Freddy Ong, rest in peace

Read Ron’s blog about Freddy passing away.

I knew him as a professional makeup dude first, then later as a friend I met on wedding days… I knew that he loved LV, that he used to come once a year to Paris to buy LV stuff for himself, that he always wore nice rings.  He was soooo rude sometimes but he made everyone laugh. He did my wife’s makeup for her wedding and was supposed to do my brother’s wife but Wedding Present said he wasn’t available. I checked in July and found that he had eye problems due to diabetes. Thought he would get better.

He’s passing makes me really sad and I won’t be there at the funeral. Bye bye Freddy, I’ll miss you.

Gpuviewer – WOW, no joke

This program makes use of the GPU on the video card (and CPU cores) to view graphic files. The youtube video shows an 8 core Skulltrail with Gpuviewer. Inquirer review link is below.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2007/09/26/gpuviewer-key-app-future

Mind over matter

Last year, I made a discovery about myself. I found out that I actually need 10 hours of sleep a night. Seriously. If I don’t get that, I get cranky, or I become forgetful, and if that lack of sleep persists for more than a week, I start shedding weight quite visibly.

Yesterday, I made another discovery. I cannot seem to convince my body to think otherwise. And it really bothered me coz I am someone who takes pride in being stronger in the mind.

See, I had a crazy schedule today. I had like tons of things that had to be done before leaving the house at about 4pm. So counting backwards, I have to wake up latest at 10am. By the time I made that calculation, it was already 1am the night before. That’s 1 hour short of my 10 hours. I tried to ignore that and happily went to set my alarm and told KW, “I have to wake up by 10am.” To which this long-suffering husband, who goes through the daily ordeal of trying to wake his wife up every morning, replied,

“Ok, Jo. Look at me….what time do you want to wake up?”

“Hmm? 10am. Why?”

“No, no. Look at me, in my eyes. Tell me. What time do you WANT to wake up?”

“10am?”

“You gotta say it, say ‘I want to wake up at…’”

“Ok…I want to wake up at…10am?”

“Are you sure? Say it again.”

“Erm…I want to wake up at 10am…..I think.”

So for the rest of the next hour, I tried to convincingly say it to myself. “I want to wake up at 10am.” And I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried. I could say, “I need to wake up at 10am”, “I must wake up at 10am” but I just couldn’t convince myself that I WANT to wake up at 10am.

How I made it through school, sleeping near midnight and being in school by 7:30am, I have no idea. Though I must say that at some point, I did give up making assembly and started turning up during recess instead. It worked much better for me.

So yeah, for the first time, I have to admit defeat. The mind has lost. I’m listening to the body. 10 hours it is.

Jo

Dinners East & West

Last year, when we were invited to a Canadian couple’s home in Paris. We were surprised, ‘was it somebody’s birthday?’ We didn’t really know them but since we were free, we said ok to the dinner invite. Dinner was nice, with hors d’œuvres, main course and coffee. It was a great ‘get to know you’ session.

Middle of this year, we invited a US friend over for dinner and remembered that it was a nice affair but it was more informal. For one, we sat on the floor (the main table has become the work table) with a small table and we had a pleasant conversation. There was something that felt a bit out place when we conversed with the friend, we could never put our finger on it… it was as if we couldn’t go ‘100% relaxed’ with the friend. We talked shop and discussed but there was something not quite there.

2 weeks ago while we had a Japanese friend over for dinner, it suddenly dawned on us that home dinners were very different between Asian and Western culture. I never quite thought about it, but we realized we ONLY invited friends we knew well, so dinner at home is a really private thing for us. If we want to get know a person, we would have invited them to lunch/dinner in a restaurant or something, but not at home.

Now, I wonder why we guard our personal space so closely. Maybe in Singapore, we don’t have enough personal space so the home space becomes even more precious, like a sanctuary. Perhaps it’s only at home the ‘real’ person steps out. Going by that line of reasoning, maybe that’s why we only invite close friends to see the ‘real’ us. At home.

Wes

PS: I think there might be more reasons, but I can only think of this right now.

idiom

No coke after 5pm

No coke

No coke light

No MSG

No tea

No coffee

else we sleep at 5:30am

wad is happening to us??!!

Pace of Life

I had tea with Tym while she was in Paris for a few days. Tea was eclair and croque-monseiur, not crack brulee coz they were closed. I asked what she thought of Paris and remarked, “The pace of life is slower here, no?”

“Not really, I think Paris gives you the choice to take it fast or slow.”

“Wow, I never thought of it that way before.”

Then, there’s no judgment if we take it slow.

I am still chewing on what she said…

Wes

Earthquake footage in Singapore: CNN Video

Looks like some folks had it real bad. On CNN Video, no joke man. I haven’t seen anything like this before.

Derren Brown – Instant Conversions

Eadwine (of http://www.plushphotography.com.sg/) intro-ed me to Derren Brown. Watching this particular episode makes me think about how religious experiences (including Christian ones) are suspect to manipulation.

Note: Jodie and I are Christians. By highlighting this video, I am not trying to say that all Christian religious experiences are fake. Just be a bit more careful, boys and girls.

Wes

Need advice: Use Callback Service, Local SFR card or IDD?

I’ve got a friend coming over to Paris in 2 days, she’s visiting London too. Anyone got advice for phone service? If anybody can give sound advice that’ll be great. Our best experience was callback, but that was about 2 years ago. Another friend just commented he got charged $1k+ for callback recently for a 1 month trip in Europe. Urlp.

Update 1:42pm: I just got in touch with the S$1.4k phone friend. He had incoming calls, that prolly made up for some of the bill. Boys and girls, watch out for the incoming calls, they’ll hurt you.

Wes