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[ July 2006 ] | |
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- tagcloud - academics [70] art [8] changelog [49] current events [36] cute stuff [12] gaming [11] music [8] outings [16] philosophy [10] poetry [4] programming [15] rants [5] reviews [8] sport [37] travel [19] work [3] miscellaneous [75] |
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- category tags - academics art changelog current events cute stuff gaming miscellaneous music outings philosophy poetry programming rants reviews sport travel work tags in total: 386 |
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- outings - That's another week gone by. Hockey-court soccer at NUS on Saturday, which would have been absolutely capital had not all the courts with proper goalposts been taken. We used the wirefence poles instead, but it is just different to me. As expected, the boots helped my touch a little, and the quick onset of exhaustion hinted that I should start running a lot. Managed to get quite a number of people for the soccer, important since quantity was the main obstacle to soccer vs basketball. The big 'un was scheduled for Wednesday, though. It all began in the morning, when I went back to camp again, to once again get a couple of signatures on my clearance form. Truly, my pink IC is testing my worthiness to possess it. Then to City Hall at 12pm, where a select six who were freer than most picked out a gift for fone, who recently has gotten himself ensnared in martial bliss. We Guessed a watch would do nicely. Then we split, most going for KTV while tpk and I patronised a LAN shop. Considering my singing voice and (nonexistent) practical involvement in music, I would say I got the better part of that bargain. We would have tried Medal of Honour, but the shop hadn't configured that game for Internet multiplayer. And it appears they shared CD keys for Warcraft III, so DotA on Battlenet was out too. Ended up with LAN Counterstrike, where I had most success with the Para on Iceworld. Seems my affinity with that big gun hasn't left me. Finally we started a Diablo II co-op game, Paladin and Sorceress, up to about character level six. It turns out that tpk supposedly has never played DII! Imagine that. pxh and zy arrived in due time, and looked highly amused at our choice of timesink. At $2 an hour, it was cheaper than KTV anyhow, especially as we had scoffed some free tidbits during our brief sit-in. Checked out the bowling rates, then popped over to play pool on a more economic basis. I think we are all improving. The Big Dinner at seven p.m. was a steamboat buffet at Marina South (Chong Pang 2-in-1 Barbeque and Buffet, thanks occ). Competition appears to be stiff, judging from two "ambushes" from representatives of rival establishments en route. By that time, I was hungry enough (by design) that I wouldn't have minded anything vaugely edible. An overwhelming percentage of past 4Oceans made it there, 24 out of 34 from zy's MSN comment, which makes just over 70%, superb by Singaporean standards! Sadly/Thankfully none of our teachers accepted our invitations, though we had a two-thirds majority approval for asking them out. A couple even paid homage to our established boycott tradition, which while regrettable was oddly appropriate. It just wouldn't have been complete without some instigation. And so began the feasting. Started off with a wad of rubbery beef that took up five minutes of hard chewing. It got better after that, as I went through an assortment of eggs (three to be exact), meat balls, black peppered chicken, mee, rice, prawns and even french fries. Clearly the food wasn't the main attraction however. It was the rest of the guys, some of whom I haven't seen for years. To be honest, though, none of them have really changed, physically at least. More reliving old memories, foremost being a petition by edchong (details pending release in a reputable local newspaper). Anecdotes, many of them unprintable, were in free flow. There were accounts of how half the class ended up outside the room for doing badly in Geog tests, on how sitting at the front brought bad health to one's innocent textbooks (employed by angry teachers to throw at the real offenders), on how even flying textbooks failed to alert engrossed talkers that something was wrong, on how two guys conspired to spontaneously poke a hole in another guy's waterbottle... Or how about someone throwing stuff over the roof of a four storey structure, or the legendary fecal matter outside the computer lab during a camp, or on bluffing bridge-style with Tarot cards, or on how some of us seem to have more rights to sleep in class than others... Aye, the good ol' days. We then met up with our old form teacher at the Lido, some in a convoy of cars (quite a few of us not only have driving licences, but automobile access!), and the leftovers by MRT. She still remembered most of our names, a remarkable feat (although the Chinese translations were something of a problem). Someone pulled out a pack of cards. Some things don't change. Applied some motion blur to make faces less recognizable, easy to tell for those in the know, who should really view the full collection by jysw on Yahoo Groups: 
All say cheese! Except smk going "gilbert!", yah. So when will we see each other again? Hopefully, it will not be as in the extremely poignant words of tpk, who in a moment of bardic melancholy waxed lyrical, "Empty chairs at empty tables, where my friends will meet no more..."
