new hotmail

the new hotmail interface just happened a few minutes ago. following on from yahoo mail beta i bet.

sitting up straight - bad for back

the next time some elderly statesmen or those head-mistress types tell you to sit up straight, hit them over the head with a very big dead fish. preferably rotting.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/6187080.stm

a big disease with a little name

in the early eighties, doctors in america started noticing a group of patients who presented with a lung infection which was hitherto very rare. further research proved that in order for the infection to take place the individual's immune system must be paralyzed and the cause for this was a tiny microbe in the family of viruses called retrovirus. to give this renegade member a specific name they called it Human Immunodeficeincy Virus (HIV), retrovirus being the family name. what the patients were suffering from would be called Acquired ImmunoDeficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

as with any new disease, the race was on for the cure. unfortunately for all involved a cure was not forthcoming and the drugs were only able to control the disease. to add salt to the wound these drugs were the bitterest pills to swallow in the sense that they had a lot of unwanted immediate and longterm side effects. worse of all they had to be taken in combination. so on an average patients will have to swallow any where between 8-17 pills and capsules in a day. this form of therapy is lifelong and any mistake in dosing and timing may have future implications on the viability of the regiment. all in all an insurmountable task but one which has got to be adhered to nonetheless for the sake of survival.

for those who are able to stick to the therapy (now encumbered with the term 'Highly Active Antiretroviral Therapy' or HAART for short), hope of a good quality of life free of symptoms is a reality. many studies have proven this beyond a shadow of a doubt. on the other hand, a sobering fact to consider is that any one individual must be at least 95% adherent to his/her HAART in a month in order to have any impact on his/her health status. doing the math so that you don't have to, this person can only afford to miss 1 and a half days of his/her drugs in a month. this effect is most likely cumulative. say he/she misses the drugs for 1 and a half days this month, if the same thing is repeated the following month the chances for the drugs not to work goes up exponentially. this is due to the fact that the virus is highly malleable in its genetic makeup. once there is insufficient drug swimming in the patient's blood stream, it forms resistance to said drug and this change in its genes is persistent. there will come a time when despite taking the drug, the virus will thrive and the patient begins to slide down the slippery slope to a world of pain, suffering and ultimately death.

as if that is not enough, many people living with hiv/aids are subjected to ridicule and social stigmatization. i know of people who have been disowned by their own family just because of the disease. people have been ostracized and made to live in a separate room or house on their own. certain societies want nothing to do with them. they become living ghosts. in this day and age of IT and the information super highway, the stubborn ignorance exhibited by a lot of people is loathsome. just remember, if you stigmatize a hiv positive person you are just exposing your own stupidity.

tomorrow is world AIDS day. get over to the UNAIDS website and load up on information about this potentially deadly disease. and for all of humanity's sake don't be stupid!

the link between microsoft and medieval times

the word 'trebuchet' refers to a giant catapult used in medieval times to decimate one's enemies during wars.
perhaps more familiar to people nowadays, it is also the name of a font popular in today's computer operating systems. the next time you open up microsoft word just run down the list of fonts and you will see it there. for the life of me i do not see the relationship but one vincent connare saw fit to name his font design after an ancient war machine. go figure!

a novel way to commit suicide

in 'million dollar baby' hilary swank's character bit her own tongue in a bid to commit suicide. my initial reaction was one of deep repulsion and horror. but when i analyzed the circumstances it made perfect sense. here she is hooked up to a life support machine and paralsyed from the neck down. she has come to realise that she has had her one big shot at life. with the help of her trainer she has risen above and beyond, via boxing, her dead end life and a family who thinks nothing of her. she has had that one precious chance to do what few others have done and what many will never get to do.

seeing that her request for her trainer (an aging clint eastwood) to help her pull the plug is tearing the latter apart, she decides to take matters into her own hands. losing the use of her limbs and neck muscles severely limits the options for self harm. the only thing she can do above her neck is chomp down on her tongue and hope that she bleeds to death.

