Bubblevicious' Friends

MemcacheD Update
Just wanted to let everyone know, that a new version of MemcacheD has been released. We will be rolling this out to the memcache nodes during the week of July 20th to 24th. This should have very little impact on the stability of the website; however users may see a slight increase in load times as the cache is re-populated with entries.

The software has been tested and verified to be working just fine with the application; so we perceive this to be a very minimal risk in regards to updating, and the stability of the website.

Thanks...

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: NOFX - San Francisco Fat

Dinner with dad
I met dad for dinner last night and he took me shopping like I was 12 and bought me a bag from Aldo. It was 50% off and he wanted to get me something else because it was 'so cheap', but I refused. I like the bag lots and I am very grateful he bothers to get me a present at my age of not-12, but I really didn't need a present, much less one with a minimum price set on it!

We had dinner at Sushi Tei after that, and I even got flowers. I love sunflowers, so that made me smile.

I don't love using my phone camera in low light though. Oh well.

The down side to an otherwise very nice evening is that I had to go to the loo 4 times. My tum just hasn't been right since Saturday. It cannot be anything I ate because all my meals have been more or less communal and no one else is sick. It's just something wrong with me. Or my tummy telling me that I should stop eating like I am still a teen? Anyway, the birthday week is over and I am dedicating myself to clear soups and plain food for the next couple of days. Hopefully, the situation resolves itself. Cuz there's more (other people's) birthday eating next week!

Ironic
I'm stressed and a little annoyed that I have to leave the house (and my work) to meet my dad because he wants to buy me a present and dinner! How weird is that? I should be feeling grateful. You see, that's the problem with work. It makes you think all screwy. Pfft. I'm off.

30 List: #2 Boxing

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

#2 on my list was to try boxing. After surfing around for some boxing gyms, my friend Pei gave me the contact to a personal trainer (PT). (Pei! He sure as hell remembers you and thinks you would be excellent for a pro boxer!) I chose to go with a PT because I wanted proper attention for my session. And if I liked it, I would go back for more.

I must say, it was a good move because the PT pushed me harder than I normally would have done for myself. I went running at the track with my friend yesterday. My original plan was to go for 5km (the last time I did 4km), then while running halfway, I thought, Maybe 4km instead. Then after running some more, I decided to stop at 3km. Heh. I even ran last week, to Zouk and back, and I think it was about 3km too.

So today, the PT put me on a brisk walk on the treadmill for 20 minutes while he asked questions about my lifestyle and eating habits, got me to box for another 20 minutes, and on the stairmaster for 20 minutes. My body is A-C-H-I-N-G right now.

I really enjoyed boxing even though I could barely keep up with the drills, especially my left arm, which is the weaker arm. After some encouragement from my PT, I finally managed to pack some solid punches and it felt gooooooooood.

As what my PT says, boxing is good for oneself because it helps one focus. And after a particularly good session of hitting out, it realigns oneself and all the world’s peaceful again.

I’ll definitely be back for more. Who knows, I might even train up to be the ultimate killing machine (ala one of Monica’s boyfriends in ‘Friends’). Haha!

Say cheese!
Because of a lucky combination of circumstances (e.g. Japanese voicemail, scaredy-cat kids, unco-operative partners etc), Angie's tix for the Harry Potter Premiere screening has come to me. I am SO happy lor. I re-read this book a few weeks ago to prep, ok?

Anyway, this is me very happy

And then since I had already opened photobooth, I decided I liked the earrings I was wearing so much I snapped a pic of them too. My momma gave this pair (in white gold) to me when I went to London. My momma is very nice, huh?

Okie, now I'll tell you my dream last night. It was about me making a strawberry cheesecake for my birthday. And everyone only came to the party around 11.30 p.m. and I was already a bit upset about the late start. Then my eldest aunt started serving everyone agar-agar sized slices of cheesecake. There was pandan cheesecake, honey-dew cheesecake etc. I asked her why she went and bought cheesecake when my birthday cake was already a cheesecake. She flippantly responded that she had also cut up my beautiful strawberry confection, and then she started serving my birthday cake! I was sad that I had no birthday cake. And she pulled out a half-eaten blackforest cake and said to make do with that one. And then everyone started to leave and I was left to vacuum the floor.

Needless to say, I was very cheesed off.

Family Man update!

Family Man Page 146 now online!

Well, I could’ve sworn up and down that I was going to miss Wednesday again, but apparently the update elves were on my side this time.

Does everybody remember the wolf statues all over town? No? That’s okay, it was two years (and 76 pages) ago.

There’s something very spiritual about putting together a wordless page; they’re one of the reasons why I enjoy telling stories through comics (beyond the fact that I get to write and draw).

