Old and New

Bargain Buy

Speaking about diligent shopping... eBay can be a good place for bargains. The husband just manage to get me a Jamie Cullum "Twenty Something" CD at £2.45 (postage included). Now from the normal price of £7.99 that one would usually pay for a CD. £2.45 is indeed a bargain!

Hee hee... can't wait for it to arrive!

Sleepless in London

Wonder what do people do when they are sleepless in a big city like London?

Probably go out to a party. Get drunk, get wasted, and wake up with a big hang over the following day? Or, if with a bunch of friends, they could probably hang out in one of their homes, drink, chat, and make merry? Of course, the latter scenario might have a possibility of leading to the same ending as the first. Then, there might be another possible scenario... wonder if it happens in adult life, but one could very well count sheeps! Not a bad idea in fact.

Suppose with all the advance technology we are presented with today. We do not necessarily have to chose all the above scenarios, but take an alternate out of the above. We could pick up the phone and make a local call to chat with someonne, if they are still awake at this hour. Or a long distance call to chat with your old pal like 7hours ahead of you in time. Or go online, get on instant messaging. Or go online to surf if you do not like virtual interaction.

But for me, I chose to blog. At 02:43, my mind and body is wide awake. The mind tend to run away with many musings.

The human body is one of the more interesting subjects. Below are two facts noted.

1. When the body is tired, the brain ceases to function with efficiency.
   
2. When the brain is tired, the body ceases to coordinate well and thus eventually would not function accordingly.

The brain is a powerful entity, it can instruct the body to react accordingly. But right now, I muse on the fact why the body refuses to retire even when the brain wants it to.

Shopping is yet another interesting topic. It has become one type of sport in our modern day world, or if I may say so... a past-time? Well, I think it really depends on individual perspective and starting point. Below a summary of why and how people spend.

1. Some like to run out to consume goods the moment their bank account gets a comfortable amount of money. Usually the time is the "pay cycle".
2. Some like to shop around and compare prices before they decide to part with the money. They want to make sure that it is money well spent.
3. Some buy for the sake of buying. Why? Don't ask. They are so used to spending, they feel at odds not buying.
4. Some buy things to motivate themselves for achieving a little goal they set to reach.
5. Some go out and buy something out of necessity. The best example is groceries and daily necessities shopping.

Maybe I do have too much time to muse. However, it is not everyday that you get a little gift voucher to go shopping. Yes, you might think that 'paid for' shopping is the best and worry free. Not always if...

1. You have a small denomination to spend at a shop that usually sells luxury goods. You would have a good brainstorming on what is worth buying to make good of the voucher value, and make the person who gave it to you feel proud.
2. You have a comfortable denomination at hand, but the shop the voucher originates from does not stock goods which you might need or find handy.
3. You are shopping with someone who is a diligent shopper.

Yes, standing beside a diligent shopper makes me seem a rather reckless one. Despite that I consider myself a thrifty spender. But I do have to admit that having a diligent shopper beside you can be good. It makes you really consider twice the need for spending, and if you do end up spending, you will not regret easily making that purchase.

Right! Figure that is enough rambling for one morning. Really hope that after all this nonsense, and a cup of warm tea, the brain and body can find some rest.

Online ID Theft

Have you heard that your identity can be stolen off you? Yes! it's as real as seeing your fingers protruding from your palms on your hands.

This is one of those technology side-effects. Or to be more specific, online activity side-effects. Somewhere lurking behind a corner of the virtual world is an ID thief waiting to consume any teeny weeny detail of yours. These thieves even in the real world. Read more through this BBC report.

Knowing that things like this do happen, will you still take the risk by doing your banking online? shop online? subscribe to numerous online magazines or news sites that ask for your personal details?

I think for the convenience and advent, I would. How do I do it? Well, I would of course exercise these online activities with caution.

• Divulge as little personal information as possible to online subscriptions.
• Alternate or change passwords as often as possible.
• Never believe emails that claim your bank is doing some personal detail update online, thus you need to supply your password and personal sign on.
• Do not easily sign up to services online that are FREE, thinking they are, you do not technically pay anything. BEWARE! Some of them might be scam tactics, read their Privacy Statements and Terms & Conditions in detail before signing up.
• Never dispose off bank statements, documents with personal details without shredding them beforehand.

Well, those are the best practices I can think of at the moment. If you come up with more, do let me know.

Surrounded with Love

These are a collection of gifts we've received along with blessings and well wishes since my departure from Hong Kong, through to the simple registration in Finland, to my settling back into London. We're so surrounded with Love!

There's just too many 'Thank You' to say... so thought maybe making a montage would be nice.

£7.30

An antique looking cash till at the counter of a local Greek café. Cool!

