The discounts keep coming!

Another Borders discount. 30% off for a full-priced book. Another 10% off for card holders. The coupon is found here.

Offer ends on the 13th of December.

Splendid! WOO!

Friday! YESYESYES! Wheeeee!

Singapore Open Gaming XXII

Ken announces the next Singapore Open Gaming session:

Time: 1:00 pm to 7:00 pm

Date: 15.12.2007, Saturday

Venue: Queen's Road, RC Room

All are welcome! Boardgames! A lot of us will be bringing games. So, even if you have no games, it's alright. We are willing to teach.

Goodness! It's already Thursday!

Yet more books

I was at Borders last night and I picked up three volumes.

The Naked Brain: How the Emerging Neurosociety is Changing How We Live, Work, and Love by Richard Restak




The Ghost Brigades by John Scalzi









The Android's Dream by John Scalzi

Late last night, I was racing through 'The Ghost Brigades'. Heh. Great fun.

I will head down to Borders this evening to pick 'Ghost Brigades' up.

Scrabulous: Lim-Trashing!

I just got Lim-trashed! In my last turn, I managed a 64 point lay overhauling her but the Lim Champ nonchalantly went and do a 26-point lay, thus winning the game! Her Lim-Prowess is amazing!

Me 324
Benita 353

I had one V tile left. DEV or VOX was available if Lim Champ hadn't completed BISE, IDE, SOX.

WOO!

After seeing a doctor today, I had chicken cutlet (breaded chicken) at the Ritz Apple Strudel & Pastry at Upper Thomson Road. The chicken seemed undercooked and somewhat rubbery. The staff kindly cooked it again.

'Old Man's War' - John Scalzi

Kelvin and I were browsing at Page One at Vivocity a few weeks ago and discussing SF depictions of future war when he recommended 'Old Man's War'. We shared our admiration of Robert Heinlein's 'Starship Troopers' and Joe Haldemann's 'The Forever War', but I was disappointed with most bestselling military SF books which were essentially war stories or westerns in minimal SF trappings. Honour in outerspace? Doh...

On Saturday night, I had bought 'Old Man's War' at Borders. After I read Sam Harris' eloquent 'Letter to a Christian Nation' on Sunday, I started this riveting read that night and subsequently finished it last night.

John Scalzi's 'Old Man's War' is a Heinlein-esque, wide-eyed view of future war with different approaches of waging war being taken with regard to different aliens. As Kelvin had observed, the work was reminiscent of 'The Forever War' and 'Starship Troopers' and there was a lengthly exposition of the technology involving and the methods of war-making. It was an imaginative extrapolation of what war could be like rather than merely the usual honourable men with ray guns against honourable aliens with ray guns.

War was essentially genocidal in nature in Scalzi's future and it was plausible and consistent within his framework. No honourable aliens (ie Indians, Japanese or mysterious 'other'). Phew!

I would be picking up 'Ghost Brigades' later this week at Borders.

More Books

I bought quite a few more books on Saturday. I picked up the following at Borders:

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2007 by Richard Preston (Editor), Tim Folger (Series Editor)




Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris










Old Man's War by John Scalzi







and this volume at the Big Bookshop:

The New Brain: How the Modern Age Is Rewiring Your Mind by Richard Restak

I started and finished 'Letter to a Christian Nation' on Sunday. Splendid volume. I would highly recommend it to everyone.

I had also started on 'Old Man's War'. Kelvin had recommended it some time back.

Bolton 1 Manchester United 0

This is a great weekend for football! Manchester United lost! Yeah! England out! Splendid! Sunderland hammered for 7! HURRAH!

From the BBC report, Roy Keane had this comment to make:

"It's hard to take, but we lose as a team and I picked the team and sorted the tactics so I have no problem taking responsibility for what happened."

Hahahaha! Take responsibility indeed. He's beginning to sound like McClown.

Meanwhile, all England has to do is to appoint Alan Shearer for manager! Hahahaha. Hopefully, the Football Association won't make that mistake. English football needs an experienced disciplinarian and tactician as a manager, not Alan Shearer.

Sadly, the game session hadn't come to pass. Dillon had to look after his Dillonling. I had dinner at Stew Haus last night. Delicious stuff and reasonably priced. I would love to go back there again. Wei Yi gave me a poster of a saluting Benito Mussolini last night. He suggested that I imitated that raised arm salute. Hahaha!

