly quote.
Ah well, you can't have everything.
Technorati Tags: Singapore, haze, Singapore news
Labels: Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 8:52 PM
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
I, the neo-nomad
I recently came across the BBC's "In search of the neo-nomad", which picks up a San Francisco Chronicle definition of neo-nomads as:... people who turn a laptop, a wireless connection and a cafe into an office and work wherever they happen to be ... distinguishe[d] from traditional freelancers because of their close engagement with technology and use of the latest generation of web-based tools in their working lives.Laptop --- check.
Wireless connection --- check (thank you, Wireless@SG).
Cafe --- check. Coffee tastes best at Starbucks or tcc (German blend). Less satisfying is The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf's, and overpriced is Coffee Club's. Epicurious and Toast also have yummy coffees (and unbeatable iced teas). Not that there's anything wrong with indigenous kopitiam coffee, but sometimes in the afternoon it's too hot to sit in a non-airconditioned environment.
Close engagement with technology --- I think so. Did I mention what's in my bag? Nowadays, the list includes a laptop (usually with charger), although I only have one cell phone now and no more security pass.
Latest generation of web-based tools --- check. Gmail to manage 5 work-related email accounts, Flickr, Adium for MSN/Yahoo/GTalk/AIM, blogging software (Blogger/Movable Type/Wordpress) all. Plus I recently got sucked into LinkedIn.
I'm going to put down "neo-nomad" the next time I fill out a job that asks me for my "occupation".
Technorati Tags: neo-nomad
Labels: Freelancin' living, Geek girl, Life in the internet age, Personal
posted by Tym at 4:58 PM
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Budget airline, budget website?
After months of whinging about it, I have finally booked that damn vacation.Of course, it's in August, but still.
On Adri's sound advice ("Terminal 1!", "assigned seating!", "20 kg baggage allowance!", "no aunties with plastic bags!"), I went with Jetstar instead of Tiger Airways --- also because a Jetstar ticket wound up being about $30 cheaper overall. Despite being a seasoned internet veteran, this also marks the first time I've ever booked an air ticket online. Which leads me to two interesting observations (read: gripes) about the Jetstar website.
When you make a ticket booking, you have to indicate a contact person and assorted details. Strangely, while there are no character limits on the fields where you key in the travellers' names, there is a 14-character limit on the last name of the contact person. I have a 15-character double-barrelled last name, which I whittled down to 14 characters by dropping the hyphen in the middle. But what about all the lovely people who have less truncatable last names (particularly Asian ones)?
So I thought I would do what everyone does in the internet age: click on the link for "contact us", which would no doubt lead me to some kind of online form that I could fill up with the above observation and click on its merry way to the Jetstar feedback department.
Jetstar's "Contact Us" page states:
If you have any feedback relating to our customer services or web site please forward them in writing to the applicable address. [emphasis mine]Snailmail? They want feedback on their website to be conveyed through snailmail? My mind, it's still boggling.
Jetstar gets an A for having cheap tickets and all the other perks that Adri mentioned. But I'm not sure how many points I'll dock for the level of customer-unfriendliness at the end of the day.
Technorati Tags: vacation, Jetstar, budget airlines
Labels: Life in the internet age, Personal
posted by Tym at 10:35 AM
Friday, March 16, 2007
Only connect
It is a sad, sad day when a 3G connection on my cell phone loads webpages more quickly than the free wireless connection at the National Library. I'm guessing the latter is having a bad day, but even so. What's the point of boasting about an island-wide free wireless network if it doesn't actually let me access the net the way I need to?I suppose I should be grateful that the creakingly slow connection's still sufficient to let me blog...
Technorati Tags: Singapore, Wireless@SG
Labels: Life in the internet age, Singapore stories
posted by Tym at 1:32 PM
Friday, March 09, 2007
Let this not be my destiny
Where would I be without Urban Dictionary? Today's unbeatable word of the day:technosexual n. A person, male or female, who is so deeply enthralled with technology they discuss it with a level of passion that most people reserve for sex. Not always a geek or a nerd, but generally someone who has the latest and greatest everything.I don't have the latest and greatest everything, but I often wish I did. I don't discuss technology with a level of passion that most people reserve for sex, but I do write for Popgadget. I cannot deny that I'm somewhat enthralled with technology.
Oh dear.
Edited to add (8:55 pm): Entirely by coincidence, mrbrown blogs about a completely different definition of technosexual that Calvin Klein's trying to exploit.
Technorati Tags: technosexual, technology, geek, Urban Dictionary
Labels: Geek girl, Life in the internet age, Words words words
posted by Tym at 8:03 PM
Kill me now
I almost just typed "greatful" over MSN. The only thing I can blame it on is the fact that I was looking at the Great Eastern website (for work, not for personal edification or entertainment).Labels: Life in the internet age, Words words words
posted by Tym at 3:26 PM
Saturday, March 03, 2007
Hamlet Prince of YouTube
In lieu of actual blogging, here's the first YouTube video I've ever clicked on that wasn't recommended by a friend.To post; to blog:Yes, I really enjoyed this one.
No more; and in that blogging, to say we counteract
The thousand stupendously stupid comments
The Net has heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd.
Technorati Tags: Hamlet Prince of YouTube, Hamlet, YouTube
Labels: Life in the internet age, Words words words
posted by Tym at 1:25 PM
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Matcha madness
The thing about ordering pretty Japanese desserts with a group of friends who happen to blog (save one), is that when the pretty Japanese desserts arrive, everyone whips out their digital cameras to take pretty portraits while the precious ice cream is melting all over the dessert.
