Saw Still Walking this afternoon. My last film for this year’s film festival, and a mighty good show too. That makes it a 100% hit rate, so naturally I’m quite pleased with myself. This goes a long way towards building a healthy self-esteem, especially since I have ruined a decent part of it thinking about a math problem that I have yet to solve.

Anyway, it is about five hours away from my check-in time. Every time I get a 6 a.m. flight, I would promise myself that that would be my last time I buy tickets for such an early flight. Funny how that promise would never occur to me again until after I get tickets for my next trip. Sometimes my brain takes refuge in places where oxygen and other healthy nutrients can’t reach. And all the savings from buying cheap tickets go to a cab driver who will usually be unusually talkative at three in the morning.

I have decided not to sleep for tonight, even though I have a headache. Much thanks to stupid mothballs in my wardrobe drawer. Note to self: keep drawer tidy. I was pretty sure that I had some Cambodian riel left over from my previous trip, and since everything trip-related (itineraries, passport, tickets et al) ends up in that drawer, I thought I would probably unearth a small fortune (I was hoping for some USD as well) by going through that drawer. Right. Note to self, part two: do not be that serious about such a search, and check regularly that the mother has not gone and put a dozen moth balls in one single drawer. And there wasn’t even a fortune to be had. I found 5000 Vietnamese dong, 40 Hong Kong dollars, 1 Malaysia ringgit (one!) and a few Japanese coins. Disappointment is an understatement. Well, I eventually found 1500 riel in another bag. Let’s see. That is half a (Sing) dollar. So I have 266.30 USD altogether for my trip. Wicked.

Back to the movie. I really, really liked it. Hopefully it will get a general release and I can watch it again. I really liked it. Better reviews are here (Japantimes) and here (Midnight Eye).

Am reading The Housekeeper and The Professor by Yoko Ogawa. Thus the math puzzle (see first paragraph). It is depressing because I promised myself that I won’t continue reading the book until I find the solution to that puzzle. I happen to like keeping this particular type of promise. It sucks because I was planning to bring that book along for the trip. Good job, me.

Bored and a little hungry.

Come on brain, work with me here. It is Thursday, just one more day to the weekend and one more work day before I go on holiday next week. Nine full days of idleness await you, so there is really not much point in getting sleepy now. You have an itinerary to plan, accommodation to book and countless decisions to make. What cameras and film to bring, and how much. What time to wake up on Sunday morning. Whether to go for driving lessons this weekend. Buy batteries. Tidy up the room before the new bed arrives tomorrow (this, I suspect, is a lost cause). What books to bring. Which character to like. Futures to plan for. Contacts or spectacles. Why is my part 5 of Project Runway Canada episode 3 taking so long to load? Why has the clock just passed 12? Shit, all these things that do themselves before I have time to notice them. Why isn’t my iTunes playing a song to which I know the lyrics to? My internet connection has gone back to impersonating a snail. Buy dog food. Learn cycling. Move on. Yesterday night, after seeing Wendy and Lucy, J. and I were attacked by the wind who demanded, with threats to turn over chairs and send beer bottles to the ground, that we not do anything but bear witness to its prowess. We agreed, but chairs were still toppled and grown men were sent scuttling for shelter. We lost four fishballs and half a can of Coke, then stood around agreeing that it didn’t feel like we were in our country anymore. But across the road from where we stood was a big Hotel 81 (special rates from 89$), so of course we were still in our safe little country. Today was hot as hell. (I liked the film; it wasn’t as fulfilling as I would had hoped for it to be, but there was a honesty/unpretentiousness/rawness about it that I enjoyed. Plus, Lucy the dog was wicked cute.)

Youtube is still loading that damn video. Yawn. Time for my regular indexing of the internet then.

Bookarmy.com. Literary version of Last.fm. I like books.

Kottke: Media packaging mashups. Packaging for popular culture re-imagined and Penguin-ified. These movie posters are great, and I would like these Harry Potter books, please.

My Google Reader is possessed.

Slate: Would You Like Your Cable Company More if It Were Quirky and Hip?. Actual effectiveness aside, I quite like the ad and the campaign website (very well done; and I like decorating rooms if it doesn’t involve actual manual labour).