This morning, I swam an hour earlier than my normal hour. The pool was almost deserted when I started my twenty laps.

I started and finished 'Letter to a Christian Nation' by Sam Harris this afternoon. I would recommend this volume to everyone, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Taoists...

Crazy Ang Mo

I had dinner at the Crazy Ang Mo stall at Bishan Street 24 last night. The stall, run by the jolly 'Crazy Ang Mo', was situated near the Bishan North Shopping Mall.

His jovial demeanour was quite a contrast to the many sullen people I saw around the mall. Weird. There wasn't a queue and the food came swiftly. I had the sausage dish while my friend had the fish and chips. I thought that the chips (or French fries) which was salted was much better than those salt-coated rock-hard French fries from McDonald's.

The food was not bad, certainly much better than the run-of-the-mill western food stalls in food courts and hawker centres. In my opinion, it was certainly better than the usual Cafe Cartel, Swensons, Hans or Jack's Place. Decent at a reasonable price.

Books!

I picked up the three volumes at Borders last night after dinner at the Crazy Ang Moh stall at Bishan. With a 35% discount coupon and a card, the discounts amounted to 41.5%. It was a great time to stock up on books.

The Emotion Machine: Commonsense Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, and the Future of the Human Mind by Marvin Minsky

The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2006 (The Best American Series) by Brian Greene (Editor), Tim Folger (Series Editor)

The Stuff of Thought: Language as a Window into Human Nature by Steven Pinker

I had read a few science volumes over the last few years and had found it much more intriguing and thought-provoking than the many bad mass-market SF novels which suffered from a poverty of imagination.

How many space westerns or war stories in SF trappings do we need?

Wow! According to a Times report, Martin O'Neill has ruled himself out. This is indeed getting very interesting.

SNAP!

Another funny thread. Benita is bored.

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (3:13 PM):
psle results are out

Chuang Shyue Chou says (3:13 PM):
Oh? How did you do?

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (3:13 PM):
-_-

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (3:13 PM):
i'm not taking my psle

Chuang Shyue Chou says (3:14 PM):
Hahahaha.

Chuang Shyue Chou says (3:14 PM):
You set yourself up.

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (3:15 PM):
i thought you were dumb

Chuang Shyue Chou says (3:15 PM):
WOO!

The Secret Origins of Kuoby!

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:56 AM):
Wait till you turn into a tubby penguin when you hit 39!

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:56 AM):
stuck in the past

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:56 AM):
nah, that's kuoby

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:56 AM):
Hahahah.

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:56 AM):
do you know the game Kirby?

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:56 AM):
You could be Ms Penguin!

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:56 AM):
Nope.

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:56 AM):
oh

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:56 AM):
i thought you took reference from there

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:56 AM):
Why?

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:56 AM):
Ahhh...

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:56 AM):
Kuoby?

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:56 AM):
to call kuoby a kuoby

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:56 AM):
lemme show you

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:57 AM):
Well, he's a kuoby.

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:57 AM):
Kuoby is the best funny combo.

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:57 AM):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirby_%28Nintendo%29

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:57 AM):
After lots and lots of permutations.

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:57 AM):
that

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:58 AM):
is almos tthe epitome of kuoby

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:58 AM):
Hahahaah! Too funny!

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:58 AM):
It's almost like Kuoby!

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:58 AM):
fat, rotund, rubicund

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:58 AM):
yes

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:58 AM):
sans the cute factor

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:58 AM):
Hahaaha. Yeah. Grumpy!

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:58 AM):
which is WHY i thought you took reference to call Kuoby something Kirbyish!

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:58 AM):
do it!

Beni † ♪ Achtung! says (11:58 AM):
blog about it!

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:58 AM):
Ugly too.

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:58 AM):
Hahahaha.

Chuang Shyue Chou says (11:58 AM):
Sure.

England 2 Croatia 3: McClown gets the Sack!

After receiving a reprieve when Israel beat Russia, England should have at least gotten a draw against Croatia which had already qualified for the Euro 2008. However, under McClown's leadership, England faltered. Even then, McClown was still resisting resignation, insisting that he would stay on. I guess there was a clause with a couple of million pounds if he were to be forced to leave.

At least, there is a bright spot to all this. McClown is finally getting the sack according to the Sun. YESYESYES!

