Monday, June 26, 2006

Agents

While going through my countless junk flyers in my mail box the other day, I noticed a lot of housing agents' flyers. On them were locations of flats sold by them at high prices.

Have they ever thought that this works against them?

Home seekers who are looking to purchase a second hand flat would probably take note of their names and blacklist them!
fjozn at 9:57 PM

Monday, June 19, 2006

World Cup Uncles

Last night I was standing at a Macdonald outlet watching the World Cup.

There was this middle-aged man standing behind me. He kept passing comments about the "negro" in the Japanese team, Alex Santos.

"Hei ren bu ke yi lah." (Black man cannot make it.)

"Negro lousy lah."

Hello? He was born in Brazil!

My friend encountered someone similar, also while watching the World Cup at a coffeeshop. The uncle whom he shared a table kept talking to him about the teams, blah blah blah, et cetera. He found the uncle quite irritating.

It makes me wonder what kind of person I will become when I?m their age. Sheesh. Perhaps it?s just a cycle we all go through? Who knows? Maybe the said uncles were pestered naggy uncles when they were young too?
fjozn at 5:54 PM

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Cat vs Bear

Who needs a guard dog when Jack the elderly suburban housecat is on duty?

The 10-year-old New Jersey tabby defended his neighbourhood turf earlier this week by chasing a wandering black bear up a tree ? twice.

West Milford residents Suzanne and Jack Giovanetti first noticed a bear huddled in a tree in their backyard on Sunday afternoon.

Sitting beneath the tree: A seven-kilogram, orange-and-white, declawed neighbourhood cat named Jack.

The bear remained in the tree for about 15 minutes, frequently looking down at Jack.

When it slid down the tree and ran off, Jack was hot on its heels.

Cat is 'territorial'

Suzanne Giovanetti told the Star-Ledger of Newark that the cat was hissing at the bear as it gave chase.

The bear climbed up into a second tree until Jack's owner, Donna Dickey, called the cat home.

"The cat sauntered back toward the group, rubbing up against everyone," said the newspaper.

As soon as the cat left, the bear clambered down the tree and walked into the woods.

Dickey told the newspaper that Jack is territorial, frequently chasing small animals from their yard. She believes the cat may have mistaken the bear for the family's chocolate labrador retriever.

Giovanetti, who said she's never bonded with the neighbourhood cat, said she was always a little afraid of Jack.

"Now, I think I fear him more," she is quoted as saying.

Wow. This is amazing. Maybe I shouldn't tease my neighbour's cat so much lest I get stranded on a tree.
fjozn at 10:51 AM

Monday, June 05, 2006

Reeds, Phone, Concert

I will never understand the mystery of nature. The mystery of how a reed changes overnight. How it can be worse than the unpredictability of weather.

Such is the life of an oboist, dictated by the reed's mood.

*

Anyway, I changed phone, yes, again. It was a good deal what! Top up 149 for a brand new phone. No obligations, no plans, no nothing. So I present my latest toy: HP RW6828.

I'm too lazy to post a picture of it, so if you are interested to look at it, just do a google on it.

Yes, I know. It looks like the Atom. All PDA phones are OEM today anyway. For example, my previous Dopod 818 Pro was somewhat similar to the O2 mini. If you don't know what is OEM, please go to Wikipedia. Wikipedia is good, it's where I learn a lot of new terms and what they actually mean.

My friend said I change phone very often. Is it? Let's see:

N3310
N6510
N6100
N-Gage QD
N8250
N7610
Dopod 818 Pro
HP RW6828

That's 8 phones since 2000. I know of a person who bought the O2 mini only to sell it after a week. My shortest stint with a phone was probably at least 4 months (N-Gage QD), and that was because the phone was buggy. On average, my phones last about a year with the exception of N-Gage QD, N8250 (transition phone) and Dopod (too good a deal to upgrade!).

Having changed to a Window based phone, I find it hard to change back to a normal phone. There are so many things I can do on a PDA phone compared to a normal phone!

*

So the concert went pass without any major incident. I thought it was rather good. I like the Lincolnshire Posy. The Hindemith sounded quite good.

Have you ever felt lost all of a sudden? I know of a certain trumpeter who happily played off in his own world of imagination during a trumpet call. That happened to me during Hindemith. I was lost for the entire first page, only to come in just in time for the solo for the first theme. Sheesh. Good thing it wasn?t noticeable. Well, I'm confessing in cyberspace now, which means anyone can read this. Yes, I screwed up!

*

Update completed.
fjozn at 10:22 AM