Luis Mendo’s Tokyo Diary

My First Dictionary. The best dictionary, ever. Well, the most honest at least. Proof as follows:

This evening, I was trying to test and make full use of my powered-up internet connection so I watched a few videos, which, rather coincidentally, had a similar theme – data. Access to data, interpretating it, presentation of it et al. I’d bet good money on that there has never been so much raw information available publicly than there is now. Tomorrows will, most undeniably, bring more information, so I guess my definition and usage of ‘now’ is pretty much tagged to the ever-changing present, rather than a static time frame (i.e. ‘now’ being forever midnight on 22nd April 2009). But anyway, the following from TED are very insightful videos.

Tim Berners-Lee: The next Web of open, linked data
Hans Rosling: Debunking third-world myths with the best stats you’ve ever seen
Hans Rosling: New insights on poverty and life around the world

Am especially charmed by Hans Rosling, haha. Midway through the second talk, he demonstrated Dollar Street, which appears to be a very interesting interactive tool for presenting statistical data in a more palatable format than graphs and charts, and then correlating that data with more familiar / practical benchmarks (i.e. the presence of certain furniture in a room versus daily income). And he swallows swords too. Wicked.

Sigh. Spoke too soon. Connection just went ‘Local only’. Knn.

So, the days of intermittent internet connection are still upon this household. The situation hasn’t gotten worse, but that is hardly any cause for joy because it sure ain’t getting better fast enough. Getting cut off every 3-5 minutes is not fun, nor is it an expected feature of our subscription. Our fingers sure don’t need the exercise that we have so patiently endured for the past four days, when we have to perpetually keep an eye on the connection status icon so that when it starts to blink again, we get a window of 2 minutes to refresh all our dead tabs before the connection dies again. So, dear Starhub, I sure don’t need PR-ish words to make me feel better. All I need and want from you, right from the start (it’s like you haven’t been listening!) is a fast and stable connection that I pay for every month.

In better news, my ibook which I gave up for dead in 2005 is once again alive! Thanks to a kind, generous, brilliant and regal friend who helped to swap a new hard disk and reinstall the OS. Woohoo. I think my cold war with this laptop is now officially over (yup, typing this from the relative comfort of my bed. Posture is all wrong but one night wouldn’t kill, I guess).

It is odd. I used to not like working on the laptop very much, but I am quite enjoying myself now. The screen is tiny (12″) and everything I dislike about the laptop has also been revived, but somehow this is a much better experience. Maybe it is enjoying the much privileged status of being a new-old toy. Maybe it’s got to do with the fact that I have another computer that I can go torture, should the need for more processing juice arise, but this is not bad for just doing light mindless tasks.

Went for a Film Fest screening yesterday afternoon. Laila’s Birthday was a great show. A light-hearted show set in much less cheerful circumstances, and there is much optimism even when the propensity for the opposite seems to rear its head at every turn (and for good reason too).

(But dear lady who was sitting next to me and yammering randomly through the entire show: Shut up, please. No one really cares for your observations. He’s having a nervous breakdown? We aren’t blind, and we aren’t deaf. If your friend happens to possess the emotional and intellectual capacity of a walnut, knowing that there is illy coffee in Palestine won’t do her much good. Really, that’s his taxi? Gee, didn’t see that coming. Actually, you know what, I think your friend wanted you to keep quiet too. You are the pistachio.)

During the summer of 2009, one thousand artists from around the world will document their lives in 24 frames using a simple disposable camera with a flash.

On September 25th, 2009, an exhibition housing over 24,000 photographs will be constructed to take you on an adventure through the lives of these thousand artists.

Sounds fun.

A fox uncomfortable

A book is good

Skeletor spirit

Ghost Patrol’s Pencil Sets are rather (very) endearing. I want to send my colour pencils to him.

(Images from Ghostpatrol)

Amazing dioramas from Thomas Doyle.
Click on each to see a close up view, or visit his site to see more.

Residue

The Reprisal

Personal Effects

Acceptable Losses

It is slightly worrying that if I don’t have some tea after dinner, my eyes play hide-n-seek with each other. I am, however, quite aware that it is probably my mind hoodwinking the rest of me into believing that I deserve a nice cold pearl tea or an ice cream every evening. Yesterday ended at 10pm, and I dreamed of having to pack, within an absurdly short 30 minutes, for a trip. To where, I don’t remember, but the ship (ship!) was leaving in half an hour and that was all the time I had to pack, which included having to decide what DVDs and CDs to bring. It was a rather stressful dream, so today when I woke, I decided that I should start planning for the Siem Reap trip next weekend. I should start planning an itinerary right about now, but somehow writing about it has absolved my worries a little and I had some tea earlier, so I should still be awake for a few more hours.