I went for a short 3 km run yesterday evening. Given the impending rain, the temperature was an ideal 27.5 degrees Centigrade.

I should really run more often.

Hmm... My connection is quite wonky today. Facebook, Windows Live, and a few other sites are highly unreliable today. Weird.

Mannin University

Mannin University was supposedly in Dublin, Ireland according to reports. I did a check on Google with a simple search. The recent furore over credentials as reported in the Straits Times and Asia One had sent many in search of that higher institute of education on search engines.

Google did yield a result of a person from the Maldives who had an honorary doctorate from Mannin in Dublin. Heh. I wouldn't purchase insurance from him. Another search yielded something from Bulgaria, a Thai fitness thing. I tried a few permutations.

From the search results, there were apparently people with Sports Science, Marine Biology and Engineering Ph.D. from Mannin University. Oh yes, there was also one with a Ph. D. in Musical Arts in Bassoon Performance. A nice variety.

I did a Yahoo search too. A Wikipedia search yielded nothing too. Nada. Zilch.

Later, I checked 'Mannin' on Google. More promising but nothing that pertained to an educational establishment. I would be doing a few more searches on using education-based keywords later. Would that be yielding something?

Addendum

I also did a search on http://www.google.ie/ , the Irish Google. Again, it was fruitless. Mysterious.

Addendum II

Another search in the Google directory for education in Dublin, Ireland returned a list of schools, universities and institutes. No mention of the mysterious Mannin University. I did a few more searches with 'Ireland University', 'Dublin Ireland University' and a few more permutations. They were all fruitless.

Bookstores: Why I keep returning to Borders

I guess it is the atmosphere after all. Borders has light-coloured wooden furniture and wide aisles, allowing for a lightness about the place that is uplifting. Kinokuniya, on the other hand, has always felt to me like a clean sanitised toilet of sorts, a sterile, severe classroom, a tea room for aunties. The sombre dark tiles on the flooring, the sterile feel of the shelves and the narrowness of the aisles. The overall feel. To me, Times and MPH feel anonymous, more of a place that peddles books on an incidental basis. I will speak of PageOne, Sunny, Sans, Basheer, Select and a few others when I feel like it one of these days.

Surprisingly, I find that Siu Hean's opinions regarding Borders and Kinokuniya echo mine.

Metal Lattices

A few days ago, I dreamt of the metal lattices of the base of the Eiffel tower being lifted and then lowered in place by unseen cranes. It was just the last in a series of fantastical images whirling in my mind before I woke up. I had vague impressions before these fleeting images vanished, lost utterly into the recesses of my mind.

Wake up!

Another amusing MSN/Windows Live exchange with Kuoby:

Kuoby (Thuggg) says (9:41 AM):
wake up shit for brains

Chuang Shyue Chou says (9:41 AM):
Good morning!

Kuoby (Thuggg) says (9:53 AM):
as they say in french

Kuoby (Thuggg) says (9:53 AM):
f*ck you

Kuoby (Thuggg) says (9:53 AM):
mischan

Chuang Shyue Chou says (9:55 AM):
Hmm.. What's with the potty mouth so early this morning?

Chuang Shyue Chou says (9:58 AM):
Were you bullied at work?

Chuang Shyue Chou says (10:02 AM):
Are you okay?

Chuang Shyue Chou says (10:05 AM):
Did you fall in a man-hole?

Kuoby (Thuggg) says (10:15 AM):
it was a mischan

Chuang Shyue Chou says (10:15 AM):
It was? You sounded so innocent. It must be true then.

Chuang Shyue Chou says (10:19 AM):
What are you up to on this fine day?

Kuoby (Thuggg) says (10:22 AM):
doing mail outs of information updates

Chuang Shyue Chou says (10:23 AM):
You deliver mail now?

Kuoby (Thuggg) says (10:24 AM):
shut up, don't talk about things you don't understand

Kuoby (Thuggg) says (10:24 AM):
mischan

Kuoby (Thuggg) says (10:25 AM):
i mean, why, no, dear SC. I'm sending out information updates to our mailing list. preparing them etc.

Chuang Shyue Chou says (10:25 AM):
You are delivering mail.

Chuang Shyue Chou says (10:25 AM):
Info updates to mailing list is an euphemism for delivering mail.

