ReNe: densha otoko (電車男)

I've heard of this manga before -- made quite a stir on the Japanese forums, it seems, and there was a hot debate as to whether or not the love story was even true -- and recently came across the manga adaption of it. (There are quite a few manga adaptions, even a drama serial.) It's called Densha Otoko (電車男), and chronicles the experiences of a self-confessed otaku (something like an obsessive Japanese geek of a particular kind) as he struck up a romance with a woman he saved from a drunk guy on the train. He was 23 years old and had never dated before. Understandably, he was a wreck.

Along the way, he posted his thoughts and situation updates on the Japanese '2channel' forum, asking for advice on dating from restaurant choice and clothing to his relationship insecurities. Eventually, 'Densha Otoko' and 'Hermes' (after the set of teacups she sent as thank-you for what he did on the train) became a couple.

It sounds like an incredibly sappy love story, but it's done well and is funny and touching. I also think it's an insightful exemplar of otaku behavior and also of how the internet (in this case, a forum) created a different love story. And yet, in a way, it's not very novel for many otakus are shy and single; the success of Densha Otoko showed that it struck a deep chord with otakus. It's a love story that also has very uniquely Japanese elements and I quite enjoyed it.

ReNe: the worry of bike theft

The Star had an article [1] about bike theft a while back, or specifically, what can be done to reduce the likelihood of your bicycle getting stolen. Bike theft, apparently, is a huge problem here in Toronto. When I asked about bike theft at the office, soon after I bought my bicycle and was wondering whether or not to take the risk of riding it to work and locking it outside the building, people were telling me of their own experiences with bike theft. One guy had his bike stolen thrice, and one guy who bought his bike around the same time as me and was riding it to work had his stolen within the first month! 

Bike theft is not just a small-time operation; a while back, the police arrested a second-hand bike shop owner, Igor Kenk, and found nearly 3000 bicycles in his house as well as garages around the city. That case made the NY Times [2] as well, where Kenk was referred to as the 'unofficial world champion of bicycle thieves' for the 2396 bikes found. 

Despite cycling more than half my life, having to lock my bike is a new experience for me because I've always kept my bike inside. Personally I think the best security is NOT to have a bike lock in the first place, which means that you never leave your bike unattended. Unfortunately, we do not have the space inside our current apartment to store our bicycles (we're still wondering how to winterize our bikes in the coming months), so we have to lock the bikes outside. Moreover, the bikes we have here in Toronto are meant to be commuter bikes. We want to be able to cycle out to Wal-Mart in 20 mins instead of spending $9 on TTC tokens, so we'd need bike locks. And with the high risk of theft, we had to invest in expensive U-locks that weigh over a kilo, and cable locks. At home, we lock our bikes in the narrow alley which does not get much human traffic, but it could also make it easy for someone to cut the locks at leisure. I've also been letting my new-looking bike 'age' so it hopefully doesn't look so new and tempting. Again, a far cry from the days when Mike used to polish our carbon fibre bikes to a shine.  

Tips from the article were nothing new: 

(1) Invest in a solid U-lock, which is probably the only type of lock that can be uncuttable. Even so, not all U-locks are secure.

(2) One lock is not enough -- a cable is also necessary to secure the wheels, especially the front if it's a quick release. This cable is probably the easiest to cut, which is probably why we often see bikes hanging by only their frames to bike posts; because their wheels (and saddles and handlebars) have been stolen. One can always carry around a heavy iron chain that's much harder to cut through than the common light steel cables, but that's bordering on stupid. 

(3) Make sure the bike is secured to something that's anchored in place. Duh.

(4) The Star's article also suggested radio frequency identification (RFID) security stickers, but the way I see it, the RFID tags won't keep your bike from getting stolen in the first place, and that's the most important part. GPS units to track the bikes was also mentioned, which I thought was even more stupid because the GPS units costs about CAD700 and includes a monthly network fee. PLUS. How do you keep the GPS unit from being stolen in the first place? At $700, I'd imagine it would be much more cost-effective to steal the GPS unit than the locked bicycle.  

(5) Make the bike look cheap (no brand names or decals, spray matt paint, wrap hockey tape).

