Began the morning picking up the ladies for brekkie. I arranged to meet Aggie, Belinda and NBS (Dee absent with a bad back) at AMK station, then drove to the Siglap Killiney Kopi Tiam before reporting at today's Sports Carnival.

Smuggling in Q-tip in her pet carrier, we occupied the table right in front of the serving counter, and chowed down on the kaya toast standard breakfast set, Hokkien char kuay teow and mee rebus. Killiney's menu variety simply beats Ya Kun's hands down, and the food is up to expectations as well.

I had to carb binge in preparation for the staff Dragonboat event. Sports Carnival was at Bedok Reservoir Park this year, and it was inevitable that some of us just had to get wet. Peggy boss, JY, got us rowers together before the event to work on our technique and timing, and even attempted some kind of Mental Skills Training on us which we thoroughly dissed her for. But Team Peggy was ready.

No memorable victory would be complete without some controversy. Team FiFi insisted Peggy's boat cut their lane, we were sure they cut ours. Independent witness, NBS, said it was hard to tell who cut whose lane because all 4 boats (including Griff's and Drag-on's) seemed to be weaving all over the place, so I guess we'll just have to chalk it up as a hazard of the course. But we got the advantage and powered through to a strong finish. Yay! One more shiny new trophy $10 Sportslink gift voucher to display on my desk. Hmm... maybe I'll use the $10 to buy my own trophy?

Q-tip had a memorable day too. My willing dogsitters, Belinda and NBS took her around the park to meet people, lots of people, too many people. Had to put on her PR face at 110% while her stupid owner went Dragonboating. How exhausting.

Lunched with Aggie and NBS at New York, New York, AMK Hub. They have a gorgeous, meaty mushroom Swiss, drippingly juicy, and a decently sized portion too. It's great for cramming into the mouth and taking hefty bites out of, knowing there's plenty more where that came from. The ladies were tempted but declined dessert, as did I. That experience will be for another day.

Resting back at home now. Gotta go collect the Wongs from the airport tonight.

Dispensing with black-belted kids in rubber suits, this latest TMNT movie opts for straight animation. Makes sense, as the action is a lot less clumsy and the movie doesn't get hamstrung by bad acting. Still, the plot is horrendously full of gaping loopholes, the kind you usually end up with when you mix a 3000 year-old plot to take over the world with sci-fi mumbo jumbo. Apparently, when a bunch of stars align 3K years back, some megalomaniac gains immortality, but his kin turn to stone and 13 monsters get unleashed to wreak havoc on the world.

Cut to present day where aforementioned megalomaniac has become a corporate magnate and finds a way to reanimate his long-petrified brethren, who unfortunately, still have rocks for brains. Meanwhile, the Turtles have had a major falling out with each other and are struggling to find the groove that once made them the total kick-ass crew we know and love. And the 13 monsters must have taken a 3 millennia vacation 'cos until they show up in NYC a day before the stars realign, no one's ever seen them before. Odd, since judging by their size and violent tendencies, they're kind'a hard to miss.

Anyway, we don't care if the plot doesn't make sense. There's plenty of fighting set to a pulse-pounding heavy rock, occasionally hip-hop beat. The Turtles are edgy and emo, with a thrilling fight sequence between Leo and Raph; Casey and April (who's since learned to fight too) lend a hand; and the Foot make their presence felt with their new female leader. TMNT is a pure adrenaline rush -- just leave your brain at the door first. Oh, did I mention that there's plenty of fighting? :D

I'd say ties between the Arts and the English Depts have never been closer. The breakfast table these days is not as well defined as before. Likewise the dinner table tonight, where we gathered in one of the air-conditioned upper rooms of the Cafe de Caire in honour of Wayne's birthday.

From the Arabic menu, we ordered a selection of dishes: humus, kebabs, 'shrooms, mixed grill, and an assortment of dipping gravies for our flat bread and rice. The portions were on the smallish side, and didn't look like they would satisfy our table for 9. But the dishes kept coming in and after just a couple of rounds we were already full.

For the first time, I actually enjoyed a mint tea. The taste was cleanly tea-and-mint which is much more pleasant than the tea-bag type that tastes like hot diluted toothpaste.

The cake was from 3 Monkeys, chocolate which is always a good choice. This one came in an almost solid chocolate shell with a couple of fresh strawberries on top. Nice touch, though I noticed no-one ate them. Think we were at about max capacity by then.