Kuoby (Thuggg) says (10:26 AM):
what do you know, shithead

Kuoby (Thuggg) says (10:26 AM):
mischan

Kuoby (Thuggg) says (10:26 AM):
i mean, why you're in error, dear SC.

Chuang Shyue Chou says (10:27 AM):
You were a copywriter with a top-end media firm in Singapore and now you were delivering mail.

Chuang Shyue Chou says (10:28 AM):
Dress it up. Call it updates to mailing list but

Chuang Shyue Chou says (10:28 AM):
you were delivering mail. Isn't going postal an ambition of yours?

Chuang Shyue Chou says (10:28 AM):
Going postal with your long knives and Glock 17?

Huge Borders Discounts!

Whoa! This current discount is even greater than the previous. It starts now and will end on the 29th of November.

Buy any three full-priced books and receive 35% off. Cardholders receive another 10% off. That works out to be 41.5%! WOW! The coupon is here.

30% off one full-priced VCD or DVD. The coupon is here.

I had diagnosed the printer problem correctly. It was a cartridge with a faulty print head. The Canon repairman came just now, he changed the cartridge and everything was fine! Excellent!

Brilliant! Thank you Canon for the service.

I am still reading Stephen Oppenheimer's 'Out of Eden: The Peopling of the World'. Intriguing. The early people of South-East Asia and East Asia.

A slow Thursday. It would be a day more before the weekend. The week had certainly flown by. I spent last night reading something on the Centurion MBT and also the Yamato class battleships.

I also read Orhan Pamuk's 'My Name is Red'.

Kakurenbo (Hide and Seek)


Spellbinding! This short, evocative thirty-minute film of children and demons amidst a haunting deserted metropolis took my breath away. Wow! This would definitely beat anything coming out of Pixar easily.

Thanks to Kelvin who first showed me the backgrounds and later lent the DVD to me. Without his direction, I would not have known of the existence of this little gem.

I was very impressed. A few hours after I left feedback at the Canon website, a lady from the Canon servicing department called. Responsive.

Very impressive.


Anyway, I suspected it was a cartridge problem. I tested the slot with another cartridge of a different colour and it was fine. I would be heading down to Sim Lim Square this evening nevertheless to pick up a new cartridge as a stop-gap.

Once I quoted my serial number and warranty card to Canon, they would be sending a technician over.

Marc Almond 'Stardom Road'

'Stardom Road' is my last Marc Almond CD for the foreseeable future. In my opinion, like Erasure's dismal 'Other People's Songs', this self-indulgent release has little to recommend, beyond the artiste performing his favourite songs. In this deadly-dull, vocal-driven tribute of 'classic' covers, Almond and guests sing with gusto but with minimal instrumentation. Boring.

1. I Have Lived

2. I Close My Eyes And Count To Ten

3. Besitter Images

4. The London Boys

5. Strangers In The Night

6. The Ballad Of The Sad Young Men

7. Stardom Road

8. Kitsch

9. Backstage (I'm Lonely)

10. Dream Lover

11. Happy Heart

12. Redeem

13. The Curtain Falls

Time to take action. No point in waiting and hoping for a response. I will have to go to Sim Lim Square to purchase a new Canon 8Y cartridge which may or may not solve the problem.

I just sent a nice polite query to Canon Singapore about this.

Let's see how they respond. It should be interesting.

A Canon Problem

This Canon PIXMA iP3300 printer is a piece of crap. It is suffering from a constant ink tank recognition problem. And these are the original cartridges that came with the printer too.

I have used many printers over the years. I haven't encountered something as flawed and unreliable as this Canon rubbish. Now, there is going to be a loss of work hours and more likely work days devoted to getting this sent to a service centre and so forth.

To think that Canon, supposedly a respected maker of printers came out with this.

I am frustrated. AVOID this piece of junk like the plague.

P.S. And yes, it is securely affixed. The contacts appear clean and I have not touched them.

A Lim Champ Trashing

Announcing Lim Champ's tremendous Scrabulous victory over me again! 468 to 355 points! Oh no! Crushed again!

Spring cleaning is great. This year, I have cleaned out quite a bit more. Less encumbrance.

It's not worth it.

Venturing for Food

Generally, I would have my lunch in the office, that was, in the cavernous warehouse and I had been doing so for the last three years. Today, on one of those rare occasions, I made an excursion out of the confines of the musty place and ventured to the colourful Junction 8 mall with its ever present and attendant school kiddies.

