MSN conversation with a friend…
Me: your fren elle is in my office again
Friend: lol say hi to her for me then
Me: she scolded me just now when she came in
Friend: haha what did u do this time
Me: my fault again!!
Me: maybe she was plain unreasonable??
Me: all i did was ask her to sit on the floor because there weren’t enough chairs!
Friend: …
Nobody loves me.
I’m so pleased with myself that I’m still having this silly grin on my face.
I just found a large whiteboard that can be hung on a cubicle partition.
Now it’s hanging on the outside of my cubicle partition, with these words:
DO NOT DISTURB!
HARD AT WORK!
REALLY!
I’m definitely getting that promotion soon.
Update (1:25pm):
Due to the non-permanent nature of the whiteboard marker ink, some vandal has changed the last punctuation to a question mark. Wait till I find out who did it…
Update (2:05pm):
Someone has changed the HARD to HARDLY.
I sense a conspiracy.
Wengu is a pretty awesome site on Chinese classics in English done by the French. According to the welcome page:
This site allows you to read some Chinese classic texts in original language and with some translations.
So now you can read 孫子兵法 (Sun Zi’s Art of War) in it’s original Chinese with great ease, even if your Chinese character recognition capabilities suck like a vacuum. Just put your mouse over the offending character, and the pinyin and definition will magically appear.
I wish I had this in school.
Check out the other classics as well.
(via languagehat.com)
I just realised that there was something wrong with my commenting system, so none of you could give any comments. I made a quick fix which I’m not entirely happy with (the image verification thingy by blogsome is still there and I was trying to get rid of it), but at least commenting is now possible.
First-time commenters will still need to be approved though 
The curious incident of the humble colleague
If you think I have strange colleagues (see previous post), you ain’t seen nothin yet.
If you stepped into my cubicle farm this morning, you would have see a colleague of mine on his knees, speaking to me while I was slouched in my cubicle chair.
And if you knew him (let’s call him Ken), you’d know that he’s in a management position, unlike my lowly self. Thankfully he wasn’t in the act of supplication, or the situation would have been stranger still.
Okay, I’ll cut the suspense.
It all started when Ken popped by my cubicle, asking “hey, do you have a hair dryer?”
“Hair dryer?” What a strange request. “Nope. What do you want it for?”
“I need to dry something lah,” he answered somewhat sheepishly.
“Use the hand dryer in the toilet lah.” I didn’t want to probe.
“Cannot lah. It’s too high. Some more the cleaning lady is cleaning the toilet now.”
“Well I could lend you a hand towel.” Which was buried somewhere.
“No lah cannot lah.”
“What do you want to dry?” I blurted out.
“I accidentally sat on a pool of water…”
“Heh heh heh heh…” I lost control of myself, as he gave me the look.
I called after him as he was about to leave in disappointment, “eh we have a fan - quite power.”
His face brightened when he spotted the industrial fan near my cubicle - the kind of fan that was only inches above the ground…
Running for the next elections
A bunch of my colleagues were chatting around the lunch table in the cafeteria. Topic at hand: Singapore politics. The usual complaints about media bias, intimidation tactics, and conspiracy theories.
Then things got personal.
“Hey,” one of them suggested to me, “you should run for the next elections.”
“Nah - I wouldn’t know what to do after I win.”
Stunned silence.
“I’ll be like the US,” I continued, “they win the war in Iraq, but they have not idea what to do next.”
* * * * *
Later, one of my colleagues spoke up. He’s one of the more unconventional of my colleagues.
“Maybe I should join the next elections - who knows I might win.”
“Nah,” I countered, “you’re too extreme for the average Singaporean.”
“I have nothing to lose. I have no money, no career, no future…”
“You’d probably end up in prison.”
“That would look good on my CV.” Like I said, he’s kinda unconventional.
Another colleague added, “and you’ll lose your $13,500 deposit!”
“Oh yeah hor!”
For some reason I cannot fathom, some of you like to read about my cubed up life, so here’s an update.