as an experiment i just tried applying gentle pressure on my tongue using my two rows of teeth and i must report that it is quite easy to do. of course you will have to possess the guts to endure the ensuing excruciating pain but i guess there are worse things in life eg lying in bed absolutely paralyzed except for movements of the eyes.

my left foot

this is my second day of being stranded at home. two mornings ago i woke up to find a throbbing pain in my left foot but i steeled myself and went to work anyway, thinking that it would go away. at the end of the day my foot had swollen up like an over ripe mango and could not bear weight at all without generating a crippling pain. matters got worse after a good night's rest. my foot is now red and more swollen. went to the doctors today and they did an xray and an ultrasound of my foot. no fractures but the soft tissue was all swollen compared to the other foot. was given a course of antibiotics and some anti-inflammatory medications.

at home i have started using my dad's walking cane that he had refused to use out of embarrassment. gosh even my 69 year old dad looks steadier than me! i am going stir-crazy at home. i must have gone through like 10 sudoku puzzles today. maybe today i will finish kiran desai's 'the inheritance of loss'. lately i have left a lot of books unfinished but this one i am determined to complete. its a challenge for me (no disrespect to ms. desai who writes beautifully by the way).

all families are psychotic

something cropped up today during one of those inconsequential-along-the-corridor kind of conversations. i bumped into a colleague at work today and started indulging in minor chit-chat. somehow the talk brought to light the fact that he is single and living on his own in an apartment. my first reaction to this was 'you mean you don't stay with your parents?', an incredulous look smeared across my face.

thinking about this on the drive home reminded me of my previous post on chinese heritage. i used to be a big fan of a tv series based on the shenanigans in and out of courtroom of a group of idealistic and too-smart-to-be-true lawyers. in one episode a man was put on the stand for some heinous murder and his whole conviction hung on the fact that he was more than 30 and still staying with his mother. that in the eyes of the american justice system was tantamount to a full blown confession from a sick and twisted mind.

spin to the other half of the globe and leaving the homestead is tantamount to a sick and twisted mind. it is fascinating to see the vast dichotomy in cultural norms from one part of the planet to the other. i am quite sure that a lot of people in our part of the woods do actually leave home but i would argue that they are in the minority. on the other hand american teens are often forcefully encouraged to strike out on their own in the name of self-realisation and individualistic freedom. the emphasis is on the self as opposed to the collective in their oriental brethren.

it is of course not my place to comment on which is better but both do have their advantages and disadvantages. imagine an old couple sitting in an old and crumbling house where the only sound is the constant drip of the leaky faucet in the kitchen. its been too long since they heard from their children who are too busy to make phonecalls except for the perfunctory christmas and birthday variety.

asians are no better. in a bid to keep the family together, the parents invite their son and his blushing bride to stay in their home. after the initial months of manufactured niceties, the whole concept collapses onto itself with the mother and daughter-in-law ready to poke each other's eyes out with chopsticks. meanwhile the son is nearing a meltdown, worried that he may offend either parties.

these are just 2 examples of a myriad of possible scenarios. either way the inescapable truth is that we all are trying to find our way out of this dilemma called life. along the way we sought out companionship (friends, lovers) or in most instances have it shoved down our throats (family, colleagues). either way we are in for the long haul and the best we can do is to roll with the punches.

summary

this to date is my 51st post. looking over all the entries for the past few days brought back some painful memories and some pleasant reveries. dog dies, major failure in life and the subsequent redemption, an upswing in fortune, introspection, cynical look at my own heritage, affair with linux, televisual excitement, cinematic maverick, aimless walks down dead end streets and convolutions of the mind. its all there.

journeyman

finally back from all my traveling. it has been a hectic last few days but at the same time quite enjoyable. when i arrived in kota kinabalu a few nights ago i was pleasantly surprised by the hotel that my sponsors have booked me into. a spacious room decorated sensibly and a queen size bed for my weary head. best of all, free internet!

the meeting venue, university sabah malaysia, was beautiful with a view of mount kinabalu on one side and the wide expanse of the south china sea on the other. the downside was that the air-conditioning in the meeting hall had a mind of its own and kept shutting off leaving us sweltering in the tropical heat. they only got it right on the last day of the conference.

