In which the author speaks of making lists and keeping journals.

I make lists. Lots of them.

Lists can break otherwise daunting tasks into smaller, specific, clear elements. Really.

You don’t do stuff without a list or throw a party without making a list. Especially for a party. The who-not-to-invite list is by far the most importance list one has to duly prepare.

Then there’s the other benefit of lists — the forgetting. Once something is put on paper, under the inauspicious heading of “To Do”, you can stop worrying about it. You don’t have to remember once it’s on the List. You can dump it right out of your brain.

It’s like that with journaling. Still, try as I might, I’ve never been able to fill a journal, though I’m very fond of notebooks. Hardbound with narrow, crisp lines, I must have a half a dozen of them in my drawer, none of which have more than a quarter of its pages filled.

I’d like to complete one front and back, top to bottom, left to right — fill it with ideas, private thoughts, drawings and lists. No success yet. I begin quite well but, eventually, will furiously scrawl an idea that comes too fast for neat, sane lettering. I end up with ten pages that will be meaningless in six days.

The Purist in me occasionally gets lost in details, and whose sanity is very much in question will deem the notebook void.

Concerning a week’s end.

Nothing exciting going on. All of my time and brain was spent tidying my shelves, fixing my Lan connections and getting my external Hard Disk to work internally. It has been four days since I last saw my power cable to my external Hard Disk. I do hope she decides to turn up.

And best friend Mathi seemingly admitted himself to the hospital on Friday. Need not worry, last I looked he was as healthy as a horse but the same couldn’t be said of his car.

In a few short hours I will be in office, right now I can’t thank my other best friend enough for sending me those songs. Oddly she considers herself as a Mac person although she carries a Vaio and secretly admires the Dell. But don’t worry she’s going to get a Mac soon.

Thankfully weekends are such a bore in Singapore or else I wouldn’t have found the time to finish The Subtle Knife. I could spend an entire day raving about this book but I think it’s been done before.

Don’t let the bastards grind you down.
- General Joseph W. Stilwell (1883 - 1946)

The aging process has you firmly in its grasp if you never get the urge to throw a snowball.
- Doug Larson

Almost all absurdity of conduct arises from the imitation of those whom we cannot resemble.
- Samuel Johnson (1709 - 1784)

The test of courage comes when we are in the minority. The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority.
- Ralph W. Sockman

Your best shot at happiness, self-worth and personal satisfaction - the things that constitute real success - is not in earning as much as you can but in performing as well as you can something that you consider worthwhile.
- William Raspberry

In which the author is astound by the intelligence of politicians.

Politicians just love to come up with laws that make it look like they’re doing something. Even if the laws are totally meaningless. Apparently, in New York, a law has been proposed that would make it a crime to sell or give a terrorist a domain name.

If terrorists were actually registering domains under their real names and addresses, wouldn’t that just make it easier to track them down?

In which this blog misleads its visitors by giving them a preconceived notion that the author is a very organized person.

The picture you see below shatters any preconceived notion you might have had of my tidiness. I am as messy as the hair on my head.

This is how my workspace looks like on a good day. Trust me you wouldn’t want to see the rest it. I know, I wouldn’t.