cacophony

was listening to Saint-Saens' danse macabre while making my way through the morning traffic. yep, the symphonic poem describing a graveyard of skeletons dancing a spectral waltz. and before you cry "you weird, weird woman, you!" and denounce me from your circle of acquaintances forever, it's (strangely) a favourite not because of the theme, but (1) how deftly the composer depicts the twelve strokes of the witching hour and all the eerieness that goes with an early-morning other-worldly party, and the spectacle and commotion that the music conjures, and (2) i was first introduced to the spectacle and commotion at one of ann's music appreciation classes many many moons ago, at a time when my ultimate ambition was to be a violinist with an orchestra - orchestral works just blew me away, there was something about the grandeur of it all that generated exhilaration beyond words, and for some reason, danse macabre became a piece that would remind me of the excitement of performing with an amalgamation of wood, strings and metal that produced amazing sounds. i never did practice the violin enough after stopping lessons to gain much confidence in attempting to join any ensemble, but i did become a chorister, and the experience of singing with various groups in merry ole england and here has brought with it quite some satisfaction (and war stories - see side rambling below on a particular incident during a university choir performance) so far. and it was good to hear danse macabre performed by the university philharmonia during one of our concerts!

and my point here? nothing much, really. except that maybe, in my next life, i'd like to find myself playing in an orchestra.

[side rambling - a chorister's war story]

disclaimer:
in case you're expecting something spectacular like the roof of the hall falling down on us, it was really a routine boo-boo, actually. my life ain't THAT happening..

the piece:
Constant Lambert's "The Rio Grande".

the story:
'twas the climax of the piece, where the choir's words were basically "by the Rio Grande, they dance no Sarabande". "By the Ri-o Grande" is the beginning of the end of a major upheaval in orchestral sounds, and then to end it all was "they DANCE.. NO.. SA-RA..." [then there is some element of climax, can't remember whether it was a timpani crash or a huge pause].. and then we were to all hail "-BANDE!!!!", together with some brass and percussion. of course, due to the orchestral entropy leading up to it, everyone was totally lost (you know how it is - you think it's a piece of cake when the repetiteur tickles the ivories during rehearsals but it's totally different when you add the actual cacophony of instruments far more powerful than the hammers and keys, blasting away in their full glory), and the people who shouldn't have been lost were eventually led into the wilderness due to the insecurity of nobody around them singing what they were supposed to be singing (sigh, herd instinct). it happened very quickly - there was not much pain - "they DANCE.. NO.. SA-RA-..... [silence from the choir. Maestro's eyes pop out. singers gape and after the sounds from the orchestra trailed away someone whispers, very audibly, "shit."]. you could sense that morale had suddenly shot down to record-low levels but we managed to meander through the rest of the Rio Grande without much catastrophe. even kind Maestro, who was normally full of encouragement even if we completely messed up a piece, was a little aghast after the show.

the aftermath:
thereafter, the infamous "no Sarabande experience" was repeatedly quoted by our conductor for the next few seasons, to remind us all (well, of course, only the Rio Grande survivors who had first-hand experience of the incident would know the significance of the label) to keep our eyes on the conductor at all times, and also, to do one's best to refrain from cursing when a mistake has been made during a performance, cos, well, it wouldn't be very nice for the audience to hear you blaspheming in the middle of melodious strains of gloria in excelsis deo, would it?

a justification

couldn't resist it. too many people are taking this test. and, apparently, my true talent is spatial ability.

the prognosis:

"your ability to visualize objects in three-dimensional space gives you a unique view of the world. because of this talent, you are much better than most people at imagining new designs including floor plans, page layouts, and three dimensional objects.

people like you are usually great when it comes to putting together assemble-it-yourself furniture or other household items — whether the items arrive with instructions or not. your spatial skills also help you understand the finer points of how things work."

[reflections] no wonder i keep spending money at ikea.

basic elements?