what really bugged me (as it always does) is the waiting in the airports. hours and hours spent sitting around for something to happen. in airports we are always hoping that we are some place else. always on the cusp of leaving the present physical plane and hoping that the next place will be better. and of course it never is. more waiting in the next airport and the cycle continues. please, i beg you! someone invent teleportation!

wind beneath my nose

i was attending a conference today and during one of the lectures the guy in front of me decided to visit us with a gastronomical effluence. in the quiet of the hall a small poop floated up from under my nose. thank god it was a relatively odorless one. he actually shifted his entire body to one side in order to facilitate the passage of said exhaust from his a**hole. i glanced at my colleague sitting by my side to see if she had caught on but true to form she was the picture of perfect composure. no hint whatsoever that she had noticed the social travesty that had just occurred before her. to her i salute and to the perpetrator i say this, "put a cork in it!"

sunset

the sun setting over the south china sea. taken in kota kinabalu, sabah, malaysia

gold diggers unite!

why is it that as we move on in life and begin to see an upswing in our bank accounts there are always those who are out to peck at it? is this redistribution of wealth? some sort of Darwinian law that all humankind endures?

just received a pay rise and already my insurance guy have started harassing me about taking out another policy to match my income bracket. then steve jobs have been on my case telling me to get that new 24 " apple imac that i have been eyeing for the longest time. my isp has been emailing me about their new fangled plan which is suppose to save you a bundle but instead sounds like a ploy to fill their own coffers. there is just no winning in this world.

the pixies

first off; whats with the name? i mean the pixies? isn't that like some kind of fairy? if i am going to make that kind of music i wouldn't even dream about it. after a few spins of their albums though it makes perfect sense. after all joey santiago had the same reservations until he found out that pixies were actually evil and mischevious in their own way. after getting over the hangup of their choosen moniker, there remains the music.

i first heard the pixies in a british made documentary about music in the mid-80's following the demise of the widely appreciated demigods, the smiths. in it were mention of bands like the fall, the stone roses, throwing muses and of course a certain mr. charles thompson and his fellow bostonians. there was a small snippet of the band's no-budget video for 'here comes your man'. it was funny as hell seeing the band subverting the whole concept of lip-syncing by keeping their mouths wide open throughout the whole video while playing their respective instruments. the song just got lodged into my brain and refused to leave. after a few years i manage to get hold of a copy of 'doolittle' but during the intervening time i had also armed myself with the history of the band from various magazines. i played the cd but had to skip immediately to 'here comes your man' because i just couldn't get my head around the racket that was coming out of the speakers. on initial impact i was stunned. there was nothing to grasp on to. guitar chords just tumbled and tripped over each other and the screeching! what the hell! there was nothing like 'here comes the man' elsewhere on the album! i was literally thrown out to sea during a force ten gale.

for the next few days i was annoyed at myself for having wasted hard earned cash on a lemon. what were these people talking about? these guys are awful! with my tail between my legs i clung stubbornly to the one and only track i could listen to putting it endlessly on repeat. this went on for a while until one lazy sunday afternoon when i decided that enough was enough. i will spin the entire cd for once. my life changed that afternoon. once i was inducted into the secret society of the pixies there was no turning back. everything else just sounded so dated following 'doolittle'. nothing came close. absolutely no one was worthy of licking the sweat off the back of frank black's neck.

since their acrimonious breakup, there is a void that nobody has managed to fill. they are a one off in the annals of popular music. when they reunited briefly in 2004 their shows sold out in seconds. the diehard fans came out in droves but surprisingly there were also those who could not have been more than ten when they ran rings around the competition. rumor of an album of new material abounds but this has yet to materialise. until then we wait with bated breath.

atm

The design of the atm machine is actually very smart. You slot in your card and punch in the pin number. Once approved the card must be removed first before you see any money. This is to ensure that you do not forget your atm card which can make you extremely poor, someone else very rich and pose a problem for the bank in question. The money is not so important here but the continuous means to obtain it.

whats in a name?

