Took a quick jaunt up the road to the MacRitchie Reservoir for some nature spotting today. It's a fine, fine place to visit, with nicely groomed walking trails, a boardwalk around the water, and some nature trails. There were few birds to be seen, but the calls were could occasionally hear were not the usualy calls we hear around our section of town. As we walked along we came across a pack of twenty or so long-tailed macaques! They were all a little too tame; only just a little bit leery of us. There was one large male, obviously the alpha, who wasn't frightened at all, even when a jogger went by. Several of the babies weren't too afraid either.

We had to curtail our visit due to an encroaching thunderstorm, but on our way back to the bus stop we investigated a loud bird call coming from a high tree. We were disappointed to see what looked like a pair of your average mynahs, but a closer look revealed they had more striking features. Turns out they were hill mynahs, which are a relatively rare sight in Singapore.

We took the long way back on the bus, and ended up passing this humongous Buddhist complex, which we're definitely going to have to check out later on...

Wacky! The Singapore government has extended all primary school closings until the 16th due to SARS. My school however is undecided about whether we will be closed the whole time or not. I was told to tell all my families that we will be closed on Monday and they can check the website after 2pm Monday for information regarding the rest of the week. We (teachers) have also been told not to be too attached to our spring break (which was supposed to be the 14-18) and the end of the year date (presently June 7). Of course teachers had to go in everyday last week and have to report on Monday as well, so if spring break is cancelled we will get no break at all. This sucks.

Here's a series of images just for you Mom. I know you're surrounded by a lot of depressing stuff right now. Hopefully this/these will add a smile to eveyone's day.
love
birth
bear
what?
dance

Geeky stuff. The New York Times has this article about the ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest, which I was involved with for several years. The article does a pretty good job of capturing the spirit and intensity of the event. The combined brain power in that one room is staggering; I don't know why more companies don't recruit there. I was on teams competing in the finals, twice (finishing 16th and 5th overall -- "toot! toot!" goes my own horn), and the whole experience has to count as my fondest memory -- the time of my life. If you've ever been a part of a team that was focused and driven with all of their being towards achieving some goal, you know what I'm talking about. You just feel more alive. And I learned sooooo much; almost as much as I did in all my other college classwork put together.

We worked hard, similar to the teams mentioned in the article, drilling for six or seven hours every Saturday, with additional meetings during the week. But it never seemed like work. We did some crazy things in the practice drills. The practice room was made to be intentionally noisy, and bright lights were shone in our teams faces occasionally (like a roving cameraman), because that's what happens in the international competitions. We would occasionally foul up the judging, again, because that's what happens in the international competitions, and we wanted the team members to be prepared for it, and deal with it, and move on. To increase our rigor, we would sometimes have a practice where we were only given an editor, and no compiler, and we had to submit programs without ever compiling them. That was tough. We knew our strengths and weaknesses; teams would get to the point where they could look at a set of contest problems and immediately tell who was going to solve what.

The contest is limited to college students only. Plus, because of the ACM's stupid eligibility requirements, once you've competed nationally twice, you can't compete anymore. So it had to all come to an end. I would love to find something where I could experience that level of intensity again some day.

Old jokes. I'm on an email general discussion list with a guy who works for a university translating Latin texts. He just posted these jokes, which were written down in A.D. 400 (though they might be older than that). And I thought my grandfather told some old jokes!

A student who wanted to teach his ass not to chew on things stopped giving him food. When the ass died from hunger, he said: "What a disaster! Just when I had taught him not to chew, he goes and dies on me."

A friend asked a student who was travelling overseas: "Could you please buy me two slaves, each fifteen years old." He replied: " If I can't find what you want, I'll buy you one who is thirty."

A couple of good-for-nothing students were complaining to one another that their fathers were still alive. One said: "How about we each kill our father?" "No way," said the other. "That would make us parricides. But if you like, I'll kill yours and you can kill mine."

A fellow ran into a student and said to him: "The slave you sold me has died." "By the gods," he replied, " he never did anything like that when he was with me."

A student was on a voyage and a storm sprung up. When his servants started wailing, he said: "Don't wail. I've left you all your liberty in my will."