- music - I've done it. Signed up for the StanChart marathon. Low early-bird price, free towel, and probably six hours of run-walking come December 3. Wish me luck. My exams should be (just) over by then, luckily. Haven't woken up at 7 a.m. for some time. Miss the energy levels of an occasional dawn. The urge to get-go is far stronger than at say, 1 p.m. - the feeling of acting on that simplest of truths, which is to get something done, do it, now, is all around. It is that easy, and so very effective. That fact works for all and sundry, such as answering comments in this blog. Haven't had any for some time, but I think I left two unreplied to. MAI TU LIAO! Spent the last couple of days just hunkering down with Civilization IV. If it didn't get so bogged down in the late game, I think I would never have put it down. If there was ever a computer game that I aspire to write, it would be this. While most games get old very quickly, Civ has always had that addictive property of salty food, each bite (or turn) increasing the craving. Evil. Not even a desperately cruel barbarian influx several hours into the game dimmed my enthusiasm, I simply restarted. Darn those cheating savages, where did they get the copper or iron to churn out Axemen? A couple thousand years of accumulated knowledge only taught my civilization that it couldn't craft some weapons without the right metal... Random song time - have a soft spot for oldies with strong, rhythmic lyrics, such as the below: Under the Scotsman's Kilt A Scotsman clad in kilt left the bar one evening fair And one could tell by how he walked he'd drunk more than his share He staggered on until he could no longer keep his feet Then stumbled off into the grass to sleep beside the street. Continued...
- philosophy - 80 years - 29200 days - 700800 hours - 42 million minutes - 2.5 billion seconds One-third in slumber, to feed and various physiological needs - 1.7 billion seconds remain Walk - 5km/h - 2.3 million kilometres - circle Earth 57 times at the Equator - three round trips to the Moon if there were a spacebridge to it Read - one page a minute - 28 million pages - 66000 fair-sized books - over 200000 titles produced in Europe each year Think - one discrete thought a second - 1.7 billion thoughts - less than a third of the people currently living Existence - what is the argument for mortality? Not the invulnerability and omnipotence accorded to divine beings, but that of Tolkien's ageless elves, who live on until they are fatally wounded. One would expect systems to become stronger as they grow, like the dragons of fantasy who gather their strength for millenia, sleeping mere aeons away. But that is evidently not so. Cells age, and die, even when they are supplied all the nutrients they require. Is their passing written into their DNA somewhere, in the length of their telomeres? Is there a hidden switch in one of Nature's grandest codes, an acid with a base of four? What is the motivation? Was premandated death a mutant strain, that somehow survived where the pure ones could not? Did such longlivedness invite hubris, the doom of the gods? One could imagine that such organisms might spend little time cultivating offspring, or indeed view them as a threat - for what use are heirs, when the self is always better? Man's life expectancy has ballooned tremendously, as has his numbers, technology, and all manner of small things in the last centuries, as far as we know. Our eldest are still far from Methuselah, but that particular mystery may yet be unravelled; All impossible and foolish thoughts, from the flatness of Earth to the hanging vapour of the furthest stars, started so, as the ramblings of heretics and madmen. Nature and Nature's laws lay hid in night: God said, Let Newton be! and all was light. � Alexander Pope There will be no punishment for presumptuous Babels any longer, but unrestricted lifespans, more than almost any advancement I can imagine, could be Man's final reckoning. It would be the last test of human nature, our selfishness and indulgement. Without the great equaliser of Death, the playing field would forever be tilted, and whether the antediluvians would hold the younger in their thrall, degenerate into an eternity of mindless cavorting or sink into insanity is an open question. But, despite all that, we will try it. Or, some of us will - but even one, is more than enough. Mankind is a child just opening his eyes, flailing his tiny fists in his cosmic crib. As Michael Crichton has Ian Malcolm say in Jurassic Park: "...In the thinking of a human being, a hundred years is a long time. A hundred years ago, we didn't have cars and airplanes and computers and vaccines... It was a whole different world. But to the earth, a hundred years is nothing. A million years is nothing..." Perhaps, one day, we will be as the aliens in Arthur C. Clarke's Odyssey series, who span the universe as beings of energy. Clarke described them beautifully - beings who, because in all the Galaxy, found nothing more precious that Mind, they encouraged its dawning everywhere. They became farmers in the fields of stars; they sowed, and sometimes they reaped. And sometimes, dispassionately, they had to weed. A world where taxes are all that is left. Doesn't sound promising.