the woman's name is zhang ziyi and not ziyi zhang. the english speaking world has this patronising habit of switching around the names of people who are not born in the so called western part of the world.

are we being homogenised by these people? how would they like it if we call them pitt brad, connery sean or bush george?

the dimunitive american

i met for the very first time the smallest american adult yesterday. for fear of being sued, i am unable to put a photo of him up here, you just have to trust me. most of the americans that i have come across either in real life or in the media are big and tall. most are overweight and overbearing. nothing prepared me for this guy who is at best 5 feet 2 inches. he does have a roly poly look but that does not take away the compactness of his physique. due to the length of his legs he moves in small but energetic steps. i was very tempted to ask him to remove his shoes to see if he has hairy legs ala the hobbits but refrained myself in the name of social grace. i am sure he is a nice guy but his stature is remarkable at least from my viewpoint. will wonders never cease?

How NOT to give a keynote address.

Good eva-ning ladies and gentlemen, blah blah blah………..blah…. co-co-dial farm blah blah…….hysterical city.


This actually is an excerpt from a speech I heard given by a prominent member of parliament of a city which I will not name. co-co-dial actually means crocodile and what he was driving at with regards to mass hysteria in the city was historical. Cruel humour I know but I can’t help myself! This man is hysterical!

big spender

why do some people lie about how much they have spent? does it come from some misguided sense of modesty? are they being overcautious and not wishing to advertise the fact that they have money to burn in case a would be kidnapper spirits them away in the night hoping for ransom? maybe it is so as not to insult the other person who is obviously just keeping his head above the poverty line.

at a conference i ran into an old college mate. after the obligatory exchange of inconsequential pleasantries he mentioned that his company had sponsored one of the foreign speakers. this was said very quickly and in retrospect he probably regretted saying it at all. we parted ways and the next day i spotted him again at the back of the hall. i asked him if the speaker on the podium now was the one he had sponsored. he said no. i did not push further and thought that maybe i have misheard. this was not so as a few minutes later into our conversation, he asked my opinion of the said speaker. i then asked him again if he had brought the man over and this time he said yes. what the hell?! all in the space of a few minutes. i excused myself and walked away. he has totally lost my vote of confidence this time.

the price of bringing this speaker over to another country is obviously considerable but i do not see how the lying helps. i am not in competition with this man from a monetary point of view and i have nothing to gain or lose by my knowledge of this 'high profile' investment. anyways the machination of the business world has always baffled me and this only proves my case.

the story so far

everyone has a story. we are all walking novels. life is a series of events like a string of pearls. each pearl is a chapter and the string is the printed pages. some people may remember a movie way back in 1988 called 'working girl' in which melanie griffith earned an oscar nomination for her role as a lowly office worker who has a bright marketing idea only to have it stolen by her boss. there is one scene in the beginning that is the spark for this entry.

the story starts in a pre-9/11 new york city and it is the a bustling business day. you get a bird's eye-view of throngs of people hurrying to work in the proverbial concrete jungle. the camera floats above momentarily and then swoops down and picks up the main character. at any one time you can pick a face out of the crowd and open up a brand new book. i don't know that's what the makers of the flick wanted to convey but thats what i got and for some reason thats what stuck with me all these years. the rest of movie i can't really remember.

however mundane you may think your life is, to someone looking in, it may be one great epic novel. this and the entries preceding it reflects my life. hopefully someday someone may feel that he/she has been entertained responsibly by my blog.

in a city where the streets have no name

went to bed with a splitting headache last night at 9pm due to the previous night's lack of sleep. wide awake now when the rest of the world sleeps. sitting at the desk of my cold and impersonal hotel room. internet access is at a premium but what the heck. cheaper than the place i was at last night which boasts free wifi but where you are obligated to buy an overpriced drink to validate the reason for you sitting there in the first place.

attending a conference which is work-related. will be travelling to another city after this and then back home on the evening of sunday. on thursday i am again flying out of town for a meeting. travelling so much is tiring. more so than actual working days. the constant waiting at airports. the queues, the wailing babies, women chattering incessantly during the flight. more waiting, the endless cups of coffee which can't be good for me, the social code of inane greetings between people that you hardly know and people that you would be better off not knowing. its just exhausting. the only hope is that you run into someone whom you genuinely like and can relate to, who can share in your dismay at being in the present situation.

