Rubenerd

I'm back in Singapore after our Eurotrip and I'm blogging again. Look out world!

When we get back to Singapore on Tuesday, we're going to die!

I'm typing this post from a small café next to our hotel in Dublin and boy it's freezing! There's snow lightly falling outside and the footpaths are slick with ice which has caused more than a few bruises in the last few days, but we've still been thoroughly enjoying ourselves! Anyway I was going to save blogging until I got back to Singapore, but I couldn't resist when I saw the above ad.

Yes, having just logged into the free WiFi at said coffee establishment, I was presented with the above advertisement which, if you care, looks almost like a square but is in fact a stumpy rectangle. A pointless and utterly stupid observation about size is not the humerous part of this yarn though, I found it to be pretty ironic this free WiFi hotspot is sponsored by Dublin Airport with the slogan "flying has never been easier" given its closed due to the freak Arctic weather conditions! Then again I can't seem to access Twitter tweets on it anyway, so perhaps saying the two are alike was intentional. Makes sense.

We'll be back in Singapore in a few days, can't believe we've been in Europe now for over two weeks. WiFi has been very hard to find so I gave up the prospect for live blogging, so instead I'll be uploading photos and blogging about places upon our returny substances. Return-y substances?

Update

I've been informed the above graphic, had I cared to click on it, is for an airport in the UK and is in fact not Dublin. Must be all the Guinness :). Given many of the airports in the UK are closed too the point of the post still seems to stand though!

Can’t see the image?

Neither can I now that I'm using Firefox again. Perhaps Adblock Plus attacked it!

This European trip has been so jam packed with stuff I haven't had time to blog about it, but one of my New Years Resolutions is to rectify this! Once we've arrived in Ireland for our scheduled downtime I'll get started :).

Happy new year and all that jazz!

My dad, sis and I are just about to leave the door to start our Europe trip. We'll be heading to Germany via Dubai to catch up with relatives in Frankfurt am Main and friends in Munich, then to Plzeň in the Czech Republic, then driving back through Germany to Paris, then a flight to Cork and a tour of Ireland.

I'm going to take a ton of photos and will be blogging as much about it as I can! In the meantime you can follow our adventures on Twitter and Gowalla too.

Selamat tinggal! Wait, wrong language :D

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

Personally, I find the act of clothes shopping to be in the same league as furniture shopping, doctor's appointments and certain university classes: they're unbearable but necessary. IKEA is the one exception for furniture in my book, and now Uniqlo is the exception for clothes!

Uniqlo is a Japanese chain of casual clothing stores that just started opening around Singapore that has made one sharp founder a very rich guy. According to their site they also have stores in Japan, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, the United Kingdom, France and the United States.

Despite what some may say about The Gap, Uniqlo is the Apple store of clothing. The stores are light, airy and there's plenty of space to move around; well that is when it's not full with Singaporeans who gravitate to anything Japanese like a bee to honey! They have a ton of stuff, but it's all dead easy to find. Like Apple stores, Uniqlo stores seems simple but it's clear a lot of thought went into it to make them that way, unlike certain Microsoft shops which are just unabashed knockoffs ;).

I know nothing about fashion but I know what I like and their range is interesting and affordable without being intimidating, if that makes sense. By that I mean I usually feel awkward clothes shopping, but I felt right at home there. Must be a nerd thing.

Lunch is one letter off Launch

Japan’s Number One casual wear brand sets yet another milestone by launching their 3rd Store in Singapore at 313@somerset, the largest in Southeast Asia on Thursday, 3 December 2009. The new store will cover up to 17,000 square feet of floor space across a single level. With an interior design reflecting an edgy, cosmopolitan feel, the new Somerset store is set to make waves in our local fashion scene by bringing you exclusive designer collaborations, such as the “+J” Collection and limited edition range of products that will not be available at their other stores.

Daddy long legs spiders

My biggest problem when I shop for clothes back in Australia is my legs are too long in proportion to my weight, by the time I get a pair of jeans that are long enough the waist is so wide I need to wear a huge belt to keep them in place! As a result, they tend to ride down and get caught in my shoes which gradually shreds them. You've see the look.

Perhaps it's more normal for Japanese people to be tall and skinny, because I was able to buy a pair of 34 size jeans and they fitted like a glove! Yes, I found pants that are long enough, and they fit on my waist! Can I get a hallelujah? :D

And because it was on special, I picked up a white New York City bagel shirt with cute smiling confectionery. Only in a Japanese clothing store ;).

The first, the last, the everything

That's probably the first time you've read me talking about fashion, and it's probably the last time you'll read me talking about fashion. I hope it was eye opening for you.

For those of you playing at home, this is the 2400th post published on this here blog. Actually that's a blatant lie, it was the previous one. It shows how spiffy I must have thought The Unarchiver was that I completely missed the fact it was the 24(*10^2) blog post. Spiffyness.

Update!

It seems I got that completely wrong, given the count is actually 2403 now. Please disragard this entire post. I need a cup of coffee.

After worrying that the project had stalled, The Unarchiver 2.2 was released in November and its just as wildly convenient as ever. I really like the phrase "wildly convenient", not sure where I picked it up but it works on so many levels.

The Unarchiver is a beautifully written little application that replaces the functionality of the standard Archive Utility in OS X and lets you uncompress virtually* any archive you'll encounter right from the Finder. Even from an Amiga!!!

Given I mostly live inside the Terminal with Midnight Commander for most file management tasks my need for a graphical front end to a dizzying array of compression algorithms is perhaps less than it once was, but it's still a fantastic tool to have just in case, and I wholeheartedly recommend it to all my Mac friends who are terrified of the command line. Well that was a long sentence.

As for the asterisk next to the word virtually above, the only compression algorithm it still doesn't resolve is rzip which is a bummer because it's my primary one. It's FLOSS software, so maybe I should submit a request and a patch.

Links shared from del.icio.us today:

How Fanboys See Operating Systems – hiphop-o-posterous, my lyrics are bottomless

Very true ;)

(categories: operatingsystems software mac windows linux floss fanboyism)

AFA Forums – View Single Post – Letters to the editor – Internet Censorship

Appalling they were allowed to get away with that. They should all be outed.

(categories: openinternet censorship australia internet greatfirewallofaustralia)

2000-2009 Part 1: Looking Back « OGIUE MANIAX

Very well written!

(categories: anime reviews analysis 2000s)

PCMCIA to IDE Zender (for 2.5 HD) PCMCIA to IDE zender PCMCIA China products

Thinking I may need to get something like this

(categories: hardware pcmcia ide cables adaptors)