Another post I thought was only going to be one line long, but it turned into a mini saga!
Sunday 06th June 2010
Saturday 03rd April 2010
My sister and her friends are off to see Lady Gaga perform in Adelaide tonight. I’ll be celebrating Easter at home with a cup of really good coffee and home made satay listening to a recording of Marian Call’s latest Whole Wheat Radio house concert. I missed it, so I’m going to pretend it’s live. It’ll still be better!
I’m in love with Marian Call and her music. In a platonic sense of course. Yeah, that must be it. Wait, no! Wait, yes! Wait… have a good long weekend everyone :).
Friday 25th December 2009
It’s a cruel irony that my close friend Jerry Novak lost his wife and I lost my mum and best friend to cancer around Christmas, as I’m sure many others have. My family isn’t religious but we always had massive trees, big Christmas lunches and swapped masses of prezzies while we listened to Tony Bennett and Bing Crosby carol CDs. Even decorating the tree was a huge event we all looked forward to, and in the last 12 years even though she wasn’t physically strong enough to join in we purposefully rearranged my mum’s chemo treatments so she could sit there and watch.
My dad, sister and I haven’t unpacked the decorations since and don’t celebrate Christmas any more, for obvious reasons. To all of you who are though, have safe and happy holidays, and to my friends in Europe and the US I hope you’re somewhere warm.
Peace, health and happiness,
~ Ruben
Saturday 14th March 2009
The back in Adelaide reminiscing episode!
Back in Adelaide again; losing control of RubenerdShow.com for some reason; losing an episode source file again; a silly proposal for an onomatopoeic word to describe places; reminiscing about family trips to Ubud in Bali; our end of year holiday to Singapore; food poisoning isn’t as fun as the brochure said; our new family Christmas holiday ritual; story behind my beautiful shiny new Nikon D60 instead of getting a D40 or D40x; remembering I’m supposed to be keeping episodes under 20 minutes; and a lousy joke about wishing I had Nikon VR on my person!
Download MP3 to listen 20:55 9.6MiB
You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.
Tuesday 03rd March 2009
Suntec City and the Convention Centre from the Padang, taken with my D60. I will get around to uploading all these photos I took to Flickr… eventually!
Isn’t it always the case that we focus on the things we didn’t end up doing on a holiday instead of things we did end up doing? Or is that just me? Well after spending late December, January and most of February back in Singapore from Adelaide I can confidently say I got done less than 1% of what I wanted and needed to.
At least I had an excuse this time; I was out of action for weeks with… let’s use the word "uncomfortable" food poisoning and then a flu which the doc says I caught while my immune system was weakened when dealing with the first darn thing! Whooptie-do. As a result I spent most of my Singapore end of year holiday either in bed or curled up on my computer chair covered in blankets and a thermometer in my mouth. To be fair, I can think of worse situations, and I’m certainly glad it happened while I was on holiday instead of when I was studying, but it did bother me that as a result I couldn’t do anything.
ASIDE: The following two lists were literally transcribed from my own to do lists, but cleaned up a bit. As such, there are no links whatsoever, treat them as the seething masses they are!
Things he wanted and needed to do
Going down the list of things I needed and wanted to do that didn’t happen, I was supposed to go back to KL again and see Julee and the guys from RHB; upload all my photos taken with my new Nikon D60 on Flickr; meeting up with Kevin in Singapore to have a coffee, chat, philosophise and to help him out with his MacBook; renting a Segway and riding it around Sentosa just like Jackie Chan did earlier this year; do some more Nikkor lens window shopping with my dad; going to Harry’s at Clarke Quay to listen to some live jazz; getting Skype working with our gateway to talk to Felix; getting up early and going with my dad and sister for a walk around Sungei Bulloh Wetland Reserve and the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve; paying bills that were due back in Australia while I was in Singapore for the phones (whoops!); sorting through most of my late mum’s posessions; beating my dad and sister at Wii Golf and Wii Bowling again; looking at motor scooters; starting a public and light road transport advocacy blog (long shot, but I did get as far as creating a theme); finally get some prescription sunglasses; demo my alternative ideas for Whole Wheat Radio; looking for a cheaper version of my dad’s ultra wide angle Tokina lens to take back with me; throwing away stacks of old burned CDs that contain data I now have on multiple hard drives and dual layered DVDs; taking a budget airline to Cambodia and hiking through Siem Reap; eating more prata and teh tarik with my dad at 3am at Mr Prata; cleaning my bedroom in our apartment there; test all our old computer hardware and donate it to schools or figure out how to send them elsewhere in South-East Asia… wow I’m not even half way down my list yet. Sheesh.
The Singapore Flyer and the top of the Esplanade, also taken with my D60. I will be uploading these to Flickr, I’m determined!
Things he did get done
As for the things I did get done, most involved things at home because that’s where I was stuck for weeks on end! I managed to work around the restrictions on installing drivers on my dad’s work laptop by connecting his home office laser, photocopiers and photo printers to a second machine and accessing them over the network; I ripped our entire 3,200+ CD collection to our DIY media PC (THAT was a really good way to pass time!); I copied all my Rubenerd Shows over to the Internet Archive; converting my old Pentium MMX 200MHz desktop into a fancy firewall between our modem and router; upgrading my FreeBSD desktop I access through SSH in Adelaide to FreeBSD 7.1 Release; and a whole pile of other technical and non outdoor related things. I did manage to see my shrink and now a good friend, and go out a few times for dinner with my dad and sis too, just wish I had more time and was feeling well enough to have done them more.