real time - an experiment

I have been sitting in this gourmet coffee retail outlet for the past one hour and have to admit that I have been eavesdropping. I can't help it. They are speaking really loud. A group of yuppies (its been along while since I have used that word) discussing market strategies and various business models. The bottom line : how to make money with the minimum breaking of sweat. One young man started to brag about how much moolah he makes doing direct sales. The others listen with fake attentiveness. The woman besides him try to cover the fact that she yawned.

The owner of the place saw fit to place an old clock on the wall hoping to give the joint a classy and authentic feel. The poor thing is being stifled by the ikea-styled furniture. Instead it looks like a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. A doughy looking woman saunters in and practical drapes herself across the cash counter. Putting on a painfully fake American accent she proceeds to um and ah her way through the ordering of a cup of coffee. She is obviously in love with the way she speaks. She flirts with the young and good looking guy manning the cash machine. He plays along recommending various condiments to accentuate her cup of coffee. she finally settles down at a table and stares into space.

The clock goes tick tock. Soft and easy listening provides a soundtrack to the whole scene. By this time the cold chocolate drink has chilled me to the bones. It has also left stains on my pants when I had absent-mindedly wiped my fingers on it. bathed in the alien glow of my ibook i type this.

useless factoid

of all places, i read this in an inflight magazine. not exactly a bastion of literature and knowledge but good enough for me.

ALMOST happens to be the longest, commonly used word in English where all the the alphabets are ..........well in alphabetical order.

this will not change anyone's life in any way but that's not what we are here for are we?

social conditioning 101

from the moment of birth, we are all subjected to various forms of social conditioning. a name is chosen and this is seared into our consciousness in the hope that at the very least we can be distinguished from the constant stream of humanity flowing out from vaginal passages all over the world (i feel sorry for all the people who carry the same name). as we begin to grasp at the faculty of speech, we are conditioned to speak our parents' tongue. we are dressed in a certain way and we listen to music that our elders play around the house.

in school we are told that certain things are important in life and that we should learn it well. we are also told that certain actions and words are good and some bad. we are told that some people are good and we should emulate them and some whom we must drive a stake through eg. hitler. in our teenage years we are informed by friends that we should look and dress a certain way and never to look like our parents. there are things that older people might frown on but will make you feel good.

the media will tell you that slim and young is socially acceptable while fat and old will not cut it. they will decide for you what is hot and what is not, what is beauty and what is butt-ugly. all this is the name of preservation of the human race, for the greater good. in order to survive as a species we have to follow certain pre-ordained standards. these standards have been in place since human history however they are highly malleable and change with time. remember when flares were in? nowadays it is retro and even slightly ridiculous. our perception also changes with the right amount of social conditioning.

i often imagine a man sitting on top of a snow capped mountain somewhere whose job it is to decide what the social norms should be during any given period of time. 'this year the rape-victim look will be the bee's knees!' he proclaims in a loud booming voice. minutes later young girls are seen parading the streets of some anonymous metropolitan city looking as if they have just escaped the grubby hands of some would be sexual deviant. concerned you run to them and inquire of their well being only to be thought of as a sexual deviant yourself. 'i saw this is in [-insert name of some trendy fashion magazine-]. its in,' she explains all the time staring at you with hands wrapped protectively around her ample bosoms. 'don't you read?' she asks with a pitying stare. with burning ears you hang your head and walk away.

where the performer is demystified

ok, ian curtis while fronting post-punk mancunian legends joy division hung himself in a fit of existential rage and despondency. in a stroke of wanton wastefulness his fate and that of his band was sealed. ironically his band attained a level of mysticism that they would never have dreamed of in a thousand lifetimes if he had towed the party line and gone over to america to conquer the college circuits.

