Family days...

spent some quality time with the family for the past couple of days :)

wishing everyone a wonderful and safe new year!!

all the best for 2006!!!

Merry Christmas!!

Ho ho ho....

Christmas is a great opportunity to celebrate, to get together and have some fun! I got a great surprise from an international call today! :) I use to be able to recognise voices on the phone but now, that skill has deteriorated somewhat.

have been at family gatherings for the past couple of days.

a bit of interesting fact about new year's eve from SMH:

Get ready for a minute with 61 seconds.

Scientists are delaying the start of 2006 by the first "leap second" in seven years, a timing tweak meant to make up for changes in the Earth's rotation.

The adjustment will be carried out by sticking an extra second into atomic clocks worldwide at the stroke of midnight Coordinated Universal Time, the widely adopted international standard, the US National Institute of Standards and Technology said this week.

"Enjoy New Year's Eve a second longer," the institute said in an explanatory notice. "You can toot your horn an extra second this year."

Coordinated Universal Time coincides with winter time in London.

At midnight (11am AEDT), atomic clocks will read 23:59:60 before rolling over to all zeros.

A leap second is added to keep uniform timekeeping within 0.9 second of the Earth's rotational time, which can speed up or slow down because of many factors, including ocean tides.

The first leap second was added on June 30, 1972, according to the institute.

Since 1999 until recently, the two time standards have been in close enough synch to escape any need to add a leap second, it said.

Although it is possible to have a negative leap second - that is, a second deducted from Coordinated Universal Time - so far all have been add-ons, reflecting the Earth's general slowing trend due to tidal breaking.

Deciding when to introduce a leap second is the responsibility of the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, a standards-setting body. Under an international pact, the preference for leap seconds is December 31 or June 30.

Sweet

Sitting in the courtyard of a patisserie with a cool breeze is relaxing. The sound of clinking glasses and cutlery, laughters and children. The story is not complete without the hilarious lorrikeets. A pretty green lorikeet flew down to the table, its feet slowly making its way towards the metal container which held sugar packets. Accurately and quickly it pecks one of the sugar packet from the container and flies back to its perch. A sharing, caring bird that one. Many a times, you see birds fighting for the food. But this sweet little creature flew to a higher branch and shared the sugar packet with its companion. Sweet cake, sweet bird, sweet!!

Neighbours

My usual conversations with my neighbours last 2 seconds involving the words..hi how are you? good thanks bye...haha

but oddly i had an hour conversation with my 90 year old neighbour outside my house today. or shall it say it was more like she talked and me nodding in acknowledgment...

Random thoughts

- never underestimate the time it takes to do tasks..things are never fully finished until you have covered everything that needs to be done

- when you have all the time in the world, things never get planned - or planned things hardly ever become action

- when there is no time to waste you always find time to do irrelevant things that hinders the task of top priority

- the greater the anticipation/ hope you have in something, the greater the disappointment - depends on the situation and the perspective you adopt - is the glass half empty or half full?

- the world goes round and round - continuously and endlessly - so does karma - does good always compliment the bad and vice versa?

- is life a planned story that is simply re-enacted in real time or does one have control over it?

- mistakes are lessons to be learnt - not failures to dwell on - just never make the same mistake twice...

Mona Lisa

Mona Lisa was 83 per cent happy, 9 per cent disgusted, 6 per cent fearful and 2 per cent angry.

That's the conclusion of a University of Amsterdam computer, which applied "emotion-recognition software" to Leonardo da Vinci's work, New Scientist reports.

The algorithm, developed in collaboration with University of Illinois researchers, tries to assess the human mood by examining key features such as the curvature of the lips and crinkles around the eyes, then makes a score with respect to six basic emotions.


I find this rather intriguing. At times, even I don't know how I feel - yet a set of algorithms can determine the degree of happiness a person is feeling.

Sparks

This morning, one of the stove 'eye' sparked for around 7 minutes before stopping. It stopped just as the phone was picked up and was about to dial the gas emergency number...

Time flies. I've been on holiday for almost a month without much accomplishments or much activities. I mean many things have happened but at the same time, I've felt I've done absolutely nothing this holiday. Nothing much have advanced from the planning stage. I wonder why the action phase is so hard to implement - even for mundane activities like cleaning the room.

So close...

Police lock down Sydney beach suburb - Sunday Dec 18 19:42 AEDT


The Sydney suburb of Brighton-le-Sands has been locked down to all but residents after a carload of men were found carrying a 25-litre drum of petrol, police scanners and portable radios.

Five men have been arrested over the haul, which also included equipment to make molotov cocktails as well as commando-style utility belts, Kevlar helmets and jerry cans.

The suburb, on Botany Bay in Sydney's south, is the first to have a total lockdown imposed on it under new police powers passed at an emergency sitting of parliament.

Other suburbs hit by violence flowing from last Sunday's race riot at Cronulla have been partially locked down, but police have taken more extreme action at Brighton-le-Sands.

Residents are the only ones being allowed in and out of the community, and security checkpoints have been set up on routes into and out of Brighton-le-Sands.

In a statement, police said there had been "an escalation in anti-social behaviour".

Earlier, another two people were arrested aboard a bus bound for Bondi, also armed with molotov cocktails.

The bus driver alerted police after smelling petrol.

Police in Brighton-le-Sands said they expected major traffic delays as vehicles were diverted around the suburb, which was the target of reprisal attacks following last week's race riot at Cronulla.

The five arrested in the suburb were taken to St George police station for questioning.

NSW Police Commissioner Ken Moroney said the five, along with the two arrested aboard the bus, would be charged over the possession of offensive weapons.