[1] In search of the unstealable bicycle, The Star, Aug 17 2008

[2] In a cyclist-friendly city, a black hole for bikes, New York Times, 21 Aug 2008

ReNe: dennō coil (電脳コイル)

We're currently watching Dennō Coil (電脳コイル, Dennō Koiru) and am very impressed by it. Set against an aumented reality (AR) backdrop, it has the brilliant predictive flair of Ghost in the Shell, but it is not as edgy. I particularly like the way the technological tools, such as the glasses and earpieces, are woven into ordinary life as everyday objects. Often, a show attempts to create a futuristic world that is either bubbly and shiny (Jetsons) or post-apocalyptic (practically any mecha anime, really). I don't mind the latter, but it is refreshing to see a very ordinary take on the future, where AR is seen to overlay a world that has the old (shrines), present (current day styled buildings like homes and schools) and the future (toys like the glasses). I especially love the way the metatags look just like the japanese ofuda or the chinese talisman, you know, the kind you stick on the forehead of a chinese vampire. The anime drawing style is pretty pleasing as well; it reminds me of Studio Ghibli (the younger sister Kyoko even looks and sounds like the kid sister in My Neighbor Toroto).

ReNe: the plant shuffle

Now that it's summer, I'm trying to ensure that my plants get as much sunlight as they can, especially the ones I recently repotted (so that they establish themselves before the seasons turn cold). Sometimes I wonder if I'm just sabo-ing my plants (short for sabotaging, or setting them up for failure) by encouraging maximal leaf growth when this volume of leaves would not be sustainable during wintertime. I guess I'll find out in a few months.

I usually leave them out in the fire escape, facing east, to catch the morning sun. I'm a little nervous about the neigborhood racoons though; they have been known to chew up my plants and root around the soil.


When I get home in the evenings, I usually move a few pots out onto the window to catch the evening sun. In the top row (of four), the two rightmost pots contain the tomato seedings I said I planted too late. Although the seedlings were started at the same time in cardboard egg crates, I made the mistake of transplanting the seedlings still in the egg crates into the rightmost pot (thus stunting their growth). I recently re-potted all of the tomato seedlings again... Not good for the plants, I think, to undergo so much transplant trauma... The ones in the pot next to that had the egg crates removed; note the difference in growth. Next time I should just plant directly into the soil instead of creating extra trouble for myself.

And the only indoor location that catches direct sunlight -- the kitchen under the skylight. Notice the succulent on the top of the cabinets. I've been neglecting it, only climbing up to water it once every few days, but it's doing quite all right.

The poster on the wall is the first ever artwork/poster we've bought; we got it in Kensignton market for about $6. The frame was left behind by the previous occupant, and luckily the faded green matches the poster. It's a Russian propaganda poster that says 'five-year plan in four years!'.... I thought it highly appropriate for Michael.

ReNe: the gst and pst

I wonder if the locals get irritated by the way goods and services are taxed here? I'm referring to the fact that the price you see on the tag is usually pre-tax, and taxes like 5% GST (Goods and Services Tax) and 8% PST (Provincial Sales Tax) are then calculated at the cashier. I think the tax should be worked into the price of an item, otherwise the price can be pretty misleading. In that sense, what Singapore did (making it mandatory for taxes to be shown with the price on the tag) made sense. (Another thing to rant about is this fondness for prices to be ending with 9 cents.)

But surely, it's not too difficult to simply add a 13% tax onto whatever your buy, ignoring the psychological aspect of thinking that an item at $3.99 seems a lot cheaper than it's actual price of $4.15? Not really; to make matters more complex, not all items are subject to GST and/or PST. If we buy something from a supermarket chain like Dominion, it's usually quite simple -- add an that additional 13% onto the total. But we usually shop at Chinatown, Koreatown and organic food shops, and it becomes more complicated.

Take Chinatown and Koreatown grocers. Not all shops charge tax. It doesn't seem to be a matter of size because some small grocers charge tax and some big grocers don't. Also, not all items are taxed, or taxed equally; for example, we just came back from shopping at PAT. The only thing on the entire list that was taxed was the Pocky (imported from Japan), but the Bulgogi marinade (Korea), rice vermicelli (Vietnam), dried udon (Japan), vegetables and meat (from all over) were all not taxed. At one Chinatown shop that sells household goods, on the receipt, the store seems to be divided into two major departments, non-taxed and GST+PST taxed (sure makes their inventory accounting easy). At the organic food shops, bulk produce doesn't seem to be taxed. And depending on the store I buy my half-and-half cream from, the tax seems to be optional.

