Sometimes I just want to give up on Yahoo Mail and move entirely to Google. First, the “new” (if that is the word you should use for something after a year) interface refuses to send emails out in Chrome, and now, even the classic Mail interface is taking forever to load. It is positively exasperating. I am quite sure my emails are not a blank screen. If only I haven’t been using that email address for the last decade. Decade. Decade. My first email address was actually a Rocketmail one, and then they got gobbled up by Yahoo in 1997 (!). 12 years. I’ve been online for an entire zodiac cycle. I still remember the days where I had to scrimp and save so I could pay for my internet bills. Damn you Singnet and your stingy 56k dialup plan. You were behind my diminished snack budgets. You were the reason why I had to endure 3 weeks working in F&B with a narcissistic asshole. I should blame you for my impatience too, and for cultivating an extensive arsenal of vocabulary that I unleash, periodically, whenever the connection got cut, whenever I exceeded my download limit, whenever the bill arrived. And for the long, long email account. @mbox4.singnet.com.sg! You.

That was random. And well, my current provider isn’t ace too. Fried chicken beer!

This is updated (slightly, but still updated), and this is new.

RIP, Helen Levitt.

(Image from here)

Laura Marling’s Night Terror

I woke up and he was screaming
I’d left him dreaming
I roll over and shake him tightly
And whisper “if they want you
Oh they’re gonna have to fight me”
Oh fight me
I woke up on a bench on Shepherds Bush green
Oh a candle at my chest and a hand on his knee
I got up it was dark
Theres no one in the park at this time
Why do I keep finding myself here?
Oh fight me
If I look back and he’s screaming
I’d left him dreaming, the dangers fade
And I roll back and shake him tightly
And scream “if they want him oh they’re gonna have to fight me”
Oh fight me
But if I wake up on a bench on Shepherds Bush green
Oh a candle at my chest and a hand on his knee
I’ll roll over and hold him tightly
And scream “if you want him oh your gonna have to fight me”
Oh fight me

Don’t fight me

» Continue reading “oh, fight me”

Was deciding between finishing a book or writing something here. Being incorrigibly overambitious for usually the wrong reasons, I now want to do both. 85 pages. But the eyes need a rest, and the number of unread items in my Google Reader just keeps increasing. I know the world is never still, but surely, it must get tired.

Am trying out Evernote. Articles, links, photographs, whatever. Clip them to Evernote, and you will always have them handy for easy reference. I can’t seem to clip videos though, but it seems to do the rest pretty well. So far, so good.

Evernote allows you to easily capture information in any environment using whatever device or platform you find most convenient, and makes this information accessible and searchable at any time, from anywhere.

Have never really been one to take notes, unless it was absolutely necessary. I find it much easier to just remember (or forget) stuff. I am relatively good with keeping appointments (and being punctual) and remembering figures, but retaining anything else is typically a hit-or-miss (miss). Sometimes it disturbs me that I can remember which side of my sec-4 biology textbook book a diagram is from, but not who our DPMs are. (And, I thought Google will spoonfeed me answers, but I had to refine my search terms. Twice! PAP needs better SEO, and it needs a better website.)

But anyway, I am making another conscious effort to take notes and to remember stuff (yeah, this is not a first-time effort). Enough of the meaningless ‘I-read-it-from-somewhere. Left page, bottom paragraphs’ attributions. Well, Evernote might not help much, seeing how convenient it is to just ‘clip’ something and there is probably as much active ‘participation’ as before (none), but one can always hope. Also, I’m entering tags so my brain does have to work a little. To quote, “Every army needs a flag.” Mine just needs the army too.

So what happens if I can’t get internet access?

I, sometimes, am with fickle. There are some days when I want to take photographs and moan about being in the office all day without a window to call my own, but these are the other days and as it is, I don’t feel much in the mood to take photographs. I look at something, draw an imaginary frame around it and let it be. Sometimes you can only look so much at things that do exist. When the world looks real and believable even in monochromes and high-contrast, it makes more sense to retreat into another. Well, I guess this is my pretentious way of saying that I am in my reading phase.

» Continue reading “there’s comfort when we overlap”

Saw Oriume this afternoon. Screened as part of Films about Dementia presented by the Alzheimer’s Disease Association (Singapore), the film is a positive tale of how a family comes to terms with the disease when their grandmother is diagnosed with the illness. Certainly a sensitive portrayal of a difficult topic and a very heartwarming story indeed (with outstanding performances put in by the two lead actresses in the roles of the grandmother and the daughter-in-law), though I thought it got a little sentimental towards the very end. For me, at least, and not in an off putting way. It is just the cynic in me that rears its ugly head even in the prettiest of all cherry blossom showers.

» Continue reading “oriume 折り梅”

This chair likes me. I know it does.

There are needs and there are wants, and there are things that you want to need. Like, say, if I get my own place, I will be able to get this lovely steamer pot, this impossibly cute polka dot mug, and this pitcher that I initially had qualms about but am ready to overlook because roosters can be cute and there is really no better place for them than on a kitchen counter. And the pitcher will be happy to have a teapot friend. And a kettle confidante. I miss my kitchen already. Let’s move on to wardrobe.

» Continue reading “with reality, it’s never true enough”

Reading A Wild Sheep Chase has stirred up some serious longing to travel to Japan. Specifically Hokkaido. More specifically, some isolated town with less than 5000 people. Preferably fewer.

I miss train rides. A twelve-hour train ride might sound wretched, but I doubt there was any train ride more memorable than the one Joce and I took up to Sapporo nearly two years ago. There is nothing quite like boarding a train, modern and well-equipped, crowded with people perfectly in sync with the city pace in Tokyo, and switching to a local train, slower and older, in a town whose station will be the only thing you will see of it. An old couple whose wife (or was it the husband? Well, one or the other) sleeps intermittently, like yourself. You read a manga magazine, understanding only snatches but laughing at exaggerated expressions and simple jokes. Your friend sleeps next to you, both of you on seats that could change orientation when the train changes direction in the dead of the night. The old couple awakes, changes their seats, and falls asleep again. At each stop, you lose more of your fellow passengers, until finally, at 6am, you are in a city that is still cold despite it being late spring.

» Continue reading “a sheep, maybe wild, maybe lost”

Mary Ellen Mark

USA American Characters: Photographers. The Character Project is:

[...] an on-going artistic initiative to capture the character of America and pay tribute to the extraordinary people, from all walks of life. Inspired by USA’s iconic “Characters Welcome” brand, and with the support of the not-for-profit photography organization Aperture Foundation, USA has assembled a team of 11 world-class photographers to create a powerful photography book entitled American Character: A Photographic Journey to be released by Chronicle Books in March 2009.

Photographers include Dawoud Bey, Anna Mia Davidson, Jeff Dunas, David Eustace, Joe Fornabaio, Mary Ellen Mark, Eric McNatt, Eric Ogden, Sylvia Plachy, Richard Renaldi, and Marla Rutherford.
(Sometimes all-flash websites make simple things i.e. making a list very difficult.)

I haven’t gone through the site yet (thus the listing for future power Google searches; and gosh, my nose is running a marathon), but I think it’s a great initiative.