A student invited to a meal didn't eat. When one of the guests asked him why he wasn't eating, he replied: "In case I appear to have come for the food."

A student writing to his father from Athens, thoroughly proud of what he had learnt, added: "I hope I will find you charged in a capital case, so I can show you my skill as a lawyer."

Hmm. Even though I love Mutts, I have to say that Mark's new icon annoys me. It doesn't match the rest of the blog asthetics. Does it bother anyone else?

Sudden acute respiratory silliness. Marjorie reports seeing people on the MRT (subway) with surgical masks. I haven't noticed any yet, but my head is usually in a book.

The guy who scooped my ice cream today, though, was wearing one. They also had a sign up, talking about the anti-bacterial cleansing agent they're using in defense of SARS. Which would be really helpful if SARS was a bacteria.

We could still visit Thailand now if we wanted, like we did a few weeks back, but because we're from Singapore, we'd have to wear a mask the entire time. Imagine the tan lines.

My soccer coach sent out an email, saying that anyone who shows symptoms at this Sunday's game will be sent home. He is also temporarily suspending the communal jug of Tang we use for hydration.

Hong Kong just sent out text messages to six million cell phone users, trying to quash a rumor that they've been declared an "infected" city.

Crazy times...

It bothered me that the little counter I had over to the left only counted civilian casualties, as if they were the only ones that counted. So now I've changed it to a link to a page with a more complete assessment. While we're on the subject, you can read some accounts from the front line, if you have a strong stomach...

On a lighter note, as for my new icon, thanks go to the amazing Patrick McDonnell and his comic strip Mutts.

Good day for nature sightings: I saw a little green and black tree snake climbing up a fence on my way back to school from lunch today. Leaving work I saw a Kingfisher, I've never seen one so far away from the water before. I also saw the back of an unidentified olive bird and heard the calls of several new (sounding) unidentified birds. I'm definately taking the S.E. Asia bird book to work with me tomorrow, since the kids aren't in (due to SARS) I may take a long lunch break to stroll around the campus looking for critters.

Great quote I just read from late physicist Richard Feynman:

Einstein was a giant.

His head was in the clouds, but his feet were on the ground.

Those of us who are not so tall have to choose!

We watched part of the infamous Michael Jackson documentary tonight, which was finally on TV here. Yes, he's messed up in some ways. But I came away thinking what a nice guy he is, in general, and what a jerk the interviewer was. The way he tried to twist everything the wrong way was really offputting. I don't believe the accusations against MJ at all, and I'm not even a fan.

Found this postcard, which I had to buy because it's exactly the view I see when I walk out of my (work) building. Most afternoons, I can be found sitting along these walkways, having an ice cream. To the left, just off the picture, is a giant video screen that plays the same commercials in a loop, repeating every two minutes or so, for months on end. I have them all memorized.

Wacky. More wacky fruit spotted downstairs: Custard apples, pomelos, and Thai fragrant seed (which the internet seems to never have heard of).

Wacky person spotted downstairs: a karaoke busker.

More SARS wackiness: Considered going to see Moby tomorrow, but turns out he cancelled due to SARS. We apparently caught the Stones just in time; they cancelled the rest of their shows out here. Today I was handed a flyer for an "Aroma Bio-technology air management product" that has a picture of two little kids playing, and says: "What chance do they have if airborne bacteria hit them?" Vultures.

Watched a bit of the local news tonight, for the latest SARS update; I think they're getting on top of it, despite a third death. And we're posting nurses at the airport. They have a little news ticker at the bottom of the screen -- I had to laugh at the blurb that popped up: "Car broken into at Sim Lim Square; laptop, palm pilot stolen". These are apparently the top two stories in town tonight.

Tonight we watched a very silly, but very funny VCD we bought in Thailand: Ali G Indahouse. A spoof of, I don't know, the British white hip-hop scene? Fear of a Black Hat meets Meet John Doe meets Spice World.

Paranoia about SARS seems to be running rampant here. We went out tonight for dinner, and the cabbie who took us home told us that he wasn't getting any fares tonight, because people were staying indoors because of SARS. I thought, nah, it's just an off night. But apparently it's true. I really don't see SARS as much different from the West Nile virus that hit Georgia, Florida, and other parts of the US while we were there.