I am not sure why.

ReNe: blackout 5th anniversary

August 14 (Thursday) was the fifth anniversary of the great blackout that affected much of the eastern seaboard of North America in 2003. I read about that a while back, but I didn't think people would commemorate the anniversary of such an event... The purpose of the anniversary was to remember that time when, without electricity to power anti-social devices like televisions, people were forced to go out and interact.

I found it interesting that the blackout took place during summer; I had read that the highest power consumption (in cities around the eastern coast of North America at least) occurs around summer, meaning that more power is spent in cooling than heating. Well, ok, it's not so surprising because cooling is less efficient than heating, but it is interesting nonetheless. I wonder what the power consumption is like for cities in the tropics...

Thus, there was some stuff happening, organized by 'Streets are for People'. And luckily for us, it was just past our block so when we heard some banging and other noise-makers around nine, we took a walk down to have a look.

The first thing we saw was the mass of people and bicycles blocking up the junction of Bloor and Spadina (the 'Critical Mass Bike Ride'). The Mickey Mouse in the center of that mass was on a soapbox, but as he didn't have any amplification devices, we couldn't quite make out what he was saying. I suppose it's the usual issues about why more people should cycle not drive, and how cyclists' lives are cheap. There was a lot of noise -- drums, trumpets and noisemakers. They even had some portable potted plants; I'm not sure if those plants were there as an environmental message prop or for barricading purposes.



After a while, the group dispersed (finally allowing traffic through), and moved down Spadina with a lot of noise. Meanwhile, at the southeast corner of that junction, some one (or some ones) had set up a rave. It was supposed to be the 'Silent Street Rave' but it was hardly silent. With a couple of big speakers bungee-corded to warehouse trolleys, a macbook pro and a small colored strobe light, the street corner became an instant rave party.

ReNe: matrix olympics

With the Olympics currently ongoing, I thought the video below was very appropriate:

Matrix Olympics

ReNe: japanese shows

While we don't watch TV, we do spend an obscene amount of time on the internet. Speaking just for myself, I probably qualify as addicted. Anyway, in lieu of TV, this was what I spent two hours last night watching -- japanese tv/game shows on youtube. Not that the shows below span 2 hours; the first is ten mins, the second is six. I highly recommend the first.

Cat weight lifting


Human Tetris

ReNe: web ads rant

Ever got onto those commercial websites with advertisements? Many websites now have them. At first I didn't mind because they meant I could read that site for free. When the advertisements were still banner or sidebar ads, they were all right. They were like newspaper ads, colorful boxes at the top or sides of the articles, and I could ignore them. Once in a rare while, they were even useful.

Then they became pop-ups and that was irritating. Pop-ups can spawn like the tribbles from Star Trek. They were so irritating they spawned a demand for pop-up blockers. Luckily any decent browser these days should have a pop-up blocker.

And then came the floating ads, which appear the first time you go to the page and 'float' over the page for anywhere from 5 to 30 seconds. Not only they obscure your view of the page, they may also block mouse input and if you get impatient and click your mouse to try to disable the ad, you often end up clicking on the ad and going to the advertiser's page instead. Highly, highly frustrating, since you have to do even more work and waste more time 'chasing' the window to close it. Floating ads claim to have a higher click-through rate than ordinary ads but I suspect most of the clicks are simply erroneous clicks.

The unicast ads, oddly enough, don't annoy me as much. Probably because the websites I tend to visit don't have these. Though they are huge and sometimes you end up wondering how the hell to close it without clicking on the wrong part and landing up in the advertiser's website.

The one that irritates me the most are the pull-down ads, and especially those that combine floating and pull-down ads. These are the ones that expands automatically when the page loads or when you mouse over, but some have a tendency to expand whenever the page moves, it seems. For example, when I'm reading an article that's longer than one browser length and I scroll down; the ads float and follow you as you scroll, and then expand. You have to waste energy maneuvering your mouse around those ads. It's like tip-toeing around an unwanted visitor in your own house.