Next week, if I don’t get too bogged down in rent-paying endeavors: more silence! So much silence! Enough to fill a whole medieval town after dark…

Prints and such at the Store!

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Simple Ways To Make Your Child Feel Special

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Counting down the days till I become a single mum (for real), this article made its way into my inbox in good timing.

These are the highlights on ways to make your child feel special:

Create little morning moments
Snuggle and cuddle
Make up special stories
Ask for help
Break the rules
Have fun at bedtime
Get silly
Use your words
And just pay attention to the little things

Actually, Clare and I do most of these fairly regularly — we snuggle and cuddle in the mornings, I play too much with her before bedtime (and paid dearly for it when she had really bad nightmares a few nights ago), make up silly stories, give each other funny nicknames and I get her to help around a little in the house.

It’s always nice to know that I’m somewhat on track and not headed towards an epic disaster, yet!

50 Strong Years

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

Advertorial

A Maternal and Child Health nurse showing a mother how to bathe her newborn. Circa 1960s.

Do you still remember your first visit to the school dental nurse? Did you queue for nutritious food rations at community health clinics? Were you there when the Great Singapore Workout was launched?

The Health Promotion Board celebrates 50 years of health promotion with an online retrospective and exciting contest. Submit your old photos showing your experiences with public health and you could win flat screen TVs, iPods and more!

Simply scan your old photo or snap a picture of it using a webcam or camera and submit it online at 50strongyears.sg. Closing date is 27 July 2009.

Language issues
Tonight, I had to tell Gail the following:

1. No matter how tight the spot, no matter how frustrating the situation, no matter how many times she's seen it in other writing, the protagonists in her school compositions should never ever say 'DAMN IT!'

2. She needs to vary the verb sometimes and avoid constructions like: 'Sigh...' he sighed.

3. She might want to stop using 'Craig' as her protagonist, especially in stories where the protagonist does something silly.

In one composition, entitled 'Disappointment' (I supplied the title and its spelling), Craig managed to spell the word 'dissapointment' and 'dissappointment' FIVE times. In the same essay, there was also 'accomodation' and 'necessery'. It's like English's most commonly mis-spelled words laid out in a row for me to circle in red.

*groan*

But it's ok. Some day all this will be worth it. Having properly literate kids is a goal worth aiming for.

Singapore is a leader and other stories
I got an email from my university in London, telling us that the UK has now moved from the 'containment' to the 'treatment' phase of swine flu since the number of infected continues to rise and transmission is within the community rather than from overseas. Then a long list of things to do and not to do, and websites to check for updates. Nothing there that we haven't been bombarded with for months already here in our island paradise. They don't have anything like our dedicated ambulance service or our Leave of Absence or travel restrictions yet. But then we are the leaders. Anything anyone else can do, we can do extra.

I have had a stomach bug since last Saturday which probably was not helped by all the eating and drinking over the weekend. I mysteriously get a low-grade fever every night (except that I thought I was just hot from alkie on Saturday) and need to go the loo after every big meal. The bigger mystery of course is that I haven't lost any weight. Otherwise I actually feel fine, and the stomach situation seems to be improving. No one around me seems to be experiencing stomach problems so all is well.

I had an interesting series of sms-es with someone recently about being invited out by not attractive people. I believe I value-added to that someone's life by giving a list of good excuses not to go out (which includes having to stay home and watch one's toenails grow) and by reminding him it is far better to be invited out by dogs and have a chio woman at home, than to be out with cuties and going home to your father's worst nightmare. Yep. I try to be helpful.

Reluctantly, I have to get back to my thesis. I have great sympathy now for

delightt and what she said about the chapters being dragged out of her. To think that I have to spend the better part of the next year having a fish hook down my throat while I painfully regurgitate strings of polysyllabic words is very demoralising indeed. Sometimes I think I should have put more effort into growing taller and then maybe I could have been a celebrity and have loads of minions do all my bidding, including write my thesis for me. Because I will be a pseudo-cerebral type of celebrity lah. Haiz. Ok no more nonsense. The chapter ain't going to write itself.

Revolutionary Hotties! Now on sale!

Happy Bastille Day, gang!

Celebrate by swinging by the store and purchasing your very own sluttypants lineup of revolutionaries!

Or you could organize a mob and storm a prison containing only a half dozen rather well-treated white collar criminals and a couple of psychotics and aristocratic perverts. Hey, if you do anything as productive as writing the Declaration of the Rights of Man afterwards, we’ll call it a win.

One of my favorite forgotten underlying causes of the French Revolution; financial stress caused by the military expense of saving our punk little revolutionary butts over here in America. Yes, without the support of poor King Louis XVI, we Yanks would be spelling ‘honor’ with a u and paying for things with currency depicting the Queen’s corgis instead of mystical freedom pyramids.

