Popagandhi / 654 posts / 5,845 comments / feed / comments feed / flickr feed
Dictionary Woes
The dictionary in my mobile phone keeps getting me into trouble. When I say ‘mango’, it sees ‘manho’. ‘Prawn Mee’: Spawn Mee The names of my friends become ‘Sex’, and once, ‘Genocide’. Proof that it keeps working in my favour: when I evidently mean what I mean, it says — Duck you.
Thoughts on Excel
I’m writing this as I’m sitting in my mid term examination for the ridiculous, compulsory course: Computer as Analysis Tool. We call it CAT for short. The title is misleading. It really ought to be Excel as Analysis Tool. I can see why that name was avoided. EAT (other descriptors, like ‘shit’, will probably be [...]
7 Day Surprise
Starting today (28 Feb.) Tiger Airways is running different daily promotions — if the first one is anything to go by, they’re pretty good. For 28 Feb. the deal is: book today, fly to Hat Yai or Phuket for S$9.98 one way. Why should that matter? Phuket is a no-brainer; but in flying to Hat [...]
A Spade By Any Name
Ballsy: “If you were to have an affair, what would it be?” Me: “Someone who doesn’t speak a word of English. Maybe East European. So I don’t have to talk to her.. ever, during, before, or after.” Ballsy: “I think that’s called… a prostitute.” I haven’t gotten used to calling her Ballsy, but she’s a darling, and [...]
Brokeback Politics
Taiwan President Chen Shui Bian thinks Brokeback Mountain is a good analogy to describe relations between Taiwan and the USA (I kid you not: story here). He urged both sides to reconcile, to reach the “great new world”, in which “challenges abound on this road ahead, as long as we believe in the value of [...]
What We Found
I could scarcely be bothered with my camera on this last trip; with so much food to eat, and so many things to occupy my time, who can? All, however, was not lost and there are still a handful of them. Chiang Mai, according to its critics, has more or less become a backpacker’s ghetto a [...]
Right Click Upload to Flickr
For two of my favourite things (Macs and Flickr): here’s how to use Automator to easily send images to Flickr.
Structures, Outlines and Tracings
Structures and Outlines Touchdown, scheduled for one minute past midnight. Four before midnight we are lying low as we negotiate a touchdown, hovering. As aviation practices dictate, ten minutes prior to that airline crew had just persuaded passengers of the aircraft to return their seats to their original positions, keep the windows open, and to keep [...]
Chiang Mai, A List
Teresa Teng is big in Chiang Mai. I hear it at my guest house in the mornings, I hear it in the restaurants I lunch in. As Z. says, “you munjens are everywhere!” We munjens (yellow people) are everywhere. My Lisu trekking guide was part Chinese. The proprietors of the Fried Honey Chicken and Baked Shanghai [...]
Keep Your Body Low, Baby
Usually when that’s uttered by your partner, that’s a good thing. Not when you’re scaling by the side of a huge rock, or when moving your lower bits across an ancient tree trunk to get to the other side.. So apparently my lack of physical coordination is well documented. When we went trekking with a [...]