I know the more elaborate ads pay a lot more (see the little table below), and some ads are fine, but there is a limit. I have actually closed sites that irritated me with their ads without bothering to read the content, and I feed articles from sites I frequent to google reader, partly so I won't see those ads.

Side note: Apparently studies have shown that people can be trained to get used to irritating ads; case in point: television ads. Even complaints about pop-ups have dropped over time.

I've not watched TV regularly for 14 years (internet downloads are a great invention) and I've not read paper newspapers for almost as long (because the 'Staid Times' don't have much to say). I even avoid the radio (again, music can be obtained over the net in so many other ways). So when I do encounter advertisements on my favorite media, I get highly annoyed. Happily though, unlike other media, there exists ways around irritating ads.

Out of curiosity, I googled around for typical web ads rates, for non-targeted ads (targeted ads pay more, of course), prices in USD.
banner ads: 50 cents or so per 1000 (page) impressions
sidebar ads: $1.00 to $1.50 per 1000 impressions
pop-ups: 4-10xmore than a banner ad, which is from $2 to $5 per 1000 impressions
floating ads: from $3 to $30 per 1000 impressions
unicast ads: $30 per 1000 impressions

ReNe: on winterizing plants

Since we've moved to a bigger place, I've bought two plants (one mint and one ivy). From those two small pots, I've divided and re-potted them, and also started tomato and bell pepper seedlings. At the back of my mind, I knew winter would be a problem, but didn't dwell too long on it until yesterday, when temperatures dropped to 15C after a spell of rainy weather. Suddenly, it was like a preview of fall, cold toes and all.

And I wondered, just where was I going to put my pots in winter? I've seven potted plants now, eight if I count the succulent left behind by the previous tenant and which I never got around to throwing away. Luckily there is a skylight; unluckily Mike refused to let me move the microwave from the top of the fridge (which lies under the skylight) so I can put my plants there. Still, the amount of direct sunlight coming in through the skylight is not much; a pot can get perhaps an hour, unless I continually shift the pots to follow the sun's path. I suppose I can put them under reading lights at night as well.

Also, how cold is too cold? Below 10C? Below 5C? Growing plants here is very tricky, especially with the long winters. If you want to be able to harvest, there's even a schedule to follow. In Singapore, you don't have to think too much; just leave your pot out and water regularly, and seedlings can be started any time of the year.

Reading websites, there seem to be a lot involve in 'winterizing' gardens and potted plants. Already, I've missed the boat when it came to planting my tomato and pepper seedlings; apparently they should be started in spring so that they have ample time to grow in summer and be ready to harvest in fall. I started mine mid-summer and right now they're still small. Supposedly (potted) plants would grow slowly, if at all, during winter because of the reduced light and I'm to reduce the watering as well. Thus the tomatoes would have a (long) dormant period breaking up their usual growth cycle; hope that's fine.

Some notes:

• Mints require a nighttime minimum of 12 degrees Celsius and a daytime minimum of 16 degrees Celsius for active growth. Above 30 degrees Celsius growth slows. Normal ambient greenhouse humidity (70%) and lighting are adequate for mints.
• The ivy will do best in a temperature range from 60 to 70 degrees Fahrenheit (15 to 21 degrees Celcius). The maximum temperature an ivy will tolerate without added humidity is 75 degrees. The temperature range which an ivy tolerates but does not thrive in is 45 to 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
  

ReNe: about parades

I had not planned on watching the Beijing Olympics (because I never did watch any of the previous Olympics), but after reading a review about the opening ceremony in the local news, I got curious and downloaded the opening ceremony.

We were very impressed (despite the poor quality of the file; I couldn't be bothered to wait to download the HDTV version). What we liked about it:
1) the Chinese national anthem (more stirring than Majulah Singapura), the sharp goose steps, and the way the guard flipped the flag before it was raised (we liked it so much we went back to watch just that part a couple of times!)
2) the 2008 drummers
3) the entire first part of the parade where they introduced the inventions from ancient China; the scroll LED display was particularly ingenious. I really like that segment of the parade; it was very gorgeously done, from the theme to the choreography to the costumes.