- outings - ...I don't really feel anything. It's been too long, too drawn out. Furthermore, I'll have to go back (hopefully just once more) to get my clearances signed. Then, I'll be eligible for reservist! And for getting free cash from IPPT, muahahaha. First off, some errata on the last entry - the shoebox not having a label sounded suspicious even as i typed that out, and I checked all four sides out. +Absolado IN WHT/BLACK/UNIRED So I could have saved the trouble. Still, at least I was spot on. Also, found out that another of my friends got the exact model for another S$20 cheaper at Queensway too, though a different colour. Appears that prices are really negotiable, maybe his even larger feet had something to do with it. Ubin Seafood at Sixth Avenue on Thursday night, followed by some lounging about at The Tea Party with my JC class. Haven't seen some of them in ages. Had a pretty nice time, the food was decent, and I even discovered that some fancy tea with hazelnuts can approximate soya bean. Mock Soya Bean, they call it. It does remind me of the original, but the flavour was nowhere near close enough to pass off as the authentic thing. Once at S$5.90 is enough, methinks. We had the whole second floor to ourselves, as a consolation.
- sport - Contentious penalty audaciously chipped by ZZ into the underside of the crossbar with shades of Hurst, Materazzi the so-far Innocent (who gave that spot kick away by brushing against Malouda) redeeming himself with a towering header; Both goals paled into insignificance compared to The Headbutt that Shook the World (with slight embellishments). Surely a final with everything. Too bad about the soccer. Italy demonstrated that corners could be tremendous assets to a team drilled in them, as each one almost seemed worth half a goal to them. France were fast - or rather their youngsters, and Henry, were fast. But nothing came of all their work, and the close shaves amounted to an Italian free kick that drifted just wide, and a superb Zidane header that Buffon responded to with the only world-class save of the night. They defended in numbers and attacked with flair, and when the penalties came both Buffon and Buffoon (as Barthez is lampooned, with some justification) showed themselves by far a certain Ricardo's inferior. Buffon, nominally the consensus best goalie to be found, guessed wrongly for all five French attempts. Only David Trezeguet failing to emulate the more illustrious Zidane's cheek raised him to the pantheon of World Cup-winning keepers. But of course, the 2006 finals will be remembered for none of this, mundane as it really is when lined up next to its earlier and greater peers - the fine vintages of a vanished time when teams actually beat other teams in open play, and not at twelve yards. So, why, Zidane? Summaries on his act are aplenty, but an answer is not yet forthcoming. Followers of the sometimes less than beautiful game will realise that its true geniuses are disproportionately... volatile. For each Pele, there is a Maradona, a Cantona, a Rooney and now a Zidane. Jean-Louis Murat was quoted apropos in the New Paper. "Nobody knows if Zidane is an angel or a demon. He smiles like Saint Teresa and grimaces like a serial killer." Such temperaments are common in artists in any field, and while they should not be given special dispensation, the fact should not be conveniently forgotten either. In life, the bad often has to be taken with the good. And whatever may be remembered of Zidane, he went out on his own terms, and stood at a line of his choosing. The Algerian owed France nothing, as he returned from a quiet twilight to push his unworthy successors along a path he had once beaten for himself. It would seem more satisfying for Zidane to have shrugged off whatever was said, smiled back and have the last laugh with the trophy under his arm, elevated to be part of the new Holy Trinity - Pele, Maradona, Zidane. But we are not him. It may be that he shares Roy Keane's sentiments relating to his disabling tackle on Alfie Haaland. "I would do it again." For some men have a honour that has its limits, crude to sophisticates but true to themselves. And when it is in danger, they may sacrifice all for it, though the world laugh at them; Zizou, was it your mother, your sister, or your country? But could it be so smeared by a spoken word, that you had to put your head forward in its defence? Youngsters who admire him, do not be blindly turned on him by the media. Instead, look past the violence on the surface, and perhaps you may uncover a deeper truth, beyond a society that abhors a deserved punch to the chin but endorses deceits if covered by technicalities in law. Then again, maybe he just lost his head. When the man himself finally speaks, if he ever does, we will know. And if it was in fact gamesmanship that brought the Italians their fourth World Cup, then it is a prudent reminder that the fastest do not always win footraces. In balance, the event was worth disrupting sleep rhythms for. There will also be some extra memories, those of hopping home bare in one foot in the wee hours after the sole fell off my right sandals (always the right foot!), of cats lazing and prowling at void decks, of the camaraderie shared in watching others run and kick far away, even as personal preferences and monetary considerations dictate that we hope for dissimilar winners. So it's finally over, and I've even managed to diversify my time in that period. One eight-ball pool match with my cousin, which ended