How to make an Exchequer

Ingredients: 5 parts success 5 parts craziness 3 parts energy

Method: Layer ingredients in a shot glass. Add a little cocktail umbrella and a dash of wisdom.

your name:

Personality Cocktail
From Go-Quiz.com

change

what was that cliched little bit of prose that i keep seeing bookmarks being made out of - 'god grant me the serenity to accept the things i cannot change, courage to change the things i can, and wisdom to know the difference'.

things that could do with a change:

1. the sequence of the traffic lights at the junction outside my residential area. though it's starting to become a convenient excuse for lateness... ;)

2. the way your electronic devices seem to be able to contract ailments from others around it - you know, how after your strangely self-resetting pc comes back from the tech support centre looking cured and rejuvenated, your notebook located in the room upstairs starts resetting itself.

3. looking ahead and speculating too much. while foresight may be a good thing, sometimes the future scares the hell out of ya.

4. how weekends always seem to whizz past at lightning speed. just as you think you're beginning to have a good rest, it's monday. (eeks, it is! already!)

trubbleshootin

they lied! the 'buffet' turned out to be sausages, samosas and spring rolls which had gone soft and rubbery, and chicken wings, served buffet-style. the hors d'oeuvres were so-so. my only praise was for the celery and carrot sticks + dip, assorted nuts (plenty of salt!), and the fact that they whip up pretty good snowballs.

morning so far's been spent suspiciously testing out my pc which came back from the service centre with the technician's note saying there's nothing wrong with the motherboard. and we were pretty sure one of the PCI slots had gone bonkers, cos when the internal modem was in that slot, the pc would reset when connected to the net via dial-up. not a trojan/worm/virus - had updated everything - firewall, antivirus, windows security updates, and had even formatted the hard disk. so the cpu was sent in (together with a malfunctioned graphics card problem - to take advantage of a silly albeit one-time compulsory labour charge - see paragraph below). well, i've been connected for over an hour now with the modem in the 'problematic' slot and the pc hasn't resetted itself yet. got a funny feeling the problem could have been related to the graphics card.

and yes, the labour charge.. this particular Palo Alto, CA - based IT company has a strange policy of 'if the malfunctioned peripheral is an internal peripheral, we can't give a one-on-one exchange' resulting in it being compulsory to pay a labour charge of a hundred and fifty bucks just for them to open up the cage and slot in a new graphics card. hmph.

food for the masses

the story is, there's buffet at the firm's informal get-together do tonight. *rubbing hands together in glee* not scraps of finger food like the last time where there was hardly any calamari left by the time the waiter gets past the food-pinching masses on the way to your table. and free flow of drinks, i think. not too sure if they've scrapped that tho, after the amount of cocktails we snapped up at the last get-together.

not a bad day at all as far as food is concerned - there was a hearty brunch at a client's annual general meeting this morning. and no, we weren't there just for the door gifts (there were none) or food (as far as i know there were no food-related brawls, though during the Q&A session one old man did complain that the pre-AGM coffee-n-tea was not well managed and that he couldn't get near the refreshments table without having people shoving him from all sides.) that's only supposed to happen in a particular little island further south. ;-)

geez, i should stop talking about food and get myself a more proportionate waistline..

lazing

i know i should be getting around to doing a bit of the work i brought home, since my schedule is gonna be on the hectic side again tomorrow.

also since tonight's rehearsal and the gastronomic odyssey thereafter ended early.

and since i've brought all the reference material home with me.

but i know after logging off i'll be picking up the Far Side comic book from the floor (where it dropped from my bed after i fell asleep with my face in it last night) and go through it from cover to cover laughing at the cow jokes all over again. or maybe a refresher of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (my favourite volume of the five). if i'm feeling mad enough i might head downstairs and see whether kill bill vol 2 has the same samurai-sword-wielding artery-busting corpuscle-spurting scenes as the first. while i'm downstairs i might be in the mood for (more) food too! i believe the supply of instant korean udon noodles has recently been replenished. and i remember someone left me an extra dumpling after last night's committee meeting..