combining the mannered monotony of curtis' vocal stylings and the bloodless throb of the rhythm section, they carved beautiful things out of great big slabs of darkness. sucked dry of american influences, they offered a tantalizing vision of a cold and grey european cityscape, sexy to the extreme despite of its minimalistic and grainy veneer. would they have been any less relevant if curtis had lived out a ripe old age of embarrassing world tours and liaisons with underage groupies?

here lies the question of whether the external packaging and baggage of a band can be separated from the actual creative output. i used to think that it can, but as age catches up with me and cynicism attains adulthood within, i begin to doubt it. perhaps it is the current atmosphere of the music industry (there i have said it) of quick cash-in and staged fame-chasing that has soured it for me. would the teeny-boppers buy justin timberlake's latest album if he wore a brown paper bag over his head? you are only as good as you look.

even taking on the role of an outsider, which joy division exemplified, is just that; a role. no one can truly be who they are when put on a stage under the sweltering heat of the limelight. the reason why someone gets on to a stage is to try to raise himself above everybody else, to break out from the everyday. look i am better than you! what matters is what they do with their time. and of course how they look.

wong kar wai weekend fest

revisited 2 wong kar wai's movies this weekend. first up 'days of being wild' and later '2046'. for people who do not know, 'in the mood for love' completes the trilogy. the first one stars the late leslie cheung who plays a sociopath whose serial affairs hides a desperately lonely and nihilistic individual. his dalliance with a nightclub performer is the common thread that runs through the 2 movies. after leaving her to find his fortunes in the Philippines, she moves restlessly from one relationship to another looking for someone to replace her former lover.

she appears again in '2046' a few years after his departure and eventual demise at the hands of gangsters in the Philippines. she bumps into another man who claims to know her in the past. she drinks herself into a stupor in the night and is murdered by a jealous boyfriend who finds out that she has been cheating on him. the story then shifts to the man from her past who resembles leslie's character from the first movie albeit more compassionate and humane towards his conquests. he is a columnist who has fallen on hard times and now etches out a living writing erotica for the local newspaper. in between affairs he decides to try his hand at a sci-fi tale of people returning on a futuristic train from a place called '2046'. the train is manned by androids who resemble the people he interacts with in real life as well as women he has slept with.

the movie is peppered with references to his past movies and certain scenes even rehashes signature music from his previous outings. for instance there are 3 women sharing the same name in each of the movies in the above mentioned trilogy. the story lines are intentionally non-linear and intersect each other at crucial moments. a character who has died may turn up again at a later part of the movie throwing the audience a curve ball that they may not recover from. it is strictly make or break and some may be forgiven for scoffing at the movie and losing patience.

the only consistency is the breathtakingly beautiful cinematography and mood shots which says much more than what the script can. characters are often reflected on broken and dirtied mirrors. on many occasions half the screen is occupied by a blank wall and the remaining by the protagonists. the detailed settings, furnitures and ornaments are actors in their own right bringing to life a hong kong in the late '60s. the camera has a tendency to linger on a wordless actor's face for prolonged periods of time perhaps hoping to squeeze the humanity out of them. lighting is saturated and shadows are used for dramatic effect. believe me when i say that nothing will prepare you for a wong kar wai movie. in a world of big budget production trying to outdo each other with the number of explosions, car chases and mangled bodies, wong is a true maverick. putting list A asian actors and actresses into art house movies is his way of gently sabotaging the movie industry from within. he might not be a box office draw but his movies will stand the test of time and the fickleness of the human mind. he is truly an asian master and the world is richer for it.

from the backpages of robert zimmerman

The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face
from 'Visions of Johanna' by Bob Dylan

in my opinion this has got to be one of the best sentences ever thought up by man. it is unique, timeless and self-sufficiently meaningless. besides conveying meaning in the interest of communication, ingenious use of words can transcend meaning and evoke an image in the mind of otherworldly beauty. something that hints at an alternative and hopefully better world, tantalizing only because it is unachievable.

electricity is something that we cannot see but holds great sway over us. it creates and can destroy. what is the first thing that comes to mind with the word 'ghost'? fear. this lends a menacing undertone to the line. this woman must be undoubtedly stunning to look at and at the same time holds a fearsome power over the author. she possesses an ironclad will and an indomitable spirit which she flaunts with great aplomb. she is beauty and power personified.