I had the black pepper spaghetti ($7.20), crinkle fries ($3.50) and ice blended mocha ($4.50) at Cafe Galilee at the Bishan Library. Pricey! Not terribly impressive food, it's cafe food, so I wasn't expecting much anyway. I did, however, order too much food.

Dave Gahan 'Saw Something / Deeper and Deeper'

The second single is a double A-side with 'Saw Something' and 'Deeper and Deeper', the next two stronger tracks in 'Hour Glass'. With the release of 'Kingdom' as the first single, that is pretty much all the best tracks in that album. Nothing much left in my opinion.

The new Hooverphonic album, 'The President Of The LSD Golf Club', has been released in Belgium and Holland with an accompanying single 'Expedition Impossible'. I can't wait for them to make our shores. I don't expect the single but the album should hopefully be available.

Things are very fine indeed!

Year 2007. Minus 3. It is strange how things turn out sometimes.

Poor Anne. I spoke to her on the telephone on Saturday afternoon. She would not be playing football ever again after tearing some ligaments. It sounded very painful from her description.

Music

This weekend, I picked up more CDs than I had done in a while. I picked up 'Rachmaninoff: Complete Works for Piano & Orchestra' (performed by Abbey Simon and the St. Louis Orchestra), 'Debussy: Préludes I & II' (performed by Walter Gieseking), 'Crossroads' by mind.in.a.box at Borders and 'Stardom Road' by Marc Almond and 'Disco 4' by the Pet Shop Boys at HMV.

The two classical titles were wondrous. I played them over the weekend while I was dozing in bed. The mind.in.a.box CD was pretty much what I had expected, not groundbreaking but interesting nevertheless. Electronic bliss.

I had yet to listen to the Marc Almond and Pet Shop Boys titles.

A nice wet rainy Monday morning. Yesterday, I did twenty laps at the pool in the afternoon instead of the morning. I had difficulty staying awake in the morning then and had opted for an afternoon swim. Well, bad mistake. The pool was crowded with children having their swimming lessons! Heh. The water was choppy.

I had dinner with Kelvin at Fig & Olive at Vivocity last night. I had a Beef Kebab sandwich and Kelvin had the corn beef sandwich. My sandwich was remarkably unremarkable, likewise the chicken soup. Water was charged too and they came in tiny mineral water bottles.

I doubt if I would ever return to this place again.

My Canon iP3300 Pixma printer is an infernal piece of crap. Now, there is a sheet of paper jammed! Feed problems! First, oil tank recognition problems, then, front feeder and top feeder recognition problems. Absolutely not recommended. Avoid!

The older and cheaper Lexmark Z-25 and Z-35 printers were way way more reliable. This Canon contraption is over-engineered.

It's Friday! Whee! I'm going to meet up with Kelvin for dinner at Vivocity this evening. I wonder if Amelia is going to be around town this weekend. I want to pass her some VCDs. I need to pass Wei Yi some Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 books too.

I don't think I can make it to Sim Lim Square this weekend after all. I do need a new keyboard and a 8-port switch. Heh.

The Singaporean Army and Society: Perspectives from Major Robert E. Lee Jr., Green Berets, US Army

This was an interesting perspective offered by a major in the Green Berets. It was, of course, at odds with what the bitter, navel-gazing opposition in Singapore had to say.

Needless to say, it had offered an outsider's perspective.


"Major Lee had conducted training missions all over Asia: South Korea, Singapore, Tonga, the Solomon Islands, the Philippines... He judged cultures and political systems by what he saw of their armies, which wasn't a bad idea. At least it was ground truth rather than abstractions. Armies are usually accurate cultural barometers. America had among the best non-commissioned officer corps in history because the U.S. was the epitome of a mass middle-class society. Poorly led corrupt third world countries tend to have militaries in which weapons and other equipment were not maintained. Maintenance - a dull, unpleasant, and yet necessary task - is an indication of discipline, espirit de corps, and faith in the future, because you maintain only what you plan to use for the long term.

Lee, barely audible above the loud typhoon rain, spoke of each Asian army he had helped train, with the memory of it lingering in his eyes. He was most impressed with Singapore's. "They had a state-of-the-art shoot house. Whenever a soldier got hurt in training, there was an investigation and a detailed explanation given to the family. Life wasn't cheap there. It was valued. Officially, Singapore's a dictatorship, and people in Washington and New York disparage it. Unofficially, it's a civil society.