French Crêpes in Hampstead

Yummm... the crêpes from Hampstead is a must try when you pass by. Or at least, Hampstead is one of the many locations they run this crêperie chain.

Hampstead, located North West of London, is 10mins bus ride from Camden Town. If you hop on the 24 or 168, they will stop at Hampstead Heath, and you'll have to take a little walk up Rosslyn Hill towards Hampstead Highstreet direction. But if you took the 46, then you can jump off the bus right before the local post office, and walk towards the tube station.

The Crêperie in Hampstead is tucked in a corner off Hampstead High Street, at the junction where it leads to Perrin's Court. The stall stands right beside a pub, and you'll see Häagen-Dazs ice cream parlour 2 doors away.

They serve both savoury and sweet crêpes made fresh to order. Once you have ordered, you wait by the stall, and when it's ready, you take it with you to sit down nearby and dive into the yummy looking crêpes.

London the Monster

Lonely Planet guide described London city as "dirty, crowded, and over polluted"... true this is, check the website you may.

Is this surprising? Well, I say... the name suits!

F1 - Monaco

Muah-ha-ha-ha-haha!!! Räikkönen has been victorious once again!!! And M. Schumacher was nowhere near 3rd place. Now do we care about where Schumacher is? Not really, except for the fact that we can rejoice that he's not won!

*Smug*

Copyright on the Web

Have a piece of creative work you would like to share online yet weary of the copyright issues? Not sure of how to enforce copyright? Don't have the right legal knowledge to establish a copyright?

Check the Creative Commons out for an alternative method of enforcing your rights and protect your creative work online.

Dusk

Location: London NW1 9HZ
Time: 19:30

Site Syndication, RSS and All

I ran into this term "RSS" and sent my brain into the washing machine of the WWW.

So... what is this RSS thing? It stands for Real Simple Syndication. Found a good description from FeedBurner "RSS is a standard for publishing regular updates to web-based content".

When you do a google with the word RSS, it will give you XML.com. Thus begin a long journey into the basic lessons on how to construct a RSS page, and implementing it the real geeky way - XML coding. Okay, so RSS is based on XML, but I don't do XML except for tweaking my blog templates.

See, I'm not from the geeky programming background. I'm more the hands on, "give me the work pad and let me try it out" kind of student. Perhaps my brain learns from back to front. Naturally, the chunk of explanation on XML.com did not register in my teeny weeny brain that well.

There were still tonnes of questions in my mind up to that point. What do you do with this RSS? What is the use of it? How do you use it? Is there an easier way of using it?

I couldn't sleep well with that notion running in the back of my mind last night. So this morning, I started on other searches on RSS and its usage. To my delight, I found answers! So here you go...

Web publishers use RSS to provide updates (breaking news or latest blog post) on their web site publications. Consumers use RSS to capture updates on their favourite news sites or blogs through a RSS reader.

FeedBurner explains:-
Consumer Bottom Line: RSS makes reviewing a large number of sites in a very short time possible.

Publisher Bottom Line: RSS permits instant distribution of content updates to consumers.

For detailed understanding on how things work, check FeedBurner's Feed Syndication explanation. It gives you a thorough run down on the who, how, where and why.

After the journey of educating myself about RSS, I have finally enabled RSS on my blog. Yes! Blogger has pre-built RSS feeds into their blog settings for easy configuration and use. I have also set up a web RSS reader to keep up with latest updates on favourite news sites and blogs.

There, pretty neat. I shall sleep well tonight!

Maybe tomorrow, I shall look into how to create a RSS feed with XML coding.

Right-brain Game

While browsing through some blogs on Information Architecture, I came tumbling across these interesting games:

1) Montage-a-Google

2) Guess-the-Google (Love this one! Can be addictive too)

Try the Montage first to get a hang of things, then the Guessing game as the latter is the reverse of the earlier game. Fun! Fun! Fun! Wheeeeeee....

*geek?*

First Day Of My Life

"First Day Of My Life"

This is the first day of my life
I swear I was born right in the doorway
I went out in the rain suddenly everything changed
They're spreading blankets on the beach

Yours is the first face that I saw
I think I was blind before I met you
Now I don’t know where I am
I don’t know where I’ve been
But I know where I want to go

And so I thought I’d let you know
That these things take forever
I especially am slow
But I realize that I need you
And I wondered if I could come home

Remember the time you drove all night
Just to meet me in the morning
And I thought it was strange you said everything changed
You felt as if you had just woke up
And you said “this is the first day of my life
I’m glad I didn’t die before I met you
But now I don’t care I could go anywhere with you
And I’d probably be happy”

So if you want to be with me
With these things there’s no telling
We just have to wait and see
But I’d rather be working for a paycheck
Then waiting to win the lottery
Besides maybe this time is different
I mean I really think you like me

This MTV song by Bright Eyes was playing on TV while I was dressing up and getting ready to head off for the local registrar in Vantaa, Finland on the 30.03.2005.

