Just Another Morning After A Heavy Downpour

Hiro is Katsu to Auntie
It was kinda hilarious to hear Auntie addressing Hiro as Katsu. He sounds like the yummy dish "Katsu Don" we all know and have come to love.

Yet another stalker and blinder
Yet another woman stalked moi for the newspaper today. Yet again she didn't see the other copy right down the table. I had to point this out to her before she gave up her "stalk" and took over the other copy when its reader finished her read.

While waiting for the library to open, a patron said that there is "STARBUCKS" here. I thought it was Galilee Cafe. Well, I guess we can be as blind as a bat at times or we aren't just mouthing all the things exactly as we see it. Or it is our fixed mindsets that all cafes are "STARBUCKS" outlets.

Another blinder.

A nation of suspects, unhappys, blinds and uncommunicators
Maybe besides being a nation of suspects (where all citizens are guilty before proven innocent), we are also a nation of unhappys, blinds, uncommunicators and so on.

The recent survey could perhaps be true. Singaporeans are not a happy lot. Most adults are not happy as far as I can tell from their facial expressions. The younger set are much better. At being happy and being better communicators.

Was that Gayle, the Singapore Idol ex-contestant? An illusion or delusion?
I was sipping ice-blended at Coffee Bean (and I haven't got round to tasting its new flavors like the Banana Chocolate for kids - who really cares - and the honey-dew concoction), waiting for Muiz, when I thought I spotted what looked like the Singapore Idol ex-contestant Gayle sitting at the corner of the cafe with her gall-friend.

She does look a lot different from her TV persona. Guess it is the lights and the mirrors? We have noticed how different lights can portray us in very different ways and mirrors do the same thing with us too.

Muiz my darling boy
Muiz didn't turn up because his mother went berserk, what with him going out three times last week with his friends and what with exams just round the corner, while denying me the once-a-week rendezvous with him .

I had asked to see him twice a week but he can't commit. However he could meet his friends thrice last week. Naturally I was pissed and I told him so. He has to work something out with his mother and me.

I had to ask for a refund of the cinema tickets and since they were free, I did get some cash in return, not much but enough to cover my food expenses for a day or too.

More on the New Bishan Community Library
It was jam-packed on opening day, even in the evening when I visited it. What with the one-week hols currently going on now, the crowd can only get worse, not better.

It is architecturally and artistically designed, the outwardly protruding glass panels on the walls providing an enclosed space for people to look out to the world outside while sitting comfortable.

Separate lifts for staff and patrons?
But staff pushing trolley carts of books share the two elevators with patrons and things can get a wee-bit uncomfortable.

More cubicles and windows are meant to be just that - windows
There is only ONE toilet cubicle in the restroom. What's with glazing over the restroom's windows translucent anyway? The face height window could be transparent to allow toilet users a view to the outside. And the full length one could have its lower portion glazed over if exhibitionism is the legitimate fear.

More multi-media stations
There are a handful of multi-media stations on two floors of the library and two PCs in the basement children's section (which I thought was pretty much a waste with kids hogging and playing with them and not really doing stuff on them).

More copies of the newspapers
What about providing more copies of the newspapers (since this is usually hot) and not bound up like that, in chains on a table. Just free-binding copies on a rack so anyone can pick it up and read on the sofa, like in the quiet reading room at the Ang Mo Kio library.

If it gets taken away, so be it. It is only 80 cents. I have witnessed copies unsold by vendors which get taken away somewhere by whoever and for whatever use at the end of the day. Isn't that more of a waste?

What's with the input method and keyboard layout?
Several times, the keyboard could not input any Roman letters onto the screen. This was at the start-up log-in page. Could the Tamil99 or Murasu Anjal keyboard input layout has anyting to do with it? I asked but the reply wasn't forthcoming.

Upon checking again today, no it doesn't. It was because the system need rebooting.

Some educational exhibits don't seem to be working
There were a few educational exhibits going on at the same time as the launch of the new library. The rotating wheel one on magnetic property probably only has steel as the only magnetic material. But the one on the floating object in mid-air doesnt work because the magnet probably doesnt work or the string was too short or something.

All-In-One library kiosk
It is really good we have library kiosks where we can both top up our cashcards and our multi-media accounts at the same time. Not like some libraries where it is at two separate machines.

All in all , the library is spanking new, nicely decorated, tastefully done but does not afford the kinda space and comfort like the National Library or the Ang Mo Kio library does.

It is , however, sensible to have the children's department all to itself on a single floor unlike the National Library (so many floors but just one floor of young people's, adults and children's shoehorned together - but since I haven't visited it for a long time now, things may have changed)

It is good we have something in between and not just extremes
Instead of just cold soya milk (which makes me cough, by the way if I drink too much cold drinks and the sick-building, unserviced and unmaintained air-conditioner anywhere just aggravates it - I prefer fresh natural air anytime) and hot (may scorch the tongue and if you are in a hurry to rush off somewhere, this is usually true), we have lukewarm. That golden mean. Just perfect.

I am slowly but surely recovering
Sleep, sleep, sleep. That is how I recuperate from everything and anything. I have had about enough of the "weirdos" I have been putting up with ever since I moved from place to place starting February 2006. I had intended to detoxify but may have ended up with more toxins than I can cope.

It isn't being hypnopompoic again as that was a really protracted period in my life. But just short hypnopompoism to recharge and revitalise.

What's with all these restrictions
At the newly revamped LAN shop (super investment in gleaming new state-of-the-art looking PCs and awesome albeit tightly controlled opening screen with a menu artfully laid out), I couldn't chat on IRC, nor can I play music from Windows Media Player (coz there aint any and I can't download if the administrator has the control somewhere, not visible to moi).

It is MADDENING, to say the very least. What use is anything if it is so new but you can't do a single thing on it.

Is our tap water potable?
I hesitatingly said it is when questioned by someone today. I have drunk from it several times but it is just that some old habits die hard and unless I have the official sanction that it is, I may hesitate a little more rather than a little less.

Now that Pluto is out, I may just be in
Yeah, after the papers ran an article on Pluto being voted out at an astronomical congress, I may just opt to be in. In to be with the Singapore's chapter of the astronomers' club.