The second part of the parade (the schoolchildren reciting the poem, the duet, the parade of the minorities), well, it pales in comparison to the first. Still, everything was very well done.

The sheer mass of people on the field and the amount of work they must have put in was staggering. It was, and I mean it in a good way, chest-thumping on an epic scale.

Ironically, the Singapore National Day Parade (NDP) was held a day after the Beijing Opening Ceremony, but I didn't watch it. I've not watched NDPs in years. Why? For one, I think it's a gross waste of money and resources, which can be put to better use in many other ways. For another, one NDP runs into the next year's... they're not terribly unique. They've become rather boring. People still rave about the previous Olympics opening/closing ceremonies -- what country/city did what, who sang what, etc. Maybe what Singapore should do is to hold a parade once every five years and make it unique. Make it infrequent but make it memorable.

Or, make a supremely grandiose gesture and donate the millions that would have been spent on the NDP entirely to charity. I'm sure everyone, Singaporeans and foreigners alike, would remember such a move for years and years. After all, people here in North America remember that Singapore bans chewing gum and caned some American boy for vandalism (when someone asked me that, I was like, 'WTF, even we, from Singapore, forgot about him years ago'). For once, I'd like to be approached by strangers saying, "oh, you're from that nice and generous country".

ReNe: chinese valentine's day

Apparently, today (7th day of the 7th lunar month) is qī xī (七夕), or what is colloquially known as the Chinese Valentine's Day. It's based on the love story between Niulang (牛郎) and Zhinu (织女). (No imagination with the naming... it's literally 'cowherd' and 'weaver girl').

In Japan, this festival is known as tanabata, and in Korea, chiseok.

ReNe: caning 'gum-spitting foreigners'

Forbes's most expensive cities.

13. Singapore, Singapore
Notorious for draconian littering policies, Singaporean authorities have been known to submit gum-spitting foreigners to public floggings. American tourists and expats can find punishment enough in the city's cost of living, more than 25% higher than that of Los Angeles.

Um. No wonder we always get the weirdest questions from Americans, like, "do you really cane people for chewing gum or jaywalking?" If it was a layperson, I could almost understand, but coming from a supposedly reputable news site...

ReNe: unfortunately IMBY

I had learned about nuclear power in physics classes but nuclear power as a means of generating electricity has always been an abstract concept -- for a NIMBY (Not In My Back Yard) sort of reason, because there is no nuclear plant in Singapore. In my mind, nuclear power has always been one of those 'great in theory but not so in reality' thing, because of potential risks and nuclear waste removal.

Well, I can't say it's not in my back yard anymore -- Canada has nuclear power and we in fact live 31.32 km from the Pickering nuclear power plant. Moreover, with the rising oil prices and increasing environmental awareness, nuclear power is becoming a more attractive option.

Is nuclear really that good? If we take greenhouse emissions as one measure,

A typical coal-fired power plant (burning lignite) emits up to 1,150 grams of CO2 per kilowatt hour of electricity produced. The most modern gas-driven facilities emit 400 grams for the same amount of electricity. And for nuclear power plants? That number is around 30 grams per kilowatt hour when the entire life-cycle of the plant is taken into account.

It is this math that is leading to the biggest nuclear power boom the world has seen in decades.

The inexorable comeback of nuclear energy, Spielgel Online, 11th July 2008

Somehow I feel the equations are lacking something -- surely tallying the emissions alone is not enough? On the other hand, worldwide, countries may have to turn to nuclear for their power needs simply because the other alternatives are too expensive (oil, gas and even coal are becoming more pricey) or are not enough (current 'green' alternatives such as solar, hydro, wind cannot supply enough). The amount of energy that can be generated from nuclear power could be more than sufficient to meet current needs.

But what about the radioactive waste?

In the last 50 years of nuclear power generation, some 300,000 tons of the stuff has been produced, with an additional 10,000 tons coming each year. A part of that waste is plutonium, and it is incredibly volatile. Just a single gram contains as much energy as a ton of oil -- and it can give hundreds of people cancer should it be inhaled as radioactive dust. Should one stand next to a gram of plutonium for just a single minute, death is the result.

