1. Catholic High Toilets Suck
Apparently, the toilets in the school are in such a sad state that kids are afraid to use them. There are apparently creepy crawlies about and the kids not used to objectionable live insectoid or arachnid content have to hold it in till they get home or find a bush outside. Parents have apparently complained about the situation to the folks in charge at the highest levels. Does alumnus Lee Hsien Loong know?
After a bit of cajoling, I ended up playing mahjong on the first Saturday of the Snake Year. ("Wah wah wah Gurmit, you can play mahjong ah?!) At this event, it got cute. One player who needed the Cat tile made meowing noises to elicit the said tile at her next pick up. And it worked! All of us had a good chuckle. Then another player asked “Then Centipede how?” and Cat Tile Diviner replied with a snippy kind of noise a beaver might make. I replied “No, the only noise you can get is when the Centipede bites someone, and the victim goes “Ow!””. So said second player went “Ow!” and immediately drew up the Centipede tile. OMG. We all went berserk and nearly woke up the sleeping baby in the other room.
2. A Rhyme For Bear Mitigation
I was relating to one friend about another mutual friend’s acquisition of a cabin of sorts in the woods in a relatively nearby destination. A charming set up one might say, not quite without the inconveniences of rustic life like a portable heater, wood burning stove, and also bears in winter time. Lovely. Friend A was slightly aghast and remarked there’s a rhyme about what to do when encountering the cuddly things. She later forwarded me this little colour-centric ditty: “If it’s brown, lay down. If it’s black, fight back. If it’s white, good night.” (The “good night” means you’re done for. Also you’d be in the Arctic and best have the right means of weather and other protection.) No word on meeting a Yogi Bear. Namaste perhaps?
3. Router TTL
I've jumped ISPs, from ViewQwest whom I’ve been with for about 3 years to Whizcomms. The only reason for jumping is budget. I am now getting the same service output for half the price. When the Whizcomms guy came around to give me the network terminal, he told me that my Nighthawk Mesh would take a 5-10 minutes to latch on to the new service. Guess what? It took hours. I was in the middle of an episode of Law & Order SVU when the break in transmission had to happen. I tried restarting and resetting the routers, upgrading their firmware, trying a direct wired feed - nothing would get the base station working, it’s angry orange light projecting its disdain of uselessness at me. I gave up and went for yoga in the evening, and met a pair of friends for dinner. Upon understanding my tale of telecommunication woe, the more technically inclined part of the duo told about something called router Time To Leave. This is when the main router requests a new IP address from the ISP to keep everything running kosher. Apparently, this could be happening every 4 hours. When i got home that night, all was good. Blue light indicators for peak connectivity.
4. Mahjong Noises
5. Cedele Chocolate Cherry Loaf
OMG it’s da bomb. Rich and delicious, perfect with coffee. https://cedele.com/products/chocolate-cherry-loaf
