HOTD #18

 

Camera positioning, camera setting, posture, multiple shooting, etc. took a good 15-20 mins.    Photography is hard work.!

HOTD #17

 Singapore Chinatown post covid (fingers crossed).  There is some semblance of normalcy 

HOTD #16

Darkest hour

Watches like a side story to Dunkirk.

There are no mega battle scenes, no soldiers blown to pieces on the battlefield, no tanks bulldozing everything in their paths.  Only the brilliant performance of Gary Oldman and powerful, shrill rhetorics. Truly gripping throughout and finishes abruptly with you wanting for more.

HOTD #15

Should have posted this earlier

Battle of the vegetarian burgers 

Shake shack shroom - reasonably priced at less than $10. It’s tastes expensive with all the right combination of decent ingredients. All in all a good vegetarian burger and highly recommended.

Omakase Impossible burger - exorbitantly priced at $26 and close to $30 with fries. Mind blowingly good. The patty indeed is impossibly meat-like. All premium ingredients work together to deliver that gastronomic knock-out of an impossibly good beef burger. Can’t recommend it high enough.

Book #1 of 100 books everyone should read

Inspired from the movie The Equalizer where the lead character was making his way through the ‘100 books everyone should read’ list.

I started with the low hanging fruit of ‘Animal Farm’ by George Orwell.

A rather short satire on communism which was erringly accurate in foretelling of future events in the real world i.e. when operationalised this far left ideology eventually implodes and bizarrely morphs into fascism.

My take is that it is because selfishness is an inherent trait in humans and to expect all to give their all all the time for the common good is asking for too much and going against human nature. 

HOTD #14

It has been one full month since I subscribed to the daily routine of 100 press ups a day.

I am by no means a push up greenhorn, in fact I am quite the veteran.  However doing press ups on consecutive days for a month was a new challenge.

The only noticeable outcome was the tricep line on my right arm became more visible. There is but a tinge of satisfaction and a tad of surprise, the daily routine was a breeze after all which took no more than 3-4 mins everyday.  

I guess moderate efforts yield moderate results is the best way of putting this.

HOTD #13

 Changi village day trip

We work with what we have... but this is the most handsome beach I have been to in Singapore.

Walking, eating savoury dishes, whistling in the wind, inhaling sea breeze, eating deserts,  all in all a surprisingly pleasant day out at the beach! 

HOTD #12

 Stubbornness 

Being labelled stubborn is unfashionable.  It’s not cool.

However stubbornness is a misnomer. Stubbornness is not an undesirable trait, it is the common trait.  

Everyone is stubborn. 

Instead of labelling someone stubborn, what we mean to say is that someone’s way thinking and way of doing things are not aligned to social norms.

If someone adheres to his/her routine of drinking tea and having toasts in the morning, this person is just like everyone one else. You wouldn’t label him/her stubborn although he/she won’t change his/her mind.

However if someone’s actions and/opinions divert from social norms and won’t change his/her mind about it.  We label this person stubborn.  We shouldn’t do that.  That person is not more stubborn than any one of us.  

Rather that person is perversely opinionated.

HOTD #11

Tenet is smart and grips you like a wild python even longer after the movie has finished, but it is also impossible to understand fully.  

Internalising the concepts and attempting to extrapolate beyond the movie will result in frustration, and eventually an actual headache.  It is so good that it is really bad for you. 

HOTD #10

 It’s been more than a year since I did my run at Sentosa.

On a Monday evening, Sentosa was reduced to a ghost town.  Only very few eateries remained open and only several meandering odd tourists in sight. I could not even make it to the beach as the path was blocked.  Wonder how those pubs along the seafront are faring.

I arrive at my current abode - the uncharming but functional Hmlet Cantonment.  The lack of office chairs in the rooms is driving me up the wall but the regular cleaning of my room and communal areas is absolutely sweet.

HOTD #9

 First day in ‘co-living’ quarters.

I like the communal area, which was my office today

Blast from the past - aged 23

HOTD #8

 

This has been dominating the news media.

Knowing the behaviour of the US president, his antics before and after the event weren’t exactly surprising. In fact I found his latest statements to be moderate, measured, and politically correct; a stark contrast to his usual gut wrenching showmanship. Why has the world become suddenly so unforgiving towards him?

Surely this wasn’t totally unexpected..!  Surely it would be foolish to expect all those rallies, battle cries, and repeated social media outbursts (reverberated by tens of millions of his followers) to culminate to nothing at all.

HOTD #7

His methodical approach to explaining blockchain and crypto currency (in Chinese) is really impressive.  I followed 99% of the content in the first pass.

https://youtu.be/g_fSistU3MQ

Apart from that I have been splurging on italki lessons (feels like an addiction, albeit a good one).  Not sure yet if I will reaping any real rewards but it sure is good, clean fun.

HOTD #6

 Social gathering!

Food, drinks, dance, desserts, fun conversations, old friends, new acquaintances, untold future possibilities.

Refreshing evening after months of isolation. No local transmission in this country for many consecutive days and we adhere to the government’s protocols.  Risk is assessed to be low.

HOTD #5

 I woke up past 13:00.  Fantastic start to my new year resolution this year (and all previous years) of waking up early.

The highlight of the day has to be this elaborate meal I cooked up.  I targeted completion within 60 mins but ended up taking 90 instead.  I could feed 3 people with this but a professional chef at a professional kitchen could feed 30 people in the same duration of time.  Such is the true power of industrialisation and capitalism.