Rant

Animals

Victoria — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 03:14:05 -0400

"He's like a bird that I would like to own, but can't bear to keep in a cage."

"Surely no one likes to be owned?"

"No, no. There are people like dogs, they like being owned, and they'd feel lost without an owner. Or there are people like cats, they like to pretend to be owned."

"So then, what about you?"

"I would like to be owned, but like a giraffe, I will never fit into anyone's home."

(Music to go with: Coco Rosie - Animals)

How we walk

Victoria — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 01:18:27 -0500

If you walk with your eyes on the ground, you'll see where the shit and puddles are and can avoid stepping on them. However, you'll miss out on the beautiful scenery.

If you walk enjoying the scenery around, you risk stepping on shit and puddles.

What is one to do?

So when I came to England, I bought my first pair of waterproof walking boots, planning to steel myself and walk watching the scenery instead. It won't matter if I stepped on shit and puddles. My boots can handle that.

Why you should get a Tin Whistle

Victoria — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 17:17:37 -0400

I have bought a tin whistle just last week. I highly recommend anyone to get one.

I remember really hating wind instruments when I was a kid, playing the recorder very very badly (so badly I was kicked out of the school band). I never really thought I would one day every be able to play a wind instrument decently. But now it seems I am able to do it with the tin whistle! And I'm really not talented at all. So I am convinced that anyone will be able to play it and with much less effort than I have put in too (which isn't much really).

And it is really cheap. I got mine for 8 quid. You can get them from a music shop. They are just crudely made brass tubing with a mouthpiece, and are so light and hardy, you can carry them everywhere. I think that's the idea.

They are really simple instruments to learn. There are only 2 octaves on the tin whistle, and they typically start on a D note, playing the D major scale (that is Do Re Mi.. but starting with a D instead of a C). The D major scale is one of the most common scales that Irish songs come in. You can also get them in G major and A major scales. But for starters it's best to get D as most tutorials use that.

The songs are really catchy and easy to learn. Lots of repetitions, and can be very lively, like in a polka (the music they dance Ceilidh to). And it is good practice for reading musical notation too, if you aren't too familiar with the musical notation. The tin whistle scores are much easier to read than piano scores as there is just one melody running through it. No chords etc to distract you.

I have found this really useful tutorial on YouTube which has made learning the tin whistle a breeze. The links are below.

Afterall Guinness is such a great beer. Surely everything Irish is yummy.

Victoria is Tian Goodnight

Victoria — Fri, 18 May 2007 19:37:37 -0400

I am Tian Goodnight in Second Life. Tian Goodnight is a vagabond who mostly hangs around the beach at Perhaps Patagonia (I have named it after my favourite Kate Clanchy's poem).

Like everyone else, I can't quite decide how she should look, so I keep changing her appearance. At the moment she's adopted the Jap school girl look. ;) Been getting some queer attention..

Bye bye Wordpress!

Victoria — Mon, 14 May 2007 14:15:37 -0400

This site is now running on Drupal! Bye bye Wordpress! It was good while it lasted. But Drupal is more cool, sorry.

I ended up spending weeks working on this because of the steep learning curve for Drupal. Also because I was being indecisive about the features and the designs.

And I didn't follow the mockup in the end too, because I realised I was missing a good many things in the mockup, such as a search box. I might still move things around abit or replace this theme.

And this site is hand-pasted! Yes, every blog post and comments, hand-pasted. No slacking off here.

Sorry about the bugs, if any. Do write me (contact at victoriac.net) and let me know. I'm still trying to tie up the loose ends.

Hope you'll like this... if not, there'll be another theme soon. Hopefully I'll get the user registration stuff tidied up so users can select their own themes soon.

Enjoy!