Meanwhile, the one who doesn't blog also takes out his digital camera (incidentally, the largest and most sophisticated one at the table) and starts taking pictures of us taking pictures of our desserts.
Well, now.
Eventually, we did eat the desserts and they were about as tasty as they had looked --- which is to say, very artfully put together, occasionally with mysterious ingredients (the dango tasted damn good but what the hell went into it, besides flour?), and satisfyingly sweet but not overly so, taking the cue from American-style sundaes without merely replicating them entirely.
Now if we'd added the "raw honey" provided in the little juglet, that would've been overkill.
Technorati Tags: dessert, ice cream, Japanese dessert
Labels: Food for thought, Life in the internet age
posted by Tym at 11:43 PM
Sunday, February 18, 2007
A sign of the times, or something
Today's Urban Dictionary Word of the Day: gong xi fa cai (though they spell the last word incorrectly as "chai").Never thought I'd see the day when a commonplace Mandarin greeting for the Lunar New Year would become an entry in a glossary of contemporary slang.
Happy Year of the Pig, everyone! May you enjoy much bacon and (since this is a Chinese New Year after all) fat piggy banks to carry you through to the next year.
Technorati Tags: Singapore, Chinese New Year, Lunar New Year, Urban Dictionary
Labels: Life in the internet age, Words words words
posted by Tym at 7:39 PM
Monday, February 12, 2007
To resume
Friends who've known me since my pre-blogging days and who perhaps don't spend quite as much time immersed in the world of blogging as I do --- they've asked me before, how is it that I can put up my life on such public display on my blog, to have its minute details read by people I've never met and whom I may never meet.My answer is simple: it's not my entire life that's on display here, it's just the bits and pieces that I choose to put on record, things that I can live with people knowing, that don't infringe on my own privacy or security in any way. The blog version of me is hardly the whole me there is to know.
Of the many things I don't write about, one of them is my relationship with Terz. It's an unwritten rule that I came up with on my own, to maintain my sense of equilibrium between public and private, between real and virtual.
And then sometimes things spill over into the public domain.
All of which is a long preamble to my saying that if you didn't know already from reading Terz's blog (also the most beautiful blog entry ever --- I'm not insensitive to that), here's the Cliffs Notes' version:
That's all I'm prepared to say here --- at least, at this juncture. Maybe someday I'll say more, maybe this is all there'll ever be on this blog about this.
Meanwhile, life, as they say, goes on.
Labels: Life in the internet age, Personal
posted by Tym at 11:15 AM
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
A whimper or a bang
Perhaps someday this will make a good story, but at the moment it's impossible to see how.Taking some personal time. Thank you for all the SMSes/IMs/emails and a few old-fashioned phone calls. So this is how one weathers an emotional crisis in the age of the internet.
I will be back. I just don't know when.
Labels: Life in the internet age, Personal
posted by Tym at 9:01 AM
Monday, January 15, 2007
Not bored, just ...
Last Tuesday, I found out that someone we'd worked quite closely with for a recent project had unexpectedly --- it seemed, inexplicably --- passed away. Add the fact that I got the information through SMS and that adds a whole other layer of surrealism to the occasion.Last Thursday, I slipped in the rain, fell down and scraped my knees open. My mother would despair of me. The knees are healing slowly --- yes, I must be getting older because the same wounds used to clot and scab within days when I was a kid --- but still look ugly, unsexy and highly tak glam. Well, at least I'm not limping anymore.
Last Sunday, my stomach decided that it would tease me with all the discomfort of diarrhoea, without any of the actual diarrhoea. Ditto today. I don't know whether to be grateful or disgruntled.
Labels: Life in the internet age, Personal
posted by Tym at 11:41 PM
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Gobsmacked
So it turns out that in this era when the word "Google" has evolved from a search engine to a brand name to a bona fide verb in the dictionary, there are people my age who still use Yahoo to search.Labels: Life in the internet age, Twitteresque
posted by Tym at 2:10 AM
Tuesday, December 05, 2006
I've forgotten how to blog
So now I have a little bit of breathing space between work, but I've forgotten how to blog. I sit here, I stare at the blank Blogger screen, and I wonder what it is that one writes about when one blogs. I think about the day that's passed, or is passing, and I can't think of anything that's worth committing to words, as such.I mean, of course, there's stuff. There was Terz's birthday last Friday, which involved a considerably amount of alcohol, semi-public humiliation and silliness for him, and not very much of any of that for me (because I had to put him to bed eventually, see).
There was the Museum's soft launch on Sunday, which involved showing people around the place so that they'd know exactly where the help they'd given us had gone. If anyone wants a personal walk-through, I'm available for one-on-one tours till December 13, all for the low, low price of a good meal and a glass of wine.
And then there was the usual whining about how much I need a vacation. At last recitation (last night), I have the following places on my to-visit list (in no particular order): central Vietnam (currently in the path of the most creatively named Typhoon Durian), Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Bali and Beijing (which I've been talking about visiting since June). I have booked not a single air ticket. I have no travelling companion (Terz is otherwise occupied). My window of travel is in January only. At the rate this is going, I will still be talking about the proverbial well-earned vacation come next December.
I do believe I now remember what blogging is all about after all.
For the record, I am still in the office, drinking cold Tiger beer out of a white Ikea coffee mug, while we try to complete everything in time for a certain midnight deadline.
Technorati Tags: blogging
Labels: Freelancin' living,