All would be refused bail under the provisions of NSW's new anti-riot laws, he said.

About 2,000 police have been patrolling Sydney in a bid to prevent any repeat of wide-scale violence.

Police this weekend established road blocks at Cronulla, Bondi, Coogee and Maroubra.

Mystery disappearance

seems like i have a story almost everyday. this morning i put $10 worth of $2 dollar coins in my pocket. emptying out my pocket at the checkout, i only found $8. when i got home, i emptied out my pocket again and only found $6. $4 has mysterious disappeared from my pocket. i'm sure my pocket doesn't have a hole. and i can't possibly have dropped a coin each time i emptied my pocket without realising...my list of events is growing slowly but steadily....

Black out

This morning when i woke up, the clocks were flashing at 3:24...i suspect that was when the blackout occurred.

Bloody hell

My round of bad luck still has not ended. I was surprised to get a call from V today (whose voice i couldn't recognise - sorry!! :p) telling me that someone wanted to buy my 2005 tax legislation. i thought it was a bit weird since it is the holidays now. Anyway, I was very grateful for the call...some people are so nice :)

On the other end of the spectrum, there are just some people that can annoy the hell out of you. the condition of my book was brand new - so new that it's still in its plastic cover..haha. the rrp of the book was $76.95. so taking into account depreciation, i decided to sell the book at $45.

i called this potential buyer. she wanted it at 40 cause she said bookshop was selling for 50. ok i was fine with that. the meeting place was uts library at 3pm. buses at our place are usually good but today..waited waited and waited for an hour before a very packed bus emerged to take me to the station before catching a train to the city. got to the library, called her and she goes her cousin had just got her the book!!!

i wonder what next surprise is 'planned' for me. i hope the new year will bring better luck....

Crashed...

Of course i have to blog my first ever crash....bad luck or vibe has been hovering around for the past couple of weeks. the crash was bad enough to have the car towed away leaving us car-less for i don't know how long especially now when its close to christmas. the whole front bumper snapped off along with the headlights. i feel so bad despite mum saying its ok! hate it when they tell you not to cry cause it makes you cry even more!! might be a while before i'm game enough to be on the roads again...just when i was getting use to it! not to mention the cost of repair....physically ok, mentally ummm.....

Famous for the wrong reasons....

Brighton...a beach-side suburb with a great eatery strip..with a fabulous view of Caltex refinery on the other side of the water...haha. more recently known as one of the 3 riot suburbs following cronulla and maroubra. but seriously, why did such events have to happen. if everything was peaceful, calm and everyone was living in harmony - wouldn't that be a much better place for everyone? if only people could put aside their differences....

my wishful thinking...life is too short to fight, to hate, to revenge. there's already too much suffering, too much pain happening in everyday life...why do we have to aggrevate it further?

A nice change of weather...

What do I do on a nice cool sunny day?? I am covered in dust, dust and more dust. It is the result of cleaning the garage...throwing out all the useless stuff. Funnily, half the stuff we left on the footpath had disappeared within a couple of hours. This pile of junk included mirrors, bed bunk, mattresses, frying pan and chairs. One's rubbish is another's gem....hahaha.

Restore to factory setting....

My collection of photos and songs for the past year and a half have vanished into thin air. There was no other option but to restore the computer back to its factory settings :(

There are some things which I wish to have recovered and kept for memory sake but it could not be rescued!!! So if anyone have songs, photos or whatever..haha..send to adachum@gmail.com so that I can revive my collection of photos and songs!! :)

Well, at least the modem is working once again....but boohoo to all my lost data and all the re-downloading of programs!!!

Comfort preferred!!!!

Oh please!..gimme cargoes and sneakers anytime! had a 'christmas party' lunch today with dress code being 'cocktail'! for gals that usually means dresses and heels. man it was so uncomfortable...i miss my jeans, cargoes and sneakers!!! glad it was only for lunch! dresses are just not for me!!

Alcohol trivia...

Check out the evidence of studies exhorting the benefits of wine: antioxidant-loaded pinot noir may lessen your chance of Alzheimer's (Litwin-Zucker Research Centre, New York, November); two glasses of red a day could halve your risk of developing cataracts if you're over 55 (Reykjavik Eye Study, Iceland, May); and drinking oak-barrel-aged wines may be more effective at battling cancer than taking a commercial anti-cancer drug (Stephane Quideau, European Institute of Chemistry and Biology, France, 2003).

from SMH

Hot and sticky

It's only 7 days into summer and already it's feeling so hot and sticky! Think i'm getting a headache from the heat! Don't like this kinda of weather cause it makes you feel like doing nothing.

Much to do about nothing.....

Sitting, sitting, sitting...like a duck! The past few days have been pretty much the same routine...either grocery shopping or visiting relos. Hurstville is becoming my second home..haha. I seem to be there almost everyday or at least every second day!! It's boring when you visit 'old' relos. you know, when they are a generation above you, there's really nothing you could talk about except sit and listen to them talk and of course snack on whatever food they have on the kitchen table!! i guess i don't mind but it does get a bit boring...i even ended up washing some of their dishes...

From north to south

My farthest driving journey thus far. First time crossing sydney harbour bridge to the north then visited the south later in the arvo. Driving was smooth - maybe cause there were not too many cars on the road!! :) Parking is still a bit iffy...

Movie Count....

King of Beggars
The Royal Tramp 1
The Royal Tramp 2
Twins Effect 2
Duke of Mount Dear (85 version)

Puzzle now completed - in record time - 1500 piece puzzle in 5 days :)