Attendance list: Mel, Bong, Josh, Audrey, birthday boy, Linc, Amy, HP, me, in that order around the table. Absent with apology: Sha; absent through no fault of her own: Belinda.

My unstable wireless set-up at home finally collapsed and I went offline last night. I was seriously considering taking all my hardware back to Harvey Norman's and kicking up a big fuss about it, but it was already quite late and I was lazy. So for one last time I carted my desktop back out into the living room to reconfigure my router, calling customer support for any advice they could offer. Helpfully, they suggested switching the power off the cable modem and router before reconnecting both back to my desktop. Nothing I hadn't already done several times before. Duh.

Oddly enough, for once the router configured itself perfectly on my last attempt, the whole process finishing without interruption. Now everything's up and running again, as stable as it ought to be. As usual, no idea what I did right.

If anyone thinks I'm a tech whiz, I tell them the truth: it's just serendipity.

Edit 01:
Just realized I didn't have to move my entire desktop outside to configure my router. I have a laptop, don't I? Doh!

I feel like I've just been blogging for the sake of blogging the last week or so. Short, pithy entries, few details, awfully self-indulgent, and I'm not even sure if it's all been all that coherent either. Thing is, I've been getting very tired at night lately, and it's hard even to think straight.

I've been falling asleep earlier -- though not necessarily going to bed earlier. Whether I'm in my study marking or surfing, or whether I'm watching TV in the living room, my brain disengages at some time, and it's off to la-la land for the next couple of hours. When I wake up, it's already past midnight and then I have to drag myself off to bed for another couple of hours of sleep.

My sleep cycle is obviously severely disrupted and seriously needs to be reset. Starting tonight.

Back to wearing glasses again, probably for the rest of the week. I suppose that's better than having my eyelid grab my contact lens and dragging it up into the upper part of my eyeball every so often. Leow confirmed it's because I have a minor eye infection and confiscated my lenses. Said he'll have to keep them for cleaning and I should be able to collect them on the weekend. Meantime, I'm on anti-bacterial eye-drops 3X a day.

June left on her annual family vacation early this morning. They drove here in a cab to collect her at 0445 enroute to HK. Again. Have a good trip!

Today's service incorporated the first Enrollment Service of the 106th Junior Brigade of which SAC has become a sponsor. Their chaplain was our guest speaker, and part of his message was that though adults are frequently tempted by the little monsters to commit infanticide, ultimately children will turn out to be our most important investment in time to come. I think he must have been trying to recruit more volunteer officers to help run the company.

Let me think about that for a moment... nah.

The air-con unit in my bedroom had a surprise for us when we woke up this morning. When I turned it off, there was a small waterfall coming out of the vents, drenching my headboard. Then it made some odd cracking noises that went on for more than a minute, which prompted an investigation. As I lifted off the faceplate, a glorious sight greeted me. Completely covering the vents and sealing the filters in place was a layer of pristine white frost, smooth and perfect like the first snowfall. My air-con literally froze up overnight, and I'm at a loss as to how it happened, and whether it could happen again.

Should I call the maintenance guy again?

M2 went into Mazda for his 40,000 km servicing. Replacing engine oil, brake fluid, coolant, spark plugs and battery, plus doing all the other routine maintenance jobs cost nearly $400. Just thought all you non-car owners out there would like to know.

This week has been good for food and company. Tonight a section of our dept and Wayne went to the newly opened Punggol Choon Seng for a seafood dinner. This outlet is supposed to have survived from one of the original seafood joints at Punggol Point (well, that's the impression I got, anyway).

They serve an outstanding mee goreng, which I think is cooked with some chili crab gravy. It's moist and has a hint of crab flavour that whets the appetite for their house speciality, um, chili crab. For our table of 8, we ordered 3 medium crabs and 2 plates of mantou (June described them as 'cute', Josh just said they were 'small'). Juicy, fresh, fleshy crabs swimming in a generous dollop of chili gravy.

As Mel said, it's so seldom that we get to enjoy a 3-hour meal together. Tonight's non-celebration was special. Rounding out the table: Amy, HP, Belinda.

Met Jen for dinner at Le Point de Vie, a little French restaurant on Waterloo Street. June brought Pam, her friend from work, and Adrian made up a table for 5.

It's good to be among these guys 'cos they remind me what working outside of academia is like. Their responsibilities are immense, and their job-scope seems to be ever-expanding all the time. Keeps what I do in perspective, and I'm grateful.