Not only that, but radioactive waste stays deadly for hundreds of thousands of years, meaning any terminal storage site has to be incredibly large, incredibly stable and incredibly isolated.

Spiegel Online

The problem of nuclear waste is probably the biggest disadvantage to nuclear power. Also, nuclear power is not sustainable; the amount of uranium is, like oil, finite. Uranium supplier countries such as Canada, Australia and Kazakhstan (in decreasing order) are scrambling to increase production at their mines.

In 2006 producers met only 62% of demand. (The rest was recycled from a diminishing supply of decommissioned warheads or taken from dwindling Cold War stockpiles.) The World Nuclear Association says uranium mining could need to increase by almost 300% in the next two decades.

Talk of such a crunch has brought the market to fever pitch. Spot prices for uranium jumped from about $7 a pound in late 2000 to a record high of $136 in June. Prices today hover at $74.

Nuclear power's white-hot metal, CNN Money, 27 March 2008

I'm not disparaging nuclear yet because we may yet find a way to circumvent the problem of nuclear waste. It is a very viable alternative because the technology is well-developed and affordable for many countries, but unfortunately, what may decide the ultimate choice for most countries could be that of pragmatic economics, i.e. the bottom line.

With energy prices rapidly approaching the unaffordable, however, concerns about waste storage may once again take a back seat. There are handsome profits to be made from nuclear energy, especially when oil and gas, but also coal, are becoming more expensive. And in Germany, with its older reactors that have long since paid for themselves, the black numbers are truly impressive. The reactors at Biblis, for example, make a pre-tax profit of €1 million -- every single day.

Spiegel Online

ReNe: royal ontario museum

We finally got to see the Darwin exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) today.

(4th August is Canada's Civic Holiday)

When we first read about the Darwin exhibit at ROM many months back, we thought we should go one day. But there never was a good day to go; I had to work on weekdays or something would come up on weekends or we were simply too lazy. And then, we realized that 4th August -- today-- would be the last day of the exhibit. Talk about procrastination... we stay 10 mins away from ROM!

Anyway, we went to ROM today with Yew Jin, who was in Toronto this week for a conference so we offered a place for him to crash. We'd heard good reviews about the ROM and we weren't disappointed. The place was huge and the exhibits well done. I don't think we've even seen a third of what ROM has in store, and we were exhausted.

The problem with museums is that of information overload. I think I enjoy an exhibit best if I had some background to the subject. With the Darwin exhibit, that was the case -- I knew about the theory of evolution, his voyage on the Beagle, the Galapagos islands, the book 'Origin of Man', and so I could skim over the parts I already knew and linger on facts that I hadn't known before, such as the pictorial view of the Beagle voyage.

With some of the other exhibits, such as the one of the First Nations people, well, I didn't know that much and so found the deluge of information overwhelming. After a while, I just let it go; didn't bother reading all of the information boards and instead admired the items on display.


Yew Jin and Mike.

ReNe: defining gender

There was an article in the NY Times today about gender testing in the Olympic Games, and it got me very riled up.

If transgender athletes are now allowed to compete officially, and if gender testing has been shown frequently to render false results, then what exactly are the Chinese authorities testing for?

The Olympic hosts seem to want to impose a binary order upon the messy continuum of gender. They are searching for concreteness and certainty in a world that contains neither.

Most efforts to rigidly quantify the sexes are bound to fail. For every supposedly unmovable gender marker, there is an exception. There are women with androgen insensitivity, who have Y chromosomes. There are women who have had hysterectomies, women who cannot become pregnant, women who hate makeup, women whose object of affection is other women.

So what makes someone female then? If it’s not chromosomes, or a uterus, or the ability to get pregnant, or femininity, or being attracted to men, then what is it, and how can you possibly test for it?

The only dependable test for gender is the truth of a person’s life, the lives we live each day. Surely the best judge of a person’s gender is not a degrading, questionable examination. The best judge of a person’s gender is what lies within her, or his, heart.

The XY Games, by Boylan JF (NYTimes, Aug 3 2008)

I particularly liked this statement:

But gender is malleable and elusive, and we need to become comfortable with this fact, rather than afraid of it.