So, my fellow Americans, any time some bellicose fellow says something rash about the French in your presence, gently remind him that France took it in the teeth for us back in 1776, which in turn sparked off the upheaval of the revolution, which eventually gave rise to European nationalism, from whence came those pesky World Wars. Then prepare to run, very quickly.

In the meantime, raise a glass, tear open a baguette, and buy a print, mordi!

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Forever young
July really is a month for birthdays. Tonight the GC gang convened for Dr's birthday dinner at Ember. SSG brought champagne, which got the celebrations off to a nice start. We did the usual - reminisced about the good old London days, discussed the previous Malacca and KL Makan Missions, tried to confirm dates to eat Lor Mee together at Bt Purmei - it never seems to get old.

And on the subject of not old. Happy Birthday to our dearest, still-spring-chicken Dr! We sang him his song in Mandarin, Malay and English, to his embarrassment but our great delight.

Clockwise:
The dashing birthday boy, my yummy miso cod (that's gold dust on the plate ok!), GNK's homemade chocolate tiramisu, with Rampant's giant profiterole in the background and my to-die-for field mushroom soup with white truffle oil.

*The dessert photo was bluetoothed to me by GNK. It's too well-composed to be mine, obviously :)

The others were swooning over their own starters, mains and desserts too so I am guessing everyone enjoyed dinner. Thank you for the treat, Dr! And I hope that you find your book useful and then you can upload more decadent photos of food to make everyone hungry while they FB at work :)

and once there was magic here for me

For you, it might just have been watching a play, having dinner, or ambling down the street because it was pouring - but for me, it was more. It's been two years now, and I still hope everyday that you will come and talk to me, and finally tell me the truth of what it meant to you.

Current Music: Northern Skies - Dido

Revolutionary Hotties are Here For You

I spent most of my working time this weekend putting together the Family Man website move/redesign. With the assistance of Mr. Tyler Martin it will hopefully come out looking very classy and atmospheric! And all in one place, so you’re not obliged to scoot around addresses to read the blessed thing.

BUT all work and no play makes Dylan a cranky girl, so I finally let myself color what I called the Revolutionary Hotties print.

Here’s the current draft of the near-finished project (click it for full-size):

Yes. I went there. It’ll be on sale starting sometime this week in the store, to commemorate Bastille Day and the brave, idealistic, occasionally evil, but always charismatic men who gave their heads for the Revolution. I salute them! And their cute little butts.

I know you want some 18th century man-meat on your wall. You so do. ADMIT IT.

I haven’t quite settled on the dimensions – 8 x 16? Meredith has warned me that I will rue the day I try to ship anything longer than 12 inches on a side, but dammit I never claimed to be smart, and I kind of adore poster tubes. What say you, internet.

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What, 37?!
The morning after the party, I woke up and soberly wrote my requisite 200 words. It's not much, but I thought that when planning my work for the week, I should go easy on myself. I am still amazed I actually could write something after all that champagne and whisky. But sometimes you need to work and sometimes you need to play. That's life, eh?

I also had a nice birthday dinner with my nearest and dearest. Mom always tries to make a big deal of my birthday, which is very sweet of her. I think in her eyes, I'm still a little girl. Check out the cake she got me, I love it!

My fat cat Garfield cake

Guess where we had dinner though? At Station Kitchen, at St. James *pengsan*. Apparently I haven't seen enough of the place yet! The food was really good, I thought.

Satisfaction!

Thanks for the dinner mom, and Greg, I love the top! How many people can say that their mom and bro buy them the BEST clothes. I'm even wearing a dress they bought me for my birthday two years ago here. Coolness :)

Waterhouse Exhibit, Anyone?

silme reminded me of this exhibit at the Royal Academy.

I have long loved the Pre-Raphaelites, particularly Waterhouse.

Would anybody out there, who has a reasonable chance of getting to London or who already lives here, like to go with me? :)

PS: The exhibit will be running for awhile (check the website), so, you know. I could be persuaded to go more than once, I'm sure. ;)

30 before 30

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

This is not new, and I’m sure many others are doing this. I want to do a list of 30 things before I turn 30. 30 challenges, that take me out of my comfort zone, or to accomplish things that I’ve always wanted to.

I’ve listed a few things now, and does anyone have any contributions? You can view the list here.

Birthday Party 2009!
Thanks to all who turned up last night to make the party a blast. And to Eug for organising the whole shebang for me.