Comments on an earlier entry led to a Favourite Haruki Murakami Books list. I am yet to be done with all of his books, and I am dreading that rather inevitable day. It is funny that barely a month ago, all I had read from him was The Elephant Vanishes and Underground and now, just a little over a month since then, I am rather well-versed in his lands of all-knowing sheep, wind-up birds, wells (covered and uncovered ones), alternate universes, enigmatic girls with great ears, and late-night whiskey drinks. Frankly, I wouldn’t mind packing for a trip to those worlds.

Sad as some of his stories may be, I think I would like a short stint in the following places:
- Midori’s bookstore/house in Norwegian Wood
- the Dolphin Hotel and the Sheep Man’s house in A Wild Sheep Chase
- the love hotel in After Dark

Yours?

So leave her.
Let her be their spoils, go wrap
Your head in the snowy rivers
Of the Brooks Range. Cover
Your eyes with the writhing airs
Off the Nullarbor Plains. Let them
Jerk their tail-stumps, bristle and vomit
Over the symposia.
Think her better
Spread with holy care on a high grid
For vultures
To take back into the sun. Imagine
These bone-crushing mouths the mouths
That labour for the beetle who will role her back into
the sun.

The dogs are eating your mother, by Ted Hughes. Looked that poem up after reading an article on Nicholas Hughes in NYT earlier this week. “Bloody sad,” a friend had said, and bloody sad it is. Not exactly sure why I am posting this here (and seemingly out of nowhere); I don’t read a lot of poetry but I, like all, know what I like. And this is just heartbreaking, and I can’t quite get it out of my head.

Am quite taken with Tomoko Kashiki’s paintings. Could be partly because of what I’ve been reading lately, but I’m rather drawn to the fragmentary neither-here-nor-there figures.

Flower

Inside a box

Shadow play

Gallery (Ota Fine Arts) writeup, and exhibition details on Tokyo Art Beat (ahhhh). Here’s a review (in Japanese only) with more images of the exhibition.

(Images taken from Ota Fine Arts and Kalonsnet)

Things learnt over the weekend:

- Doraemon didn’t not start out being blue. He was yellow, and had ears! Was enlightened by a friend yesterday while passing by a store selling its merchandise. Explanation here. Strange that now that I know, I keep seeing yellow Doraemons. I probably thought that they were pirated merchandise previously.

- It was impossible to get into the Uniqlo store without possessing an abundance of patience. That, I clearly lacked, and so could only longingly look into the store yesterday. The ceilings at the new Tampines mall are low. The stores are identical to the ones found in other local malls (well, except for, that store). And look, here’s a typo. The fruit tarts at Fruit Paradise look wonderful though.

- iluma @ Bugis. Yawn. Well, at least it has a cinema and an arcade where you can watch people win stuffed toys. The latter was, surprisingly, quite fun to watch, so you should schedule a viewing every 5-8 years. I wonder why all the shopping malls are coming up with Japanese-themed food places. Tampinese 1 has one, iluma is going to have one. Sadly, they all seem to enjoy serving mediocre overpriced food. I like the fact that soon I will be able to suggest Japanese every time someone asks for a meal suggestion though. “Udon, ramen? Something else? There’s nothing else, so how about sushi? Sashimi?” That even rhymes. The effort I go to, wow.

- I apologise for not sounding enthusiastic about the above. I don’t dislike shopping (quite the contrary) but I don’t really understand why people can do it week after week at the same places. Also, apologies that this blog doesn’t have a pink background with ugly fonts, or photos of my pedicure. Have I gone off ranting about something else? I want a sandwich.

- I am just about the worst driver (-in-training) ever. Then again, my instructor has taken to eating sandwiches during the lesson, and there are two ways to read that. 1. He feels comfortable enough about my driving. 2. My driving makes him wanna throw up, and eating something helps take his mind off that. I feel good about the first option, but all signs point to the latter. Today’s was probably the worst lesson ever (it topped the one two weeks ago, so that is saying something). Why the hell am I learning manual? Why on earth do I think about books while driving? Why did the bastard honk? Why is my instructor doing a nervous chortle-n-sigh? All these things went through my mind after the lesson, and I reluctantly pushed the day I acquire a driving licence further into the recesses of my to-do list.

- Green apple green tea. <3

- Was quite sorry to finish The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle. Sigh. A multimedia theatrical production should be rather interesting.

- Siem Reap in a fortnight. Haha!

So the story is I was looking for a nice wallet..

(All images from Supermarket)