about even. He remarked afterwards that I did not employ the three-point contact with the cue at the two ends and the chin. Something to remember for the next time, though there was one bank shot I was immensely satisfied with. Then a meetup with my secondary school friends, ostensibly to watch 4:30, but which proved so unpopular a choice that we went for Thank You For Smoking, which turned out to be a smart, funny film. It is indeed easy to sympathize with the protagonist, even though he unabashedly hawks a product that he admits has killed more than Attila and Genghis combined. For he does what he does, not just to pay the mortgage, but out a desire to help the vulnerable and despised, the sweatshop owners, the landmine manufacturers, the baby seal clubbers of this world. Well, as in soccer, if you put enough spin on it you should eventually score. One of the pivotal moments for me was when the character explains to his son the key to winning arguments. Even on indefensible points, just refuse to meet the other guy directly ("That's not what I'm talking about!" "No, but that's what I am talking about.") and prove him wrong - you don't have to be right yourself. And oh, turn on the charm and politeness. Its scandalous how it even works, but that's that way the cookie crumbles. Let's see, there was another dinner-cum-window shopping gathering, a pastime to which I do not frequently engage in, at least when the purchasables do not hold any interest for me. But it inspired me to finally get a decent pair of soccer boots, that my loyal New Balance sneakers may be spared the ignominy of a lifeless object having sole separated from body, as happened in a particularly hot field soccer session earlier in the holidays. My first (and so far only) pair was, if I remember rightly, a run-of-the-mill Topper bought in Primary Six, and that did not last too long anyhow. I did some perfunctory research after making an appointment with a friend at Queensway Shopping Center, the Sim Lim of soccer products. I concluded that one could play on grass with flat soles more reasonably than on concrete with studs, and thus set my sights on the indoor variants. Good reviews were hard to come by on the Internet - it was only after the purchase that I found decent ones at the Bigsoccer equipment forums - so I generally had zero idea on what exactly to look out for. I ended up being sold on an adidas by a shopkeeper with a bad leg, but who appeared to know his stuff from customer feedback, and who just as importantly gave discounts, according to my friend. Initially I had set my eyes on a silver model, but was told it was an older make and not available in my size. I was recommended the newer version, and tried them on. They fit snugly, gave okay touch and felt durable - that was all I needed. I requested the black and golds. Not in my size, sorry. What about the full crimson? Also none left, sorry. Come on, size ten feet aren't that large. So that left me a choice of blue/white or full metallic blue, neither exactly to my liking. They were a bit too shiny and tacky for my style. Looking at the entire selection, I was wondering if any company actually made normal black ones, when I noticed a white/red/black colourway. I knew that keeping the white that way would be a problem, but it was still better than the blues by some margin. Here they are, at twenty dollars less than list price: 
"Asymmetrical Loop Lacing for Better Ball Contact" Picked up matching black and red socks while leaving, still in the dark over exactly what I had bought. I knew it was an adidas, of course, as are my adizer RC running shoes and mini-ball, but that was it. And oh, it was made in Vietnam. No other clues on the box or shoe. So it was back to Google, and after about an hour (including sidetracks) I finally made a positive identification: An adidas Predator Absolado IN, Champions League edition. And I also learnt a lot more about soccer boots in general. Proceeding linearly down the name, the Predator line was first conceived by ex-Liverpool player Craig Johnstone in 1986; Since then, they have updated it every so often, once every two years since 1998 at least. According to adipredweb, the best authority I could dig up, the line started with the Predator I and II, then the Touch, Accelerator (1998), Precision (2000), Mania (2002), Pulse (2004) and finally Absolute (2006). Then, what's an Absolado? It turns out to be a knockdown version of the "real thing", which means no kangaroo leather and authentic rubber vamps like the professionals. In fact, it's the third tier, being constructed out of synthetics. Between Absolute and Absolado is the Absolion, made of calf leather. Heck, they wear well and kangaroo skin would make next to no difference compared to improving my own fitness. And kangaroos are kinda cute too... The equivalent for the Pulses were the Pulsions and Pulsado, while the Manias had the Manics and Manados. The IN means indoor, which translates into a flat, non-marking adiPRENE sole, which as a bonus means it can be worn as normal sneakers. Other options are TS (Turf Shoes), which have slight ridges, and SG (Soft Ground)/FG (Firm Ground)/HG (Hard Ground) which are studded for grass fields. Why Champs League edition? Guess its due to the star patterning on the black parts. Can't wait to try them out for real. Now that I know, perhaps I could make a habit of buying boots one cycle behind current fashion, the potential price drops seem tremendous. The smell of new boots is indeed addictive...
