JOURNAL: Amizadai (Lee Amizadai )

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  • 2002-08-13 02:40:07 Phone rings, Ami runs from upstairs to answer.
    Ami: Hello?
    Lady: *in Cantonese* Ah Leng, ah? Ah Leng ah, where are you?
    Ami: *in Mandarin* Um, you've got the wrong number.
    Lady: Oh, OK, bye.

    Phone rings for the second time, Ami runs from upstairs to answer.
    Ami: Hello?
    Lady: *in Cantonese* Ah Leng, ah? Ah Leng ah, where are you?
    Ami: *in Mandarin* Um, you've got the wrong number. What number are you trying to reach?
    Lady: Bye.

    Phone rings for the THIRD time, Ami runs from upstairs to answer.
    Ami: Hello?
    Lady: *in Cantonese* Ah Leng, ah? Ah Leng ah, where are you?
    Ami: *in Mandarin* Um, you've got the wrong number.
    Lady: Aiyah, I am dialing *******, but I keep getting the wrong number.
    Ami: Well, that's my number.
    LAdy: She lives at Jurong West.
    Ami: So do I.
    Lady: She lives at block 351.
    Ami: Oh, I live in another block.
    Lady: OK, sorry, bye.

    Phone rings for the FOURTH time, Ami runs from upstairs to answer.
    Ami: Hello?
    Lady: *in Cantonese* Listen, I've been calling this number, and I called this other number, but they're all the wrong numbers!
    Ami: I see.
    Lady: I need to call Ah Leng because she's bringing me to the doctor but I didn't bring her number out. Aiyah, what's her number?
    Ami: Err...
    Lady: Now I'm waiting at the market for her and she hasn't turned up. Aiyah, I should have brought her number along. How am I supposed to find her like that?
    Ami: Well -
    Lady: OK, bye bye.

     
  • real men don't blink 2002-08-13 02:00:17 I'm getting a new mobile phone today - there's an offer going on which gives new subscribers $88 off any new package. I hope the phone company hasn't blacklisted me - I didn't pay my prior phone charges until they finally sent me a pink letter demanding payment. Having skipped payments for about 3 years, the bill was quite a hefty one - almost S$1500. That's $500 a year... wow.

    Now, you must understand, I wasn't trying to cheat the company - I always knew I would pay up in the end. I just wanted to see how things would work out if I didn't pay. Would they demand payment before my contract with them was up and risk losing a customer, or would they grit their teeth and wait till I was at the end of the contract before inundating my mailbox with pink letters? Turns out the latter was true. So anyway, the only thing I lost was my phone number which I quite liked. And that was only because I was away in Australia and didn't reactivate my number on time. Hmmm... very forgiving, these people.

    I've been surfing eBay for costume angel wings - the kind you can strap onto your back and wear. I've always liked wings. Maybe it's my fascination with flight. As a kid I was loved the idea of angels and wings. I remember being about 4 years old and at a department store with my mom. She was trying to tie on a lace and ribbon collar, one that left the lace lying over my shouders and back, with the a skinny ribbon bow in the front. I was fussing until she told me they were just like wings, didn't I always want to have a pair, oh how like an angel I would look with the collar on. I immediately stopped fussing and let her tie it on. I remember being aware of my mother's manipulations, and looking at her smug and bemused expression in the mirror as I turned to examine myself. In hindsight, it's really quite amazing that a 4-year-old would be aware of adult manipulation. Hm, maybe kids are not so stupid afterall.

    I wish I could find that collar now. It would have been a nice momento to keep from one of my earlier memories.
     
  • study shows that women like tall men, but shorter women have more babies 2002-08-12 14:15:47 Hey Bowler, thanks for the tip on the switchbox thingy. But I want to be able to use the comp at the same time as my sister. I also want to throw my sister out of my room so I can have my desk to myself again.

    I am borrowing an unused monitor from Wally this weekend, so the monitor issue is more or less solved. The wireless router costs quite a hefty sum, so in the meantime I am thinking to maybe get an ethernet card installed on my system so I can switch the cable modem connection between computers. I can just see my sister and I hissing at each other over who gets the internet. I am of course older so by right I should get the connection. However, she's really bony and packs a really painful punch, so I am usually quite easily persuaded to give in to her.


    I met Bart at 8.45am today to go to the Matrox RTX100 demonstration. I was in the MRT (subway) with all those commuters on their way to work, pretending I too was a worker travelling to Shenton Way (the CBD area) to a hip, 5 day a week job tat let me dress casual everyday. It was a nice daydream.

    Anyway, the demo was supposed to start at 9 am, but it started an hour late. It was kinda skimpy, but still, I was very impressed. I NEED A MATROX RTX100 NOW! Unfortunately, getting it means having to upgrade practically everything - my CPU, my RAM, my motherboard. And to get the video editing card, I am going to have to take a loan... One needs money to earn money. and isn't it stupid how banks only lend money to people who already HAVE money? Argh, it's all about money. They should outlaw the stuff. Get back to bartering. "Hello, I want you to make me a corporate video - would you like some RAM and an 80 GB harddisk in return for that service?"