My gals

Every woman needs a harem

It didn't start off too promisingly at first. Someone went to the Marriott by mistake. Someone else ended up in Sentosa. Some made it to St James but got lost finding Bar None. And then my fave photographer didn't bring a flash, so it was too dark for photos. But things got better once people started streaming in and the alcohol made its rounds. Angie also saved the day by reliably turning up with her camera. I got serenaded, not once but twice. Such birthday decadence. Once on stage by the J-thing, another time by the band at Dragonfly (yes! we also went to Dragonfly, yo ah yo ah and all that!). Bar None on Sat night is really an oldies place, music-wise. Not good at all, but after a while, we didn't really care, as the pics will show.

Certainly there was a whole lotta love in the air. I vaguely remember hugging and kissing everyone A LOT. And from the pics, everyone else was at it too!

There was also a lot of manic posing and jumping around

But it was nicely balanced out with lots of sitting around and chilling too.

Ah good times. Bet you wish you had turned up after all huh? ;)
(The rest of the photos are on Angie's FB page)

the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I ever had
I know he's out there somewhere - but I'm not so sure now.

Current Music: Wise Up - Aimee Mann

The inevitable grow-older musing
Another year! But this musing is not about me.

I have a friend. She is a very classy lady. I've never told her this in case it sounds condescending, but perhaps she will recognise herself in this post. She is a classy lady because in the face of ultimate betrayal and heartbreak, she held her head high and kept her feet grounded. Her first thought was never to lash out, never to air her grievances or to blame. It was to protect those she loved best. I don't know if she's come out of it completely because she really holds her sh*t together, but I do know that I have such great respect for the way she handled the situation and I think that figuratively and literally she has never looked more beautiful.

I know I'm all grown up, but I'm not too old to learn grace from her.

My mother's wedding
Yesterday at my cousin's wedding:

Me: This is a cosy set up. Hey mom, when you get married again you can do an elegant high tea like this.
Mom: What? No way!
Me *thinking mom's going to say she doesn't want to marry again*
Mom: When I get married again, I want at least 100 tables and 5 costume changes. I want Indian costume, Japanese, Korean...

Heh. That got my brother and I planning what to do for our mother's wedding. We've decided (without her consent) that she will have a very subtle and classy wedding.
( Read more: The wedding extravaganza )

Family Man update!

Page 145 of Family Man now online!

Better late than never! Here’s this week’s page of Family Man: relative calm as compared to the frenzy of new information that’s appeared over the last few updates. Still plenty of mystery, though. As always.

Also of note with this update – I’ve switched over my online store services to Shopify, and have added some items, including the first ever piece of Family Man merchandise.

I’ve developed a great relationship with a local printer, who does wonderfully faithful giclee (high-end digital inkjet) art prints – they’ve done such a great job with prints from the Lady Parts show that my only problem has been keeping them in stock.

So I’ve decided to start offering an experimental print-on-demand service for all the pages of Family Man to date.

If there’s a page you’ve really enjoyed and would like to have in a frame-ready physical form at the original size I drew it – 9×12 (or bigger, for that famous library page!), you can now buy it from me, and I will run over to the printer and ask him to please calibrate and print it just for you.

I’m starting things off at the low-low price of $25 per page (on archival paper, $40 on fancy watercolor paper). It’s safe to say the price probably won’t drop anytime soon, so here’s your chance to get in on this before I decide it’s a big ole hassle!

Oh yeah, also, those chicken stickers are still at the store. Never gonna stop pushing these. I love them so.

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Is this why I married an engineer?

telynor: "This drive always seems shorter on the way back than the way there."

filceolaire: "It's downhill."

In The Clear

Originally published at As My Life Is. You can comment here or there.

For the curious, I did go down to A&E at Singapore General Hospital today to get my head checked out. Been experiencing tension headache all day. I’m in the clear for now. As long as I don’t convulse over the next 24 hours, I’ll be alright.

Btw, thanks for all the love shown over the past few days. I really appreciate it. :)

Work and math
You know when you have something difficult to do ahead of you, like write a chapter? And you spend a few days reading, and thinking, then feel like it's time to write it or you'll burst? I am there now but instead of writing my chapter, I have to go attend a wedding. Problem is after the wedding I'll lose steam and will need to work up the need-to-write mood again. Darn it.

I also think that my friends are too good looking. I have this 1/3, 2/3 proportion which I think is important to keep me at a optimal level of self esteem. I want 1/3 of my friends to be better looking than I am. This is the proportion of people that will keep me focused on non-superficial things because I need to prove myself in other ways because I cannot possibly look as good as them. Then the other 2/3 of my friends should preferably look like dogs so I can feel good about myself.

But the problem is whenever I look at photos, I realise, wow you lot are a nice looking bunch. I need new friends. ;)

Family Man Page 146 now online!

Page 145 of Family Man now online!

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