Just a few days ago, a colleague from another department was scheduled to visit my office for a meeting. Not wanting to further ruin my reputation, I decided to clear up my cubicle a little. So I stashed the clothing hanging on my cubicle partition into a less-visible corner. As there already was a book in that less-visible corner, I had to remove it to make room for the clothing, and I ended up flipping through its pages…
Then a phonecall came. The colleague was outside.
When she came in to the cubicle farm area, she asked me which was my cubicle.
“Make a guess!” I had a feeling that she’d guess correctly, just like that other colleague. Some women have sixth sense.
“This one right?!??” she pointed with a knowing grin.
“What makes you think so?”
“Only artistic people are so messy,” was her wise answer.
“And look at all your books!” she pointed while shaking her head while giving me the you’re-beyond-all-repair look.
My books? I hadn’t even confirmed that the cubicle was mine, and she was already so sure. And she doesn’t even read my blog! (Otherwise she would have noticed my inbox.)
I don’t blame her. Due to the real-estate crisis within the cubicle, around 10 of my books are now stored on my cubicle partition.
Yup that’s right, I chose the right preposition. They are on my cubicle partition. 3 stacks of them balancing on the partition itself. I’m just waiting for someone to knock onto my cubicle partition wall, upsetting the delicate tri-biblio-equilibria and sending the books crashing down onto my craptium Toshiba…
A 17-year-old guy in a white oversized t-shirt and blue cargo pants settles himself beside me after he boards the bus at his institution.
He distracts me from my book when he pulls out a shiny white object from his camoflage backpack. It’s a snow white 14-inch iBook, marred only by the 3 skateboard logos pasted on it.
He starts Safari, the web browser and types in a URL, before getting a “no network detected” error message. Stupid kid, we’re almost a bus stop away from the institution now, and you think you still can get wireless internet access?
He closes Safari, and stares blankly at his Sesame Street wallpaper picture with Ernie and Bert (if I remember their names correctly) smiling back. The mouse pointer moves around aimlessly, before clicking on MSN Messenger.
Very stupid kid.
Of course, now that we’re 2 bus stops away from the institution, there’s still no wireless internet access. He closes MSN Messenger.
And stares at Ernie and Bert. They continue smiling back.
He finally closes his iBook, and slides it back into his grey camo backpack.
He takes it out again after a few moments. This time, he clicks on the Apple menu, and Shut Down. The computer screen soon goes blank. He slides the iBook back into the grey camo backpack, and zips it securely shut.
Very soon, his eyes close too.
Face it dude. You’ve lost your blogging mojo.
I was reading some posts from an old blog of mine. They were funny and witty, intelligent and informative, they were deep and profound. I look at some of my recent posts from this blog, and those words start to haunt me all over again…
Face it dude. You’ve lost your blogging mojo.
I’m sure those of you who followed my old blog would agree (but don’t let me know - I’m depressed enough already). Those of you who don’t know which blog I’m talking about, drop me an email and I just might let you know so you have something better to read…
I told a friend about how I thought my old blog was better, secretly hoping that he would violently disagree and proceed to point out how this current blog is better (what are friends for?), or at least just as good, or at least you shouldn’t compare apples with oranges yada yada, but no, he agreed immediately, and proceeded too quickly to point out why the old one was better!
If I were less chauvinistic, I would have burst into bitter tears. At least I had an honest friend.
Then the other evening when I was hanging out with some friends, one of them asked me why I didn’t post my picture online, since it would increase my readership and popularity. She must have sensed that I needed some kind of boost.
In my desperate-depressive state, I actually entertaining the idea for a few moments, until I remembered the rather violent reactions to my last post, which made me realise that the suggestor either had ill intentions, or has unconventional tastes, or forgot to wear her contact lenses.
I’m feeling very blogicidal right now. And when I have strong feelings about something, I have to blog about it. This means that I have to blog about my impending blogicide. But if I blog about my impending blogicide, it means that I can’t stop blogging and commit blogicide. Which means that I have to keep blogging. Meaning that I can’t stop blogging to commit blogicide. Which means that…. AAARRRRGGGGHHHHHH!!!!
This will be the final post of this blog.
Until I post another final post.
