Ok, the original posting got eaten up when the router decided to have a horrid mind of its own and hence I initially attributed the problem to the iPod and ended up restoring it and ZHAMM! The e-mail was gone - before it even got a wifi signal to send it out, so here I am re-typing most of what was left of the incomplete post on the way back. And great news - the replacement gear cassette won't be in till 2-3 months later, may Providence blesseth thee with good fortune to pass the driving test! It's more of a desperate cause here unless suffering from major heart burns due to an erratically unpredictable bus service is commendable in some weird upward society.
Having the last driving lesson today (hopefully) meant another quarter hour or so spent at the bus stop once more waiting for an erratically unpredictable bus service. This time, it involved a bunch of primary school boys and their soccer/football dealings. It started off as a who's better contest and involved bouts of 'lousy' being spouted around without and conclusively concrete backing evidence as to whose skill is better. Seriously it's like watching the a miniaturised quarrel going in - cut down to the chase with just either side putting down the other. They get tired, gives up and then boy who has cable TV takes over - he preaches about the Manchester United match last night which ended in a 1-1 draw against who, I don't know. Then Rooney was stretchered out and Christiano had to get out due to an ankle injury and that was really all I could catch of the conversation since his speech was rather sketchy. It's like shouting, "Friends, Romans, Countryman, Lend me your Beers," while the other boys could not really be bothered with his preaching.
Finally the bus came and leaving me thinking that kids these days - yeah, I mean kids, the products of mass media and marketing bombardment are very much high potential potheads going to the lottery counter placing bets after the initial teenage idiosyncrasy goes away. I got stopped in the bus because the driver thought I was a cheat abusing a concession card. How nice. It really makes me wonder why I'm still using a concession card for students and how literal bus stop can get.
The trip back started off with Tegan & Sara's Floor and then two women talking about the sad state of affairs in today's corporate world - the lack of human empathy and relations in the working environment. Woman A is currently a worker at a sandwich bar and Woman B is a friend of hers whom they met along the way on the journey. While Woman A was trying to convince Woman B to take up a job offer at her sandwich bar, day-to-day job details pop up along the way. Transcripted into (there is no such word as 'transcripted' just for the record) a more concise and readable form, she details how the different batches of colleagues differ through every cycle of crew changes. The original and first when she started her job were easygoing people and could along with them well starting off with a group breakfast and morning coffee itinerary for the day. The subsequent ones led to the collapse of such a practise as cut-throat practices became increasingly rampant. Disappointed at the collapse of moral society/peaceful utopia, she continues the morning practice albeit alone and possible only if she was the earliest at work so as not run into the others. Remarks were also made about the influx of foreign workers and descriptors include 'three-headed snakes'. Resignation was not quite an option as whiling time away with fours walls and a ceiling (and a floor) with little or no human contact due to a working household meant that it would only be a matter of time before delirium and disease sets in. Woman A however consoles herself that the job has its perks like getting rid of the boredom and lonesome home environment on weekday afternoons alongside the love of what she does and serving regulars. At this point in time, I got to alight and Gandara by Godiego unwittingly starts playing in my head as I left the bus.
As promised a picture to lighten things up, the eclectic mix of items shown under the warm evening sun are new curtains that looks dated as if pristine from the 60s and a matching Olivetti Studio 46 of that same time period, Rotring boxed cartridges whose design hasn't changed circa 1970 and a Matchbox Jaguar XK 2006. Despite being weird a random juxtaposition of items, it brings to mind where have all the good stuff from the past gone to? So many of them abandoned (I'm assigning say a few articles to each person) in the namesake of modernity? It does seem very much to be a farce of some sort. 
Here's a link to a live performance of Gandhara by Godiego in more recent times. Godiego is a band from the 70s - surprising modern sounding music for their time.
It's raining now at this point of rewriting. This is really a bad attempt at preserving the tradition of stating the kind of weather before every diary entry.
So I had a haircut this morning and the contents of the conversation between a barber and a few of his regulars was kinda of humorous despite the influx of Hokkien vulgarities from time to time. For dinner last night, Mr. Barber A and Mr. Barber B went to a Chinese restaurant and ended up returning home with a sort throat due to the way the food was being prepared - from the fish to prawn rolls, a total of 5 dishes were all deep fried. Some weird restaurant huh? Of course, while repeating the story to the next coming patron, there was always mention of speculation over whether Singapore would take the Silver or Gold medal for the table tennis event.
It's raining now - a welcomed change instead of gruellingly hot Sunday afternoons and perfect for listening to Camera Obscura songs while the sky has turned grey. In another part of the brain, I'm fantasising how nice it would be to read my books at the bookshop with Do You Dream At All by TIlly and the Wall playing in the ground right now. That's all I for today. Once again, it's maths test on Monday and hopefully the last driving lesson tomorrow.
I don't know why my hands started trembling yesterday when I did the small job of adding the Marseille taxi sign to to the Civic on photoshop. If it is a psychological thing (meaning denial of access or feedback due to unhappy memories associated with adobe apps), I hope that by typing about it here would help curb it once and for all. It is almost impossible for my hands to be feeling uncomfortable with the kind of hardware I'm using, unless green tea triggers an allergenic reaction of some sort (I had a total of 4 cups in a row) which has already become common practice. I shall make it a point to maintain the unspoken rule on this blog that unless a post has been tagged with 'Let's Suppose' or 'One Liner', there should be a picture somewhere to make things less boring for you, the Reader and me.
First spotted on the Things Magazine periodical links compilation, the caption for it was, 'and people don't make car brochures like this anymore'. It seems so fun, bursting with colour and kiddish looking that I might just go into a psychedelic seizure. I remember it being a much more positive experience when I first saw it. 110 stands for the horsepower of the car which is somewhat mediocre by today's standard for a 1600cc SOHC produces 120-30 bhp at 6000-ish rpm but the 1000cc twin rotor Cosmos 110s requires 7000-ish rpm for 110bhp.