Tomorrow should be interesting. We're going over to my boss's new apartment; he's having it blessed by a Sri Lankan priest (referred to him by his maid). There's some things we have to watch out for, like not to sit higher than the priest, and not to pass him anything. The maid is cooking lunch; a bunch of Sri Lankan food, whatever that is (supposedly a lot like South Indian).

I'm back! We've had unfortunate appliance problems lately, the most recent of which has left me without a computer to blog on (I could technically blog from work, but feel I'm being spied on). Now that I'm able to get to the blog I see that Mark's already blogged about everything interesting that's happened this week (flying lizard...trivia domination). Oh well.
I have to work tomorrow (Saturday). The kiddies are going for an orientation for orientation for 1st grade and I (for some reason) am needed. Shouldn't complain though as public school teachers in Singapore have to work EVERY Saturday. I really can't imagine having to teach 6 days a week every week. Must suck.
BTW, I won't be teaching next year. I was nicely given the option to just sign a contract until the end of this June (as opposed to next June) and took it. The school is great, the kids are great, but honestly I don't love teaching. And I did love my last job, so I know it's possible. So as of June, I'll be unemployed again. This time though I'll have contacts into the special ed. world in Singapore so hopefully I'll be able to find a job assessing special needs infants. If not, maybe I'll look into starting my own company...something that may well be possible here. I'm just not sure if I want to commit to a business, or to Singapore (for more then 6 more months).

During a jog the other night, I realized that we are spitting (sneezing?) distance from Tan Tock Seng, Singapore's SARS hospital. Maybe we'll go out to dinner on nights when we're downwind.

Trivial pursuits. We were regulars at bar trivia in Atlanta, so we had been trying to track down somewhere here to play it. Finally we found a British pub up the road -- The Yard -- that plays the first Tuesday of every month. Strange format, almost like a test; they read out the questions, and you just wrote all the answers down on a sheet of paper which they then graded. We did really good, thanks to American mass media, which seemed to be the source of most of their questions (there was a section on Singapore too, which we totally bombed on). Just the two of us nearly beat everyone. Marjorie had fun obnoxiously correcting them on one question, which led to this exchange:

Her: "Excuse me, but Sid Vicious killed his girlfriend in New York, not London!"
Other team: "Sheesh, you got it right, didn't you?"
Her: "Yeah, but people deserve to know the TRUTH!"
Me: "Yeah, you can't HANDLE the truth!"

The best part is, the rules are kind of lax, and we were offered the job of RUNNING the contest the next month. So we're trying to come up with some good (read: not America-centric) questions.

Geeks, yeah, we know.

Ick. Back on line again, from home. After several failed attempts to get an XP boot disk locally (I didn't want to have to wait for one through the mail), and a failed attempt to load FreeBSD instead, I ended up going with the most hateful option. I bought XP again. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go take a shower.

Rrrrr. I have my new hard disk installed on my laptop, but have run into the wall trying to reinstall Windows XP. I have a product key for it, but not the original installation disks, and any other installation disks will not work because you can't reuse license keys that way. My options are: 1. Buy it all over again, for US$200. 2. Get a pirated version. 3. Bid Microsoft adieu and go install Linux.

I know everyone thinks Microsoft is scrupulous and honest and non-manipulative, but I'm starting to wonder.

Weekly geeking. The choice of text editor is a crucial decision for computer programmers. Fierce loyalties develop, much in the same way chefs will swear by a set of knives, or pit crew bosses a particular brand of motor oil.

Just yesterday my boss strongly suggested that I switch to Emacs, so that we could exchange tips, use particular modes, etc. I told him, flat out, "No".

This is not stubbornness, or Ludditism. I know Emacs very well, and swore by it for many years -- I used to even joke that it was my religion. But lately I've had to wander back into the Unix environment a bit, and have been messing around with Emacs sparingly, and -- the honeymoon is over. I find it awkward and stupid now. A big clumsy overachiever who doesn't play nice with the other kids.

I still use it when I'm in Unix and need some power feature, like macros. But (and I never thought I'd ever say this), I've found that I prefer vi. It's a moronic editor on many levels, but it's lightweight and reliable, and doesn't leave me frustrated nearly as often.

In Windows I'll be sticking with TextPad. This is as fine a piece of software as I've ever used, and I recommend it highly.

Bother, bother, bother. The hard disk on our home computer has been screeching at us of late, and is about to take a dirt nap. I am endeavoring to swap it out and save all the info off of it, but it may be a day or two before we're back to being able to post regular blogs. Is our apartment building built on top of an ancient Asian burial ground or something?

Flying things. While at Singapore's superb Jurong Bird Park yesterday, we were buzzed by many fascinating birds in their aviaries, but the coolest thing that buzzed us was not even a bird. We were just walking down a path when a flying lizard skimmed just over our heads, alighting on a thin tree just in front of us. How cool is that? He wasn't part of any exhibit; in fact, it was probably a stupid place for him to be hanging out. We got a good look at him on the tree; about six inches long, brown with a blue-green head, and had a neck wattle that he could thrust out.

Also while in the bird park, we had a good sighting of a new bird species that we can actually count because he wasn't part of any exhibit. In the surrounding trees we spotted a Goldenback woodpecker. We aren't sure if it was the Common or Greater variety, though.

There were several new outstanding exhibits at the park, including the waterfall aviary (a meshed-in enclosure as big as a small stadium) and the Windows on Paradise, where we watched the male birds of paradise put on wild displays for the females. Like the zoo, the encounters are in-your-face, without a safety screen. Nice to be in a country where civil litigation isn't running the show...