For us, uninitiated in French cuisine as we are, we ordered a variety of starters to share: the brie salad (my fave cheese), the king-prawn salad (nothing new here), and escargot (flavourful with garlic goodness). We each ordered our own main course. As I was feeling adventurous, mine was the pork belly served with a large oyster mushroom. It didn't take much to fill me -- the pork belly had a layer of fat that made feel real full real fast. Dessert was another decentralized affair. We shared a hazelnut torte, a souffle in Bailey's sauce, a molten chocolate cake and what looked like a cocktail of nata de coco mixed with some high-class lychee jello.

Bill came up to $80 per person (excluding June whom we insisted shouldn't pay for her own birthday dinner).

Tonight's production of the Madhatters was quite a treat, considering we haven't been to the theatre in such a long time. The Madhatters are an improv comedy club that play their shows through a series of "games" somewhat similar to TV's Who's Line is it, Anyway?

We went to support Tina who sort of leads the group, but also because the show is a guaranteed good time. Based on suggestions from the audience -- and they sometimes can get quite outrageous -- and within a given set of rules per game, the company spins a story completely unrehearsed. Because it's all imagination and play (as in fun-and-games play) the humour is always unexpected as the performers switch scenarios and play different characters on the fly.

Tonight, in the game of "old job, new job", from suggestions from the audience, we had a scene in which a sex-worker turned dentist performs an unforgettable tooth extraction on an "unsuspecting" dental patient.

The improv musical numbers put the performers to the test as they have to sing about various audience members, given only their names and other small bits of personal information, and rhyming the couplets as they go. One song was about a Roberto from Milan who was an engineer but wanted to be a mountaineer instead. This song was particularly difficult as the performers could only take turns to sing one word at a time.

And as an unexpected tribute, thanks to Tina, June and I got our lives as a couple turned into an opera as the grand finale to tonight's show. Of course, the story was made up, but there were occasional flashes of "yeah, that is so us!" amidst all the hilarity. Bet Tina had always wanted to roast us ever since our wedding. But she behaved herself then, and tonight, she let her creative licence reigned unfettered.

Glad Mel pushed for us to go tonight, and Wayne too. A fitting reward for being good and marking my quota of scripts over the last couple of days.

Actually quite proud of myself having pia-ed through my vacation marking and completed it all in the last weekend. And, no, I didn't scrimp on my comments on the kids' essays either. Everyone got their fair share of unintelligible red gel-ink scribblings in the margins and wherever there was space.

Had to be done. Got another load of essays today from the block test, and another tight deadline to meet. Brain a bit fried now trying to read essays about the "relevance of moderation in today's society"... who came up with that question, anyway?

Kids keep saying that there are certain behaviours that need to be moderated or else terrible things will happen to the individual or to society. Therefore moderation is relevant today. Sure. Fine.

But this answer quite misses a major facet of the question. Why does the question put the focus on today's world? Obviously, there has to be some comparison between then and now. Has the world since changed in such a way that moderation seems no longer valid? or useful? or even advisable? What have these changes been and how have they altered our view on the concept of 'moderation'? Implications of and effects these changes have had on our lives? Well, something like that, anyway. Ok, really too fried to think coherently any more...

150 grams of pure beef in a hand-packed patty. Covered over with a layer of melty mozza cheese. Topped with sauteed shitake 'shrooms. Served on a bun with onion rings, tomatoes and lettuce; a mountain of fries on the side. Welcome to the Botak Burger, set meal edition.

Made the mistake of ordering 2 sets and dessert. There was more food there than June and I could finish. Or we're just getting to the age at which our appetite outstrips our capacity to consume. If we had ordered just 1 set and 1 additional burger, that would have been perfect.

Anyway, that was the first phase of June's birthday dinner. Jen's trying to put together phase 2, maybe Wednesday.

300 is the ultimate NE movie for adults. In an age that's fashionable to portray teenage nancy-boy GIs whining for mommy while they're leaking blood and guts all over the countryside, Frank Miller reminds us once again what "dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori" means.

It's been a long while since there has been a movie featuring a bunch of soldierly-type fellows so eager to die for king and country. The volunteer civilian army packs up and leaves first sign of trouble, but to the Spartans, "no retreat, no surrender" is the code they grimly lay their lives down for.

And for what? After all, Xerxes did promise to leave Leonidas warlord of all Greece if only Leo would acknowledge Xex as Grand Poobah Overlord of Everything. Bit of an expedition Xex has mounted just to make the Greeks call him "uncle," I'd say.

But Leo would rather die a free man than a puppet king of a larger empire than he knows what to do with. And that's the price of freedom, fought over and paid for in blood. What? And you thought your freedom was a basic human right?

