Couple of quick updates while waiting for some financial rates from Reuters. In case anyone can be bothered, it's part of the end-of-day reporting process - and I'll spare you the details. Unfortunately, while seemingly-mundane NS activities have a surreally readable quality to them when regaled in excruciating detail, my current job does not. Nada. Zip. Trust me on this one. I suspect it's because more of the readers of this blog can relate to the eccentricities of NS suffering compared to the ..erm.. joys.. of risk management in a merchant bank.

Someone placed a notice on the mirror over the toilet where I found that Nokia phone yesterday. It was a simple exhortation to whomever found it to return it, and an extension number. Below it was scrawled, in Malay, (translated): "You really think honest people exist?"

I'm in a mild moral quandary now. The thing is, I don't really *want* the phone, I realise - I want to *sell* it, but I haven't got any easy access to buyers. Am leery of offering it around my office, for obvious reasons. The only one of my associates who's in the market for a new phone is Andrew - you reading this, man? - but he hasn't responded to my offer yet.

Furthermore, even if I can't sell it, I don't want to give it back. I realise I'd rather smash it to pieces than give it back. Why? I'm not totally sure - I've found two wallets in Melbourne over my sojourn there and kept the money in both instances. Although the second time, there was a Chinese charm in it and a few of us were huddled in fear for hours in my living room trying to figure out if we would be cursed if we kept the money. In the end enlightened nescience won out over peasant supersititon - I spent the money on my Sort-Of-But-Not-Quite-Relationship counterparty. Bitch. But the guy who dropped the wallet had been a REAL asshole....hogging the ping-pong table for hours....

I've lost my wallet three times in my life - twice in secondary school and once in Melbourne. Only once did I get it back(kind Comfort taxicab driver). Am I vicariously displacing my desire for revenge on some other poor innocent victim? Does that mean the next time, *he* will repeat this behaviour to some other poor bastard and so and so forth?

Before people think it's an act of pure, irrational malice, it's not just that - I can actually sell it eventually. Eventually. So I still have something to gain from this act of morality, and nothing to lose except a fractional movement towards redemption. Whoopee. It's not like I'll ever know anything about Hell anyway - I plan to live href="http://www.cryonics.org">forever(you get points for glomming this rather obvious paraphrase:)

On the other hand I have a chance to break the vicious circle here. The fate of human morality lies on my slouched shoulders. I've already *found* one handphone this year; a rather beat-up Nokia 8210 which is nonetheless still serviceable. The eternal battle of good and evil rages on the barren plains of my soul. YOUR commentary could tip the balance to the forces of Light(a world in which lost things are returned, old women are helped across streets, and irritating blind accordion/keyboard players in crowded tunnels can hold their heads with dignity) or the hordes of Darkness(the world as it is).

The other comment is to note the incredible stats on the tracker. Do *all* blogs garner such visitation numbers? I guess with approximately 100 million surfers, a few are bound to amble their way over sooner or later, but we seem to be getting hits from diverse places such as MIT's Counter-Strike server, Japan, the UK and a couple of IP address that reverse lookup reveals as being from Hong Kong and France. Truly, we are part of a global community; or, rather, a global mueseum where the assorted webheads of the planet can amble over, peer into the fishtank of our lives and laugh sneeringly at these feeble verbal snapshots of our daily existence.

Other statistics:

Average hits per day(over 12-day period): 78
Total number of unique visitors: 948
Most used OS: Win 98(I see XP hasn't caught on that big yet:)

20% of visitors from Singapore(unsurprisingly), 11% from the US, and 40% "unknown" - and we've registered hits from Croatia, Brunei, Switzerland.. even from old ARPANet and US military domains! Maybe the CIA thinks we're Al-Qaeda operatives. We should include more words like bomb, kill, Allah, jihad, fatwa, martyr, White House, Palestine, Arafat and nuclear annihilation into our daily vocabulary just to mess up their online trackers...:)

Gaze upon the horror for yourself at http://extremetrac king.com/open;geo?login=agagooga

The most amusing(and grossly disturbing) search term of all the ones I've seen so far: "shuqi nude". Really unfortunate to have a former porn star as your namesake, Gabriel:)

And finally, the most utterly obscure: "pirates 100 gems split proposal game theory"

Just noticed Andrew's banzai post seconds before I updated, so I'll toss in a few brief replies - brief by my standards, that is:)

The only occasions where I went to schools other than the one I was enrolled in during my formative years in Singapore were for debates. Surprisngly, my recollections of these schools are rather scanty free associations: Cat High - monastery; VS - box; SCGS - yellow; CHIJ(TP) - walled nunnery, ACS(I) - blue(not just in coloration, but blue-blooded, as an allusion both to aristocracy and the mental retardation caused by inbreeding), RI - tourist attraction.

I don't know if I have as much "SJI spirit" as you do "RI spirit", but some obscure force compels me to go back every couple of years and look around, make sure my prayer is still in the school diary, perform Nazi salutes from the podium at the assembly yard as the uniformed groups are doing parade practice, and say hi to some old teachers.

Oh, and SJI has hideously mutant trees as well. There's an inner courtyard in the classroom block next to the theater; in the middle stands a tree of distinctly dubious genetic heritage.

I really don't quite grok Stranger in a Strange Land; particularly the messianic themes - but I have to admit it's a compelling book - and it definitely has a lot of those anti-establishment libertarian and sexual ideas that Heinlein likes to throw around a lot. While I feel a better sci-fi messiah exists in Zelazny's Lord of Light(a not-fraudulent-enough Messiah says: "I could have emulated Christianity, but crucifixion hurts"); Stranger in a Strange Land certainly offers a lot of interesting insights into just how culture shapes our notions of decency and humanity.

I still prefer Moon Is a Harsh Mistress because it's more(to my mind) directly focused on the political themes Heinlein is good at.. as well as providing one of the best fictional primers for organising a revolutionary cabal, and the most interesting AI in science-fiction. But nonetheless, if you enjoyed SIASL, you should get MIAHM as well.

*thoughtfully* Having lived in both Malaysia and Singapore, I personally believe that there *is* a discernible difference in accents - to the point where I've can guess two-thirds of a time whether an accent is Singaporean or not. However, if you ask me to *quantify* it, I honestly can't - other than a few obvious differences in slang. For instance,
Malaysians tend to use "chun" instead of "chio", and "wah lao" is not commonly used here. Malaysians(KL Malaysians) also use more Cantonese in their patois; whereas Singaporeans use Hokkien. Overall, it's difficult, particularly when you consider that Malaysia includes Mandarin-speaking Johorians, Singapore-educated quislings like myself, or Hokkien-using Penangites.

The decision on whether to live outside of hostel is a tough one - and all I can say is that, a good friend does not necessarily equate a good roommate. I'm sure we will have a chance to have words on this topic eventually.