"Their non-commissioned officer corps is real good," he went on. "Singapore's a meritocracy; lots of future officers are identified out of the ranks in basic training. Chinese, Malays, Indians, they're all mixed together in units. I went there with the idea of Big Brother. But you just cross the border into Malaysia or especially Indonesia from Singapore, and you'll see hordes of beggars and people defecating in the streets and you'll realise why Singapore has those strict rules. You can walk into a movie theatre in Singapore without your feet sticking to the floor. Going into Malaysia and Indonesia puts things into perspective for me. After those countries, the Big Brotherisms don't bother you much. Anyway, the people in Singapore get around the rules. It's not as bad as people write about. You just have to be there."

Quote from "Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military, from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond" by Robert D. Kaplan

I just got back from a run at the Botanic Gardens. The place was parked! The car parks were full.

Asian Militaries: From the perspective of a U.S. Special Forces sergeant

An interesting perspective of the capabilities of the Singapore fighting men as well as other Asian militaries from the perspective of a special forces sergeant who had trained with all of them.

"I liked this Special Forces sergeant from California's San Joaquin Valley. He missed no detail. He had served all over Asia, and had taken time off from military service to work as a bounty hunter back in the U.S. I asked him his assessment of the Philippine military.

"Weak noncoms, badly trained, underpaid," he huffed. "They steal bullets to feed their families. The Thai army is better, and the Koreans and Singaporeans are just plain damn good soldiers. Even with their booze, I found Mongolian troops are superior to the Fils. The Fils are like the Panamanians I've worked with. They need basics, not NODs."

Quote from "Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military, from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond" Robert D. Kaplan

Whee! I can't wait to go to town this evening!

Nice sunny day. Too bad that I was couped up in the office all day. I would need to go search for my sister's birthday card tonight.

I just got trashed in Scrabulous by Benita again! The Lim Champ Prowess was simply dominating!

It is 3:16 pm. Whee!

Alea iacta est.

This is such a long day.

Purchases

Over the weekend, I picked up quite a few volumes at Borders:

• The City in History - Lewis Mumford


• 1814: The Campaign for France - F. G. Hourtoulle


• Flesh and Machines: How Robots will change us - Rodney A. Brooks


• The City Reader - Edited byRichard T. LeGates and Frederic Scott


• Send a Gunboat: The Victorian Navy and Supremacy at Sea 1854-1904 - Antony Preston and John Major


• Japanese Fortified Temples and Monasteries AD 710-1602 - Stephen Turnbull and Peter Dennis


• Blackwater: The Rise of the World's most powerful Mercenary Army - Jeremy Scahill


• Imperial Grunts: On the Ground with the American Military, from Mongolia to the Philippines to Iraq and Beyond - Robert D. Kaplan


• The Best American Science Writing 2007 (Best American Science Writing) - Gina Kolata and Jesse Cohen


• The Best American Science & Nature Writing 2005 (Best American) - Jonathan Weiner and Tim Folger


• The Best of Technology Writing 2007 (Best of Technology Writing) - Steven Levy

Monday afternoon. How time flies.

I swam twenty laps at the pool this morning. Phew. Not much sun. I did get darker though despite the application of sunblock with a spf of 30+.

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

The Borders sale that everyone is waiting for is here!

30% off a full-priced book. Card-wielding members get a further 10% off, making it 37%. The coupon can be found here.

3 CDs for the price of 2 CDs. Coupon here.

I just ran about three kilometres earlier. Phew!

Now the Canon Pixma iP3300 inkjet is giving feeding problems. The old cheap Lexmark Z-25 was a lot more reliable than the much more expensive HP and Canon printers.

Addendum

Not merely feeding problems, ink tank recognition problems!

The office HP3820 series inkjet printer is full of software problems. It's an absolute nightmare. I had an alright opinion of HP until this printer came along.

The next office printer will definitely not be an HP inkjet.

Good Heavens! It's already Thursday!

I realised that I have no inclination to logon to 'Duels' anymore. The game feels dead. Time to move on I guess. 'Hellgate London' beckons.

Crude oil is now at US$94.63 per barrel. Ghastly!

The expectation is that it will hit US$100.00 per barrel by the end of the year.