- sport - So it's down to Italy and France, a nation dogged by a corruption scandal against a band of old fogies who rode back from the sunset for one last hurrah. The games at the quarterfinals and beyond have been cautious to say the least, most of them giving out the vibe that the first goal would settle it. Germany barely recovered to level with the fancied Argentineans, with the refereeing going their way, eventually prevailing on penalties, which while a spectacle, isn't really football. France put three past Spain after going one down, and that is the extent of comebacks at the highest level. A dash of fortune is perhaps required to tip the scales, once the remaining teams are good enough that only a terrible mistake, or a true stroke of genius - both not guaranteed to appear - can provide a breakthrough. Italy had that when they were giftwrapped their tie against Australia with a penalty out of nowhere. England in contrast were simply not good enough. I would lay the best part of blame squarely at Eriksson's door. Over-rated maybe, but the guys he had at his disposal were, man for man, on a par with any other squad. The whole turned out rather less than the parts, and why only four strikers - two half-fit, one a specialized lamppost and the last a teenager destined for cold storage, I will never understand. As The Sun's Jeff Powell sagely predicted years ago on Eriksson's appointment, England's "...birthright (was sold) down the fjord to a nation of seven million skiers and hammer throwers who spend half their lives in darkness". Indeed. Neither the red card for Rooney, for I detected no malice in his stamp, but I am a blinkered fan. Thankfully the referee confirmed that it was not for the light shove on Ronaldo, for if that were to be penalised by a sending-off, surely all pitches would be far emptier at the end than at the start of a game. For all that, Rooney more or less blew it. He will have more World Cups to play in, so he may not dwell too long upon this. Lampard simply went AWOL. His confidence was already shot to tatters before his undistinguished spot kick. Gerrard fared no better, as he seemed more afraid of missing than eager to score. No conviction in his attempt, no placing either. Owen Hargreaves deserved better. He set foot in Gelsenkirchen with little more than faint derision from his countrymen, but he was the watercarrier in a team without an identity, he took Portugal on single-footedly at times, and he was head and shoulders above any other Englishman that day. But big names crashing down were the order of the day. Ronaldinho, tasked to conjure another title for an expectant Brazil side that have reached the last three Finals, found little space, and tried too hard. Every step he took, he scoured for the seed of a supernatural move that might come, even to the greatest, but once in a lifetime; He tried to force the magic, and it deserted him, like a lover too hotly pursued. They say a mage is a man who can do anything, but as a man grows older and wiser, and more powerful, the path he can take grows ever narrower; Until at last he does nothing but what needs to be done. Such was the dilemma facing Ronaldinho, who pursued the unexpected so much that it became expected. On one reverse flick, two men were instantly on his intended target. In the end a typically Brazillian defensive lapse granted Henry all the time he needed to beat Dida, as four yellow shirts ball-watched outside their penalty area. The pedestals they build in South America for their footballing idols are tall and narrow ones; For a people to which the beautiful game is an instinct, a last-eight finish is an unbearable insult. The furious Selecao burnt their fallen star's statue, but he was hardly the only anointed one to go down in flames. Ballack was another wardog with a bark worse than his bite. He was tipped as the only truly world class player in the German side, Kahn notwithstanding, but turned out to be just a normal worker for his team. There was nothing out of the ordinary, other than many shots that appeared contrived, probably in the hope that if one would go just in, he would have earned his acclamations. His enduring image at this World Cup may however be that of Grosso bending a first-time effort around him in the dying minutes of the first semi-final, the Italian leading fist to their knockout blow. Don't get me started on Lampard, Gerrard and Rooney. Mainstays for three of the top English clubs, but nothing on the international stage. I think it was the pressure, the great expectations, that got to them. How else was it that two countries of which relatively little was expected coasted to the end? Geography and pedigree may have something to do with it too. The semis were a continental affair, and in a few days we shall see if Italy have the pleasant problem of fitting a fourth star on their crest, or if France add a second to their other sleeve. No new winner will be forthcoming, and about that I feel mildly disappointed.
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