All this gender testing does is to humiliate people, both women and men. So if a woman wins at a sport, which by the way would be her reason for entering the Games, she may not be a woman after all? Why? Somebody will have to win that competition; the competition IS set up that way. Sure, but what if her time was so fast (let's say it's a race) that it's suspicious? How small must the delta be between the winner and runner-up then, for the winner to escape suspicion of being a man? Wait, what if the competition between ALL of the athletes was very close, but they all put in brilliant times? So brilliant that they are all suspicious? Are they all suspected of being men then? Because women can't be that good?

Are women not angry at what gender testing implies?? At how incredibly patriarchal and condescending it all is?

I've always held the opinion that gender is more mental and culturally imposed than a physical state of being. Definitely there are differences between the male and female body, but I think society over-stresses these differences, and often, creates unnecessary and even untrue divisions and categories. There will be brutish males with exaggerated male characteristics and effeminate men with feminine characteristics... so what? There will be voluptuous females and slim females and amazons... what's the problem here? Are flat girls less female than those with big boobs? What about girls with chests flatter than those fat guys who look like they need mammary support?

I've received my share of such gender scrutiny before; as a teenager, I cut my hair short, did rugged sports, and refused to wear skirts (other than my school skirts) and heels. I've been told I look like a lesbian and I've been hit on by girls. I wasn't really bothered because -- and here's my admittedly odd turn of logic -- I like guys; I'm turned on by guys and I like the way they look. Hence, when I look in the mirror and I see boyish characteristics on a female face, I like the way it looks as well. Makeup and dresses don't turn me on; why the hell should I wear them? To attract guys who are turned on by makeup and dresses? I don't see the logic in wearing and doing something that's uncomfortable to attract the attention of someone who probably expects you to continue to wear and do the things that are uncomfortable should you succeed in attracting and holding his attention.

To borrow the words of Eddy Izzard, I'm probably a female gay.

So if I wasn't bothered that I was often mistaken as lesbian, then what was I irked by? It was the assumptions and expectations of others that irritated me. I'm a girl therefor I must wear 'girl clothes' and cross my legs? Whose life is it? I have no problems with other girls wearing dresses and make-up and heels; I may snigger privately as they totter down the street on overly high heels, but I'm not going to tell them they CAN'T do it. I have no right. And vice versa.

ReNe: gen x

A recent conversation topic chain over lunch one day went along the lines of, "internet generation", which led to other 'generations' including "Gen X", which led to "what you listened to if you were Gen X", which led to "Nirvana", which reminded me of "Queen".

Don't ask.

So somehow, I ended up idly surfing youtube for 'Queen's songs' (how ever did we manage before instant-gratification-net?), and yeah, wow, I'm once again hugely impressed by Freddie Mercury's sheer talent. Some people have issues with his sexuality but hey, he's a singer, not your boyfriend. Does it matter?

On another note, talking about generations -- I feel a little old. I use the internet a lot, I work with it, am practically addicted to it, but I'm not from the so-called 'internet generation', or 'Gen Z', who grew up with the internet. I'm not even from the 'Gen Y', but am at the tail end of 'Gen X'; i.e. since my time, two more generations have been defined. Trouble is, bandying words like 'generations' around makes me think of a typical demographic generation, and if TWO other generations after me have been defined...

ReNe: new batt!

So my MBP has been giving me some weird problems, and it's not even a year old.

I used to have a problem with static discharge last year but it's ok now. Not quite sure what I did though, because I did a few things around the same time. I changed from using a UK three-pin + adaptor arrangement to a two-pin; also upgraded and then re-installed Leopard (when upgrading alone gave problems); and I also moved from a drier place (St Louis) to one with higher humidity (Toronto).

My battery was also dying. The 'health' and the amount of full charge it can hold has been steadily dropping; less than a year after I bought the MBP, battery health was 33%. Full charge capacity should be 5000 mAh and my battery only had 1833; Mike's was 4599. Turned out that the problem was with a bad batch of batteries. Happily enough, it turned out Apple was doing a free exchange of these faulty batch of batteries and I got a new one today.

Now to hopefully fix the odd problems with my sleep/hibernate mode...