Our move towards developing clean energy and the attempt by investors to buy over and redevelop the Goodwood Park grounds. These two stories on the ST cover today tell me one thing: no one gets rich using their own money. The clean energy article says that applicants will get funding for their research amounting to millions of dollars. The Goodwood Park article says a little-known investment company will "work with property giants -- from Singapore and HK -- to fund [the project]."

To get rich, we have to convince other people that we know how to spend their money better than they can. So to those of you asking how to scrape up enough capital from your meagre savings to start your own company, the answer is, you don't. Leave your own money alone, go borrow from other people get others to invest in you instead.

Or you could just be satisfied with your "steady" income. That's what kids train for in school, isn't it? Do your job, get a grade. Do a lousy job, get a lousy grade and probably a scolding as well. Ahh... the life of a salaried worker.

The word "wireless" is a bit misleading. What it means is that the mass of intestines connecting devices to each other is hidden away, sometimes not very skillfully either. Anyway, I have successfully made my house into a wi-fi hot spot, and hopefully that will make my wi-fe think I'm a hot spot too.

As usual, my problems boiled down to something inconsequential that I either did or didn't do. In this case, it was because I was using the wrong passcode to log into my own system. Having to remember so many passwords will eventually addle the brain. Duh.

Glad I still had time to go cycling at ECP with Amy, Belinda, JY and HP. 1 hour of physical exercise clocked in for the week. Wayne joined us for dinner, a carnivore's delight, at the ECP food centre. As JY said, it was good to get out and be silly with people after so many days of being cooped up, considering this was a holiday week.

Don't be surprised if I go offline temporarily. I'm attempting to set up a wireless network at home, but so far the process has been driving me nuts! I'm following the manuals step by step, and so far I've been very successful at setting up the cable modem and apparently, the wireless router. The fact that I can use my laptop to make this entry shows how amazingly successful I've been so far.

Now, why won't my desktop work??? Gaaaaaa!!! (and before you ask, yes, I did get a wireless adapter for Mr L33t).

A new study shows that exercise and smarts, particularly memory, are closely linked. The Greeks and Romans already knew that: "mens sana in corpore sano," a healthy mind in a healthy body. This means mandatory PE lessons for KI students! Let me go talk to Head PE to make the arrangements... heh heh...

Amy's suggestion to catch a movie a day is wonderfully optimistic and deserves a big grin. It's great to aim high, though the reality of our situation is that we really are swamped with work that demands our attention this week -- either deadlines that must be met, or face the prospect of an insurmountable backlog when term begins again next week.

Nevertheless, today we put her audacious plan in action. HP had a coupon for a 1-for-1 deal on the mixed grill at Billy Bombers, Cathay. The meal plus a side of coleslaw fed 4 of us, Amy, HP, Josh and me, quite adequately. Cost effectively, too.

After lunch, we watched "The History Boys". It was somewhat lighthearted, though not quite the comedy that the promos promised. 3 teachers tutor 8 promising young lads in the Oxford/Cambridge entrance exam History paper. Each teacher provides a different perspective of History and the boys struggle to make sense of it all. Much of the time, the boys don't see the point of some of the learning activities -- including improvised role-playing in the French language (even though they don't require French on the exam), singing silly songs, memorizing copious amounts of recitation, and opening up in free-for-all debates with no resolution. But they engage in the activities anyway, motivated as they are because they really are bright kids.

The boys also hit the library often, borrowing armsful of dusty old books to write essay after essay which get critiqued not for their knowledge content, but rather for the banality of their presentation. After all, the kids know their stuff, but they need to use their knowledge to intrigue the top brains in the top colleges in the UK if they are to stand a chance of getting in.

It turns out that through all the work the boys put in, they do become smarter than their teachers, and accomplish that which their teachers could not do -- read History at Oxford/Cambridge.

Of course, there's a little more excitement in the plot, but all I could focus on was how much I want KI to run like this History class. Activities function to practice and apply the knowledge the kids bring into class with them, and not merely teach for content sake alone. The onus is on the kids to do their research and their readings, to come up with questions to ask and debate over, and to decide what the agenda for the class will be for the day.

The movie wasn't so inspirational as it was a glimpse into what things could be like. The boys aren't perfect, and neither are the teachers, but they believe in the big picture and find a way to work together for the same goal.

Not sure what the rest of the week is gonna be like, but today's programme was a much needed morale-boost in its novelty. Much appreciated!