Wednesday, November 19, 2008

Cool Gmail

Anything that bears the Google stamp gets my approval.

So today, I was on Gmail when a sudden button popped up that says "customize gmail"- I clicked on it, selected a random design & within 1 sec, my Gmail inbox looked like that:

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It's super cool!! The only thing is... that popup button disappeared and now I don't know how to change it back. I'll go figure it out when I get some free time. :)

Amazon Shopping!

Came home and found this shipping/ handling note hanging outside my door. Cool. The elliptical machine I ordered from Amazon.com has arrived! :-) Thought I'd take the chance to post some photos of my living room before folks back home complain why I haven't sent them photos of my new place. :)

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The highlight of the 2nd photo is the wooden table at the bottom left corner- I got it assembled in 5 minutes and am absolutely loving it. The carpet on the floor has an interesting history... I bought it at the ancient Aztec pyramids in Teotihuacan, Mexico and it's since gone with me to the USA, then Japan before returning to Singapore- had no place for it at home and now it's shipped to the USA and finally has a happy home now. :)

Ok. I've digressed. The aim of this email is to talk about the shipping/ handling notice I got from Amazon.com and how much I've enjoyed online shopping.

If there's nothing else about the USA that interests me anymore, Amazon.com certainly makes up for it. Pre-purchase reviews have been part of the experience besides having stuff shipped to me in 2 days, and for free! I've gotten a GPS, GPS stand, Screwdriver, and now my new elliptical machine. Next on the list is the Amazon Kindle!

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I'm not a gadget whiz/ geek for that matter but this little thing here is totally revolutionizing the way people read/ live. E-books/ bestsellers can be downloaded for $9.99 and newspapers of all kind are fed into the device. U can also read blogs, highlight quotes, bookmark pages and browse through reviews and read random chapters before purchase. Aww mann, all the books (50kg?!?!) I've shipped here for nothing! If I had one of these when I was stuck in the body crushing MRT back home, my life would have been so much more meaningful/ productive. (Flipping books in the train was close to impossible, much less reading newspaper!)

Maybe Christmas is a good reason for me to splurge. :)

Cool stuff!

Been spending the past 2 evenings working out at 24 Hour Fitness, which is the sister company of California Fitness back home. Glad I made sure I could use Cal Fitness's membership even when I relocated before I signed the package. :) Now it's GREAT!

The 24 Hour Fitness here is not as posh as California Fitness is back home. But the one I'm going to is the mega centre for 24 Hour Fitness so it's 3 storeys high, at least 10x the size of that in Bugis and has multiple squash, racquetball and basketball courts, a huge swimming pool, jacuzzi, sauna etc. It's really neat.

But I really like it because I fall asleep on boring accounting notes at home, and now I've shifted strategy to reading them while I get my adrenaline pumping on the elliptical machine. Yippee!

Just saw this on promotion: looks promising, has awesome reviews and I really want to get it! But it's only PC compatible so far..the Mac version is coming out in Dec (!!!) but I bet it's going to be >USD$300 :(

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Friday, November 14, 2008

OMG!! DD is the next advice

So my hunch was right.

She is now together with him.

It's weird when I have to ask to find out when anyone could have guessed. So last piece of advice- DD: Date Defensively (not like people hot in the fervor of "love" listen anyway). In the beginning of dating, when the love, infatuation and romance is out in full force, there is a strong desire to move closer and deeper as quickly as possible. The danger in this is that you barely know the true person you are dating. So it's a good idea to date defensively. Don't let basal animal instincts cloud both 理性 & 感性。

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What is love? The following sentence "We love because He first loved us" always pops into my head before Corinthians's “Love is patient, Love is kind..." does. Actually when you think about it, that sentence is really applicable in real life. In any relationship, there's always got to be a person to initiate interest first. The other party, no matter how stone-hearted, will observe what the initiator says/ do and at some point, feel touched/ loved and at least it's off to a good observatory start. The rest is corollary if 3 basic factors (*see below) come into play. This is where 感情 vs. 感动 ought to be distinguished- although there's often a lot of the latter in the former. But that alone isn't enough to sustain a relationship.

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Which brings me to the next question, what are the basic factors*? I call it 天时,地理,人和。And of the 3, the most important one in my opinion, would be 天时。Sometimes 2 people really appear like a perfect fit- wavelength, interests, habits and attraction- but things just don't work out because the timing is wrong. Maybe she came too late. Or he came too early. People tell me you need to date a few people so you know the right one when he/she comes along. That could be right. But a bigger part of me feels you don't want to date random people- what if the right one comes along?

Interestingly, I actually told someone he came too late. What was I thinking back then? How can anyone be too late if I'm still single and not at my prime? -_-"' I could use some bullets.

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Most of my close friends already know of my 5 Cs or perhaps even the extended Cs. They are the Characters, Charismas, Competence, Confidence, Chemistry- the Courteous, Compatibility, Cultured. But really, as I grow (hopefully) wiser, Commitment reigns high on the list. Which is why even when I finally see someone as my prototype of an ideal half, I know this is not going to happen. As with all tragic love stories, it's got to do with 天时。。。。。

Monday, November 10, 2008

Interesting Dichotomy

I'm a huge fan of words. Just got a new revelation:
第一次是纯真,第二次是无知, 第三次是愚蠢。

But it could also be:
第一次是偶然,第二次是必然, 第三次是命中注定。

Goes to show many things in life are often a result of the frame of mind- the half-full vs. half-empty dichotomy. Very often, if something has past, and there's nothing you can do about it, you should rejoice and take the positive path. I know this is easily said than done. Many of us often indulge in melancholic self-pity- which could be a healthy part of internalising/ grieving - but it's just important to realize that pain brings possibilities.