The end is the best place for an ending
Ah well, I guess as I said before disappointment over what you didn’t and did get done on a holiday is natural to a certain extent. Now that it’s Monday the 2nd of March and I have class in 20 minutes (ugh), the volume of homework, assignments and tests will preoccupy my mind enough. And my sister doesn’t even have classes today, so she’s still fast asleep as I type this at the Boatdeck Cafe. Some people have all the luck.
Looking down my To Do list for Adelaide, I have about a dozen things that need to be done today, another dozen tomorrow, and a dozen on top of that for later this week at the latest. Can you get student secretaries? As in a secretary for a student? That’d be fantastic.
Monday 26th January 2009
Photo by zipped06 on Flickr of Singapore last night (CNYE). Literally the only time of the year when none of the lights are on in the office towers!
The only times when Singapore and Australia have public holidays at the same time is generally if they’re Christian or British holidays. In this case though Chinese New Year and Australia Day fall on the same day, so I could call my grandfather in Firefly in rural New South Wales and say hello during the day. It’s nice when the moon decides to usher in a new lunar new year on Australia day, how decent of it!
Chinese New Year is of course the biggest holiday in Singapore. We have Christmas, Hari Raya, Deepavali and Vesak days off for the respective faiths here, but the two day Chinese New Year holiday is the time when Singapore feels the most like a Western country around Christmas. The roads are practically deserted; the hugely crowded Orchard Road shopping precinct can be navigated on foot with ease; you can get a table at a Starbucks or a prata shop with little to no trouble whatsoever; there are no queues to ATMs; you can get a seat on the MRT trains… yes, you can actually get a seat! Wild!
It’s particulary eerie today given that it’s extremely overcast, and very few people are walking around. It’s the middle of the day and it’s dark in this otherwise tropical country, and here I am sitting in a coffee shop typing this and half the tables are deserted. If I were to sit here during a regular Monday lunch hour, it would be packed with lots of people chatting loudly.
zipped06 on Flickr has taken some amazing photos of the River Festival last night if you’re interested, such as the one below. I wish I had been able to go!
This year of course is the year of the Ox for those not keeping track at home. I’m not into zodiacs personally (Western or Eastern), but if it’s your cup of tea here’s what you can expect:
The Ox (牛) is one of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. The Year of the Ox is denoted by the earthly branch character 丑.
The Ox is the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work. This powerful sign is a born leader, being quite dependable and possessing an innate ability to achieve great things. As one might guess, such people are dependable, calm, and modest. Like their animal namesake, the Ox is unswervingly patient, tireless in their work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint.
Me standing in front of Parliament House in Canberra in 2006
Of course we must also not forget that today is also Australia day, the day the First Fleet from Britain arrived on the Australian mainland in 1788. It’s a somewhat conflicting day for while the Australian society I was born into was born on that day, it also marked the beginning of the marginalisation of the Abroriginal peoples of Australia who still have not recovered.
I guess it would be more constructive to say Australia Day (Wikipedia link) is more about thinking about where we’ve come from, and thinking about where we would like to go, rather than celebrating a specific event. Or that could just be me. I’m not Bill Kurtis.
Gong Xi Fa Cai and Happy Australia Day all!
Friday 05th December 2008
A great example of how you can use Google Maps to represent information in a far more interesting way than simply presenting a dry list of locations. The Adelaide Advertiser has plotted a map of Christmas light displays around the metro area of Adelaide.
ASIDE: It makes far more sense for The Adelaide Advertiser to plot maps of Christmas light displays in Adelaide than if The Adelaide Advertiser plotted a map of Christmas light displays around Northern Siberia. I’m just saying.
You can view the full Google Map here.
UPDATE: As of February 2009 this Google Map no longer appears to exist. Welcome to the transient nature of the internet I guess.
Wednesday 24th September 2008
The telco malice episode!
Was SUPPOSED to be discussing our Flinders Ranges trip and my new iPhone, but ended up discussing the cola wars, my dad’s much needed holiday with us in Adelaide, having no energy sucks, mistakingly assuming malice instead of stupidity, the sad decline of Vodafone service in Australia, multivitamins and coffee preparation, the Aussie outback is REALLY flat, signing up with Optus, mobile phone prepaid plans are a ripoff, really humbling super old rock, good to be back home, sculling boiling water, phone calls with Elke, and some "realistic" philosophy!
Flinders Ranges trip and iPhone adventures will be released in the coming week. Heaven forbid I actually record what I’m supposed to one day :-).
Music for this episode performed by Chris Juergensen from Magnatune.com.
Download MP3 to listen ↓ 33:00 15.2MiB
You can also stream this episode and view its Internet Archive page.
Monday 27th November 2006
I’m in the process of putting the holiday photos and decorations up on the Rubenerd Show and Rubenerd Blog. :D. Both pictures are of Christmas in Singapore.
If you load the pages and can’t tell the difference, try holding down shift and click reload to force a page redraw.
The picture to the right is my mum’s cancer doctor, Hematologist and Oncologist in Singapore Dr Tan (of Gleneagles Hospital and Medical Centre) who I dressed up in a very well drawn and detailed fake Santa costume as you can tell ;).
Monday 29th May 2006
What Interests Ruben episode! Economic theories (the European Union, market economies, our European holiday 1998, China ruling the world, markets closed in US and Japan tomorrow) and the Formula 1 in Monaco (best circuit, what a “marble” is, race results, fascinating technology). Music by Israel Brown.
Download MP3 ↓ 10:00 minutes, 6.4MiB
You can also stream it and view its Internet Archive page.
