Mood: Mellow
Reading: Move over Rambo, you're cramping new man's style
Currently listening to: El Carretero - Buena Vista Social Club
Quote of the day: "Health is not simply the absence of sickness." - Hannah Green

Feeling strangely mellow (a rarity these days) so i'm just going to keep this post as short as i can. Still... just another day steeped in wonderful, glorious normalcy... :)

Then again, things are going to start getting busy again at work - got a new little side project to take care off by the 18th that needs some careful researching and refinement, which can only be a good thing given the variety that this offers from my (now) normal grudging routine of national market research.

For a change of pace i traded in a typical lonely lunch at home to hang out with three... ah... 'lovely' (hah!) ladies - namely Huey Yee and her friends (hi Lisa!) - for lunch at That Little Dim Sum Place in Hartamas. Got picked up in her spanking new red Audi no less! Hoi, how much are you earning gal? Call me a spendthrift exec also! *tsk tsk*. Had a good time, despite being continuously ribbed for my infallible sense of direction, and gorged myself on the dim sum that their pathetically tiny stomachs (or misplaced ideals about dieting) were unable to consume. Heh. ;)

Spent another four or so hours at work before doing a few quick sets at the gym and proceeded to visit Peter at the hospital. I may not have mentioned it before, but Peter and his wife Moggy (Moggie?) are some old English friends of my parents who stayed with us for a short while three weeks back in order to attend a wedding, before flying off to Australia and back to KL again where he promptly caught pneumonia. He's spent the better part of a week in the hospital and given my exam i haven't had the opportunity to visit him for some time. He seems to be doing much better but the various drips and the oxygen inhaler that were attached to his body (as well as a few shocking stories about his condition in previous days) were a testament to the severity of his affliction.

Still, at least he's not gasping for breath and he's walking quite vigorously now - its all pretty much down to a rasping cough but the doctors think that he'll be strong enough to be discharged after a few more days of rest.

My father snuck in a bottle of good merlot to surprise him with (he absolutely loves the stuff - which is probably why he keeps on coming over to Normandy) and you could tell that he was absolutely delighted by the gift and the strong effect it had on his dry, sensitive, wine-deprived taste buds (Hrmm... i wonder what the nurse would have said...). ;p

Still, just to err on the side of caution, he didn't let himself drink too much.

So there we all sat, whiling the time away with a free-wheeling discussion on history, politics, and life while sipping our merlot. A most charming picture, no? :)

I love talking to him - he has a passionate interest in history as well as a lifetime's fascination with the horrors and momentous events that were World War One and Two, something that i can thoroughly enjoy talking/debating about with him for hours on end...

Might be going on another hospital visit tomorrow as well if i go down to uni to get some studying done - this time for my Yee Poh (hope i spelt that right). She had a nasty tumble down a staircase a while back and had to have some pins placed in her hip... unfortunately, it didn't seem to be working so she's now had to return to the hospital recently for another operation to remove the pins and replace her hip with an artificial ball socket instead so that she can walk properly again. *sigh*

Ach, she must be in unbearable pain. Hopefully i'll be able to surprise her with a visit to cheer her up - i doubt she'd see me coming... ;)

But anyhow, moving the night along, i met up with Vikram (my supervisor who just recently moved into the same building as i live in) at Coffee Bean for dinner, coffee and a little after-work chit chat. Chen Hoe and Kathleen stopped by as well and we had one of the most enthusiastic conversations i've seen in some time about our work at XMS, some tales about our boss, and Bollywood dreams... (and apparently the others thought so too)

We might even get a little side project of scripting/filming an actual indie movie off the ground sometime soon! w00t! I *heart* creative distractions!!!

I think this new introduction has gotten off to a great start. :)

Blog Post Of The Day

Sexual Orientation: Genetic, Not Heretic [Garota]

"I just had to post this one up.

Researchers in Vienna have found a single gene responsible for sexual orientation - at least with fruit flies.

The IHT reports 030605:

"We have shown that a single gene in the fruit fly is sufficient to determine all aspects of the flies' sexual orientation and behavior - it's very surprising,"said Barry Dickson, senior scientist at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology at the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna and the paper's lead author."

Given the current advances in genetic knowledge ever since the completion of the Genome Project it really seems to be becoming a case of "Its all in the genes".

Then again, the sheer political and religious consequences of this research should be interesting to watch. ;)