    I still can't find those dang mini DVs. But I came across some old letters and photos from my first boyfriend in a suitcase. It seems such a long time ago that we were together. I was SO young then, even though I was 18.
    It's strange that I stumbled across all those old paraphenelia today, because just last night I had a dream about him. Which is strange because I haven't been thinkiing about him very much recently. We parted on rather bad terms, so no, I am not pining for him.

    I just wonder how he is, and what he's like now. Would I still know him as the person I knew before? And how much *I* have changed since then - am I still the same person?

    The dream was about him taking me to a restaurant to celebrate my birthday. In the dream, it was a platonic meeting after our breakup, kinda like a shallow and slightly forced catch-up session; the kind that afterward leaves both parties relieved that the date is over even while wishing that some remnant of that old familiarity had been present... anyway, in the dream he orders a cake for the both of us, but the waitress thinks that the people at the other tables are with us and cuts the cake up to distribute to them. I take her aside so as not to embarass her and tell her that she made a mistake. She offers us another cake on the house, and then does the same thing again, but this time with the people next to our table. By this time I'm getting quite pissed and I demand another cake. This time she is quite terse, and after I scold her, I see her talking to the restaurant manager. I hear the manager say rather rudely, "Aiyah, just give her whatever she wants," and at this point they both turn to glare at me.

    I guess the dream was more about the waitress than it was about the ex. Hm.

    And then after that dream, I had one of my flying dreams. Mm, I like flying dreams. Except this one was quite stressful. I was crouching on my balcony baulstrade, with a lady called Marie egging me to jump off so she could see me fly. But for some reason I couldn't. She said, "I'll help you," and I felt something clamp over both ankles, and then the lady pushed me off. As I was falling off, she calls out, "Now you've got reason to fly!" and when I look down, I see her 11-year-old daughter (who in the dream has the name of Corazon) hanging on to my ankles for dear life. So of course I have to fly, only the weight of the kid is pulling me down, and the effort to stay up damn near kills me. But I did fly.  
  • what would it take for you to never sleep again? 2002-08-10 14:33:11 Singapore has been buying raw water from Malaysia for ages, but recently our neighbour has raised the price of the water quite a bit. I guess it's only fair, considering that the price has not changed for over 3 decades. Plus, as a friend of mine so eloquently said, we were the bastards first: Singapore processes the raw water and sells it back to the country of origin at a profit. Malaysia finally got fed up, built their own processing plant and told Singapore they're not taking that crap anymore, and oh, by the way, raw water is now a hundred times more expensive, nyeh nyeh.

    So Singapore started a project that involves recycling sewage water into potable H2O. And the product has been given the awkward name of "NEWater". Lots of people have been calling it "ShitWater" though, which is just as appropriate, I guess.

    Yes. In a couple of years Singaporeans will be drinking processed sewage. It's a thought that curdles the brain. To say it's a controversial subject in Singapore would be an understatement. A massive PR (read brainwashing) campaign has been in motion to make the hygiene-obsessed Singaporean stop cringing at the very thought of it. The Prime Minister has been photographed swigging NEWater after a tennis game, pronouncing it a "refreshing" drink. Countless scientists have declared it exceptionately pure. But Singapore is still not yet convinced, so yesterday, at the National Day Parade, a bottle of NEWater was distributed with the goodie bags. Then, sometime during the celebrations, we were asked to toast Singapore and swig from the bottle.

    I wonder whose sewage we had the priveledge to be drinking. A newspaper article showed a photo of people holding up the bottles during the toast, looking very apprehensive. I didn't have that many qualms about NEWater, because a) I am tremendously unhygenic anyway, and b) I am a mindless automaton of Singapore who believes whatever the government makes the media say. I drank from the bottle way before the toast, and it tasted normal. Kind of an anti-climax. I was hoping for some throat-grabbing, lots of rolling on the floor, foaming at the mouth, convulsions... instead, the water tasted absolutely BORING. Ah well.
     
  • your bowels will thank you 2002-08-09 01:13:16 Everytime I want to switch between using my sister's computer (which has the blazing fast cable connection) and mine (which is leet because it has all my files), I have to crawl under the table to unplug the cable from our one and only monitor and plug it into the other comp.

    I do have another monitor, which is a 14-inch (or is it 15?), but it's so old it doesn't even have a ferrite core on the cable. I wouldn't mind using it, except that my new(!) ATI Radeon 8500 (how I love thee!) won't let me. And I don't think my sister would be willing to give up the 17-inch monitor she is using now (which is actually mine) to use the crappy 15-inch, which gives a blurry picture. Plus, she needs the better one for her school work. So it looks like I'm going to have to put up with messing with the monitor cable everytime I need to switch computers, blast it. 
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