Xxxx Vic

Twitter your time

Victoria — Fri, 17 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

I have recently created an account at twitter.com, invited by Natalie. It is really interesting to see how such a simple application can affect you and your friends. This is a good example of how a simple idea can be a great idea. Basically it is a social networking web application that lets you report what you are doing at any point in time so your friends or anyone can see it. Such as in that box at this blog's sidebar (provided by twitter.com, it fetches the data I have entered in twitter.com), you can see what I did 10mins ago, etc. There are 2 obvious ways to update your twitters, one is before you start doing something, and another is after you've finished doing something. I prefer the first, since it does give people a more updated report of what you are doing, naturally. But when I use this approach, it becomes obvious how much I procrastinate, or how easily I get distracted, as after I had updated that I was going to do X, I can see on my twitters that I had said I was going to do X 15mins ago, and yet I'm still not doing X yet! Or sometimes, I don't even end up doing what I said I was going to do. So that's why I always feel like I never have enough time to do what I want to do! Because I waste so much time getting distracted before starting anything. Try it, you might find your time gremlins too. Hrmm.. would be interesting to make some timeline based applications with the Twitter API. Lets see how much time will elapse after this thought when I finally do make something. PS: I've just finished writing a wordpress plugin for updating Twitter when I edit / create / publish a post. Will post it up for sharing after I tidy it up!

My fave guitar songs

Victoria — Sat, 11 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

I still love my new guitar, been playing it quite alot, I can't feel my fingers anymore, and I'm worried about carpal tunnel syndrome. I've also recently created an account at Last.fm, it annoyed me abit. But it does have some cool functionalities. Just don't use its 'Journal' facility, which would drive you up the wall really. I've had to retype my blog 3 times, which really really annoyed me. Why do people provide links on the blog edit page when clicking on those links makes your blog draft disappears, even when you use the browser back button to return to your draft?? So now I'm still angry with Last.fm. It will take awhile for me to forgive them. Hrmpph! They'll have to shower me with many many nice new music before I will forgive them. Anyway, like I have put up on my Journal on Last.fm, some of my current favourite songs to play on the guitar are:

Flying high - Jem
Tonight we ride - Jennifer O'connor
Dream a little dream - The mamas & the papas
She left on a monday - Bic Runga
You're so great - Blur
Archipelago - Mirah
你要的愛 - Penny Dai
關懷方式 - Chen Han Wei
月亮代表我的心 - Teresa Teng
Vincent - Vonda Shepard

They're great because they are satisfying to play, yet not too difficult. I'm a novice player with short stubby fingers and clumsy fat hands.

Bicky Boo

Victoria — Sun, 05 Nov 2006 00:00:00 -0500

I bought a new guitar. I love it so much, so so much. It reminds me of the time when I had a dog. That sweet deep affection you feel for your pet. That's how I feel about my guitar, Bicky Boo. How I want to hug it to death.

Why we buy shoes

Victoria — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 00:00:00 -0400

I have recently bought a new pair of shoes that gave me pain.

Now the blisters have hardened and become thick ugly calluses, I no longer feel pain wearing those shoes.

So, should I leave the calluses be, let my feet keep their natural defence (though looking ugly) to spare myself further pain?

Or should I buff away the calluses, beautify my feet again, make them soft as ladies' feet are expected to be, and open them up to new pain?

Or maybe I should just forget about pretty shoes, and get myself a pair of Scholls?

Or maybe somewhere out there, there exist pretty shoes that cause no pain.

Childhood friends

Victoria — Thu, 27 Jul 2006 00:00:00 -0400

Can't sleep. I am thinking of my childhood. About how I was a school bully, and how ridiculously bad tempered I was, how many people I had beaten up. Yes, me, tiny me. I was even more tiny when I was younger. Skinny, short and dark, like a little monkey, someone had said. I guess I was strong because of my bad temper. I would go berserk and become the incredible hulk. Somehow I have never really gotten into trouble for it. Maybe because I was a girl, they don't cane girls, only boys. The teachers would just tell me, 'Next time cannot like that', and I would think to myself, ok, I'll try something different next time. So I have kicked a boy down the stairs, slapped another, poured laksa (soup) down someone's head, poured a box of chalk over another, strangled a girl, whipped a boy with a cane... but never the same thing twice. Then when I was 12, I decided to mend my ways. I was looking around my class, at my classmates, and thought that I was friends with them all except for one girl, who was my enemy. I thought that since I was graduating, I might as well make friends with her, so I could leave the school in good condition. I walked up to the girl and told her what I thought. 'Can we be friends?' I asked. She was hesitant, but she said ok. I made an appointment to go out with her that week, and showed her my secret place at the railway tracks. That's Mabel, who became my best friend after that till university. She later confessed to me that she had agreed to be my friend then because she was afraid that I would beat her up if she hadn't.