For the second time, end the Zone Alarm Pro trial period and moving back to the free version has messed up my system. So I decided to uninstall the thing once and for all. I've run the uninstaller though I'm on notice from various sources on the web that it's pretty sticky and a number of annoying files get left behind.
When I rebooted after the uninstal, my Explorer default font size had been switch to "Huge - for the legally blind." Very weird. I've switched it back now but am waiting for the next Easter Egg.
I'm about to try Sybase. Fingers crossed. My DVD drive died yesterday so I'm in the middle of a bit of bad PC karma. I guess that's kind of an oxymoron to anyone on a Mac. I feel like a bit of a moron for not making the switch but I still like the grittyness of this windows technology. The whole thing seems put together with bits of rubber band and tape. Keeps it feral.
Labels: tech
After much searching, I have found it... The words to
Janacek's Glagolitic Mass is here:
MŠA GLAGOLSKAJA. This saves me typing it out in order to have a handy one pager for practicing. With far too many consonants and a famine of vowels, ancient Czech is a bit of a tongue twister and takes some effort to get used to.
But that is the job at hand! The SSC is performing this November 20th. It's probably an acquired taste for most, so if you are going to the concert, get a recording first and
practice listening - it's amazing how this can improve one's enjoyment of music
.
The piece has great feeling of space - of mountains and valleys. There's a lot of folk influence, but the story is told in such a strange musical language that the listener may be dumfounded.
The music has a lot to offer but if the message is religious, it is frightening. The plea for mercy is so desperate that it is as if the choir was expecting a shower of brimstone at any moment.
Perhaps it is not God the composer fears but lonliness. I find the music makes more sense if I don't think of it as a mass but as a piece about longing and torment - love unrequited. I suppose for a soul tormented, love unrequited has God to blame so it amounts to the same thing. Apparently that was
Janacek's state of mind and in that context, the music has a lot to communicate.
Failure
BECAUSE God put His adamantine fate
Between my sullen heart and its desire,
I swore that I would burst the Iron Gate,
Rise up, and curse Him on His throne of fire.
Earth shuddered at my crown of blasphemy,
But Love was as a flame about my feet;
Proud up the Golden Stair I strode; and beat
Thrice on the Gate, and entered with a cry—
All the great courts were quiet in the sun,
And full of vacant echoes: moss had grown
Over the glassy pavement, and begun
To creep within the dusty council-halls.
An idle wind blew round an empty throne
And stirred the heavy curtains on the walls.
Rupert Brooke (1887-1915). CollectedPoems. 1916.
Labels: music
My meetings this week had me in conversation with a guy called
Bunny and another called
Boopsie. The guy called Sue has nothing on these two.
There's only one place grown men (or grown women for that matter) can have such names and still command the respect of their high powered positions... The Philippines.
Labels: funny
I don't know how to take it when someone is really nice to me. When someone is genuinely, selflessly nice, I kind of fall apart inside.
I just got off the phone with a colleague of mine. He is a relatively young and extremely successful managing director at my bank. He has been promoted and is now moving out of Asia. I called him on a deal, and he took the opportunity to thank me for my help over the past few years. He was incredibly sincere. He said, "You have made a difference in my career."
That's just such a nice thing to say that I was left speechless and was basically incapable of responding in any intelligent manner.
I don't know why I can't control my emotions when people are personal like this. I wish I could have responded in kind, with sincerity, because I have enjoyed my working relationship with this person. Instead I just ended up saying something superficial, hanging up and blubbing.
Labels: personal
I was flying biz class from Toronto to Vancouver on
Air Canada this evening. I was reading
Eats, Shoots and Leaves and was right in the middle of the chapter on the misuse of the apostrophe (usually in cahoots with the letter S) when dinner was served along with a little irony.
After the meal came an announcement that for $2 you could buy desert. That seemed chincy but I'll expect anything on a North American airline, even in Business Class. Fortunately, it turned out that was just for economy.
For the people in the big-ass seats, the steward came around with a cart offering ice-cream and cookies. I said I didn't want ice-cream but was game on for cookies. He offered the choice of oatmeal or chocolate chip.
How about one of each?
No. Only one cookie per passenger.
So really the offer was for Ice Cream and Cookie
singular. There were no
CookieS to be had. There should have been no S at the end of that offer. If I'd asked him to spell it, dessert probably would have been a choice of
Ice Cream and Cookie's. I suppose I could have asked him "Cookie's what?" to amuse myself but I hate people who say crap like that.
I next found myself arguing that foregoing ice-cream was a fair exchange for an additional cookie instead of pointing out their false advertising that Cookie
S were coming our way. I didn't even have the dinner dammit! All I wanted were the bloody cookies. I mean what kind of bucket shop is Air Canada running if business class passengers have to barter for their snacks?
I should have been on notice that this was a no frills J-class when the stewardess came around at the beginning of the flight - not with hot steaming face cloths as on Singapore Airlines - but with a small packaged moist towlette.
Fortunately, the passenger next to me was full and offered her share of the ship's biscuit booty to me which brought the embarassing scene to a close. I think she was feeling charitable because from what I gathered from her work on her laptop, she'd just broken up with her boyfriend and was generally miserable.
I find it interesting that the most expensive airlines, like Virgin and SIA, have avoided the financial difficulties of their cheaper competitors. It seems that people are willing to pay for service if you're able to provide it. Otherwise you're just another flying K-mart.
Labels: travel
I'm on the last day of a two week trip to North America.
It started with a week in New York where I had some meetings for work. Manhattan was a crazy place to be last week with Bush in town staying around the corner from me at the Waldorf. There were about 20 cops per city block and dozens of secret service camped out at my hotel (The Palace).
After that it was 4 days in Ottawa - pretty, quiet, cool, relaxing. I did the full tourist package as I had some friends with me who wanted the whole 9 yards.
Now it's 3 days in TO then I'm back to SGP. I'm presently camped out in a part of town where dirty clothes and face piercing are popular. KT is behind me at this internet cafe and we're both rather stuffed on veggie burgars and Juice For Life pick me ups.
She's 4 1/2 months pregnant now and will find out the sex of the baby next week. Life has been pretty tough for her lately and with the preganancy hormones to leverage the experience, she seems to be doing better than you'd expect. I kinda feel like it's the last time I'm gonna hang out with her... in a way. Soon she'll be getting her new-mother lobotomy and it tends to take several years for a new brain to grow back after that. It will be fun to have a niece though... well a niece is expected on account of the fact that KC, dad to be, dreamt about her just before KT found out she was preggers.
A girl is better in a lot of ways but mainly because she won't have to be called Kenneth C Bateman the 4th...
Labels: travel