Somehow it caught my heart, pulled a string and touched me deeply. Perhaps at that moment, many things ran through my mind. One which cannot be ignored was the fact that I will be entering a marriage in the eyes of law. There was the inevitable question as always "is he the right man?". So when this song came playing, it gave me a sign. See, I was all alone in the room with one hundred and one questions running through my mind. There was nobody there to pour my nerves out with. In a way, the MTV gave me some sort of assurance that "whatever will be, will be".

I just love it... take a peep if you like.
Bright Eyes : First Day of My Life

New words for the day

	WORD	MEANING
	Lähtivät	left for
word origin	Lähteä	depart; leave (for)
	Metsään	woods
word origin	Metsä	wood, woodland
	Seikkailemaan	go out in search of adventure
word origin	Seikkailija	adventurer
	Jännittavää	exciting, thrilling
word origin	Jännite	tension, voltage
	Siellä	there; at that place
	Saattaisi	might be
	Olla	be; stand; exist

A little background to the Finnish language can be found online. Though one has to take note of the additional alphabets and their pronunciation.

Dawn

Location: London NW1 9HZ
Time: 06:06

Director of Domestic Affairs

Thus end the long holiday, and a new chapter in life begins. With this new start, I am now officially 'Director of Domestic Affairs'... hee hee... very important title.

The 'To Do' list I set out for myself on 17.02.2005 is finally complete except for 1 item - Job Hunt. There are long term 'To Do' lists and there are short term 'To Do' lists. This one set out 2months ago, was evidently a long term list.

I have to confess that I have this little obsession with 'To Do' lists. They are meant to remind me of the things I need to get done. When tasks are completed, you throw the lists away. However, to me, these lists seem like motivational tools. They not only drive me to get on with the day, but also give me a sense of satisfaction when I have completed the tasks set out. *Freak*!

So begins a new list today...

To Do 10.05.2005

1) Job hunt

2) Unpack boxes

3) Send thank you notes

4) Change of address notices

I hope that the first item on the list can be striked out soon. *fingers crossed*

Till We Meet Again - Teh O Ice Limau

After 3 weeks and 2 days of wait, today I set off again.

Current location: Kuala Lumpur
Destination : London via Hong Kong.

It is 8 weeks since I left Hong Kong... *muse*

369km away, parents have sent a daughter off. 2519km away, some friends will be looking forward to meet her. -7hours away, a husband is waiting. In the next room, in the same time zone, a cousin is getting ready to send her cousin off.

Some people might find that they miss a place they used to live in because of the convenience it offers in transportation; the delicious local food; the multitudes of shopping venues and sales seasons; and sometimes it can simply be the surrounding luxury it is equipped with.

I realised as I move from place to place, that I would usually miss the people who live there most. The characters that dwell within those places make the experience of the place memorable.

Last evening over a few cups of 'Teh O Ice Limau', a couple of friends bid farewell. We do not know when we will meet again in person, but we will definitely meet. I feel that the word "farewell" on its own can sometimes sound rather final. Personally, I prefer to couple it with "farewell, till we meet again" because I believe that the globe has grown smaller with air transportation getting more convenient and communication technology more advanced. Keeping in touch today is definitely easier compared to my grandparent's times.

Heading for LHR

Rouva Rahunen is heading for LHR!!!
Yes, tonight my mind can rest well. End of suspense.
*sigh*

Waiting Time : 1415 - 1430
Interview Time : 1430 - 1500
Additional Documents Submitted : 1 Employment letter, 2 Spouse's certified passport copy, 3 Proof of ongoing relationship (correspondences + photos), 4 University Degree Certificate
Total Questions Posed : 7
Visa Application Status : EEA Family Permit obtained.
Visa Issuing Time : 1500 - 1520 (waiting time extended due to an unforeseen mistake in the office) - 1600

Sunday

This is where I would usually spend my Sundays if I was still in Hong Kong. 'D.B.' short for Discovery Bay is a beautiful residential enclave on the south of Lantau Island. Hmm... will I have a chance to live there again?

*muse*


This Sunday, I spent my morning at the 'Lim Kongsi'- Lim's Clan House. It is the birthday of the 'Ma Zhor'(媽祖) - Goddess and protector of seafarers. So the Lims gathered at the clan house for prayers, and lunch. There will be a dinner later in the evening in conjunction with this birthday celebration.

A very different way to spend a Sunday...

*muse*

:D