nah. gary larson's cow comics will do.

serenity

ah, it's a good evening despite the heat and the smog. managed to get home early today after a meeting outside the office which conveniently ended at 5pm. so early that the cars that are normally lined up along both sides of the road aren't anywhere in sight. it was actually possible to drive straight down the road and turn into my driveway without having to manoeuvre round the neighbours' cars to make sure i didn't take off someone's bumper or side-view mirror in the process. it's amazing how spending an extra two hours at home in the evening somehow imbues you with a heightened sense of serenity...

ok it's time to stuff myself with pasta. ciao!

red card

one of the best things about football season is that there's always some action seen in the newspapers. and i'm not talking about the sports section.

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From The Star Online:

Wife sees red over hubby’s passion for the game
by R.S.N. Murali

SEREMBAN: An ardent football fan who sneaked out of bed to watch a Euro 2004 live telecast received a “red card” when his 41-year-old wife battered him with the television remote control for staying up late yesterday. When his wife also snatched the smart card of the pay television service to prevent him from watching future live telecasts, the 46-year-old salesman who only wanted to be identified as Yap from Seremban Two here, sought the help of the MCA Public Complaints bureau chief, Khoo Seng Hock. Yap claimed that his wife forced him to sleep early, as he had to send their two children to school in the morning.

“She refused to allow me to watch the game although I promised not oversleep or shun my responsibility of sending the children to school,” he said.

At about 2.20am, Yap who was all set to watch the live telecast, sneaked out of his bedroom.

“I headed straight to the kitchen to grab a soft drink and some food before sitting down to watch the live telecast,” he said.

Yap shouted in disappointment when his favourite team England was crushed by France in injury time. His wife woke up, grabbed the remote control and hit him on his head a few times before ejecting the smart card from the decoder and hiding it. Yap said he had no choice but to seek Khoo's help as his wife had banned him from going elsewhere to watch football.

“My wife just doesn’t understand my passion for football,” he said.

After much persuasion from Khoo, Yap's wife relented and said her husband could watch football.

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[reflections] the folks manning the MCA public complaints bureau probably have some of the most entertaining war stories around..

epiphany

i've been getting this wave of realization over and over again. not that it's anything new. this line of work eats up your entire free time. and when it doesn't, you're too tired to do anything but hit the sack, and voila, the "i've gotta fix the modem problem on the home pc", "i've gotta update my website" and other long-procrastinated little things are left undone. you've sold your soul to the cogs and wheels that turn the financial and legal system, and you work with and for workaholics in the competitive domain of commerce and industry, who live nothing but their high-flying "this deal must go through, please revert by sunday" lives. pathetic's the word!

-- a stitch in time --

don't ask me why i've got the alkali metals and the alkaline earth metals up on the right. but, gee, it's good to see a periodic table again! [ NeRd! 8-) ] anyway. finally got the scarf-top we've been asked to get for our tap performance. more specifically, a large scarf folded into half with a neckline carved out and two lines of running stitch sewn in to transform it from rectangular bolero into ~ lo and behold! ~ floaty, short, kaftan-like top. although the length is just right, the streaming layers of cloth which make up the 'sleeves' seem to be blowin' in the wind just a bit too much (though achieving the desired effect). all in all it's pretty satisfactory, i must say, for something that cost me just RM10.90, material and workmanship included ;-)

the flu bug

having a horrible case of the sniffles.. have just executed five sneezes in a row. have dark rings around my eyes. and there's this feeling as if a vacuum has been created up in the deep recesses of my nose and the air around me is being syphoned into my nasopharyngeal region. the nasal spray provided by the doc has resulted in.. well, let's just say i'll need a box of tissues within easy reach for the next few hours. i don't think i need any sedative medicine to doze off now.. except that i've got work to do and an mc i can't make use of tomorrow because of a thousand and one things to do in the office. (plus there'll be loads to be done before the boss goes on leave for a week!)