mojave

about 7 years ago i found myself thousands of miles away from home looking out across the wide expanse of the mojave desert. every where i looked there was just sand, rocks, desert fauna and sky. i realised then that it was the very first time i have seen such a wide open space without a single man made structure in sight.

for the most part of my life i have lived on an island and during my student days in a cosmopolitan city. nothing in my past experience had prepared me for the physical sense of space that i was swimming in. travelling in a bus a few hours later, i suddenly noticed that there were actually people making their homes amidst the barren landscape. dotted across the sands were little wooden structures with largely redundant fences marking out imaginary boundaries. i imagine territories are pretty much a vague concept around these parts although looking at the maps available i realise that 4 states actually saw fit to mark their borders across this hostile but beautiful land.

i wonder how it would be to get lost in this arid land without hope of getting to civilisation. would it be the perfect end?

wingdings hoax

as a follow up to my last entry, i did some research on the net and found out that the last bit of the email is probably not accurate as the two planes that smashed into the twin towers bore the flight numbers 11 ( N334AA) and 175 ( N612UA) respectively. there was never any flight Q33NY which came remotely close to crashing into anything. the desired effect in wingdings for this fictitious number is

this article on wingdings prophecies has the details.

planned?

just got this in my mailbox. an interesting coincidence or are we seeing part of a divine plan?

Read to the bottom. Try it out. I did. I got goose bumps.
IF YOU'RE A CRITICAL PERSON STILL READ ON AS IT'S ACTUALLY VERY INTERESTING! !
This is actually really freaky!! (mainly the end part, but read it all first)

1) New York City has 11 letters
2) Afghanistan has 11 letters.
3) Ramsin Yuseb (The terrorist who threatened to destroy the Twin Towers in 1993) has 11 letters.
4) George W Bush has 11 letters.

This could be a mere coincidence, but this gets more interesting:

1) New York is the 11th state.
2) The first plane crashing against the Twin Towers was flight number 11.
3) Flight 11 was carrying 92 passengers. 9 + 2 = 11
4) Flight 77 which also hit Twin Towers , was carrying 65 passengers. 6+5 = 11
5) The tragedy was on September 11, or 9/11 as it is now known. 9 + 1+ 1 =11
6) The date is equal to the US emergency services telephone number 911. 9 +1 + 1 = 11

Sheer coincidence. .?! Read on and make up your own mind:

1) The total number of victims inside all the hi-jacked planes was 254. 2 +5 + 4 = 11.
2) September 11 is day number 254 of the calendar year. Again 2 + 5 + 4 =11.
3) The Madridbombing took place on 3/11/2004 . 3 + 1 + 1 + 2 + 4 = 11.
4) The tragedy of Madrid happened 911 days after the Twin Towers incident.

Now this is where things get totally eerie: The most recognized symbol for the US , after the Stars & Stripes, is the Eagle. The following verse is taken from the Quran, the Islamic holy book: "For it is written that a son of Arabia would awaken a fearsome Eagle. The wrath of the Eagle would be felt throughout the lands of Allah while some of the people trembled in despair still more rejoiced: for the wrath of the Eagle cleansed the lands of Allah and there was peace." That verse is number 9.11 of the Quran. unconvinced about all of this Still ..?! Try this and see how you feel afterwards, it made my hair stand on end:

Open Microsoft Word and do the following:
1. Type in capitals Q33 NY. This is the flight number of the first plane to hit one of the Twin Towers .
2. Highlight the Q33 NY.
3. Change the font size to 48.
4. Change the actual font to the WINGDINGS


NOW WHAT DO YOU THINK…………

shatterday

years ago i watched an episode of the 1985 reincarnation of 'the twilight zone' which told of a man (played by a young bruce willis) who accidentally calls his own home number by mistake but then finds another version of himself picking up the phone. i still can remember the title as if it was yesterday - SHATTERDAY

the episode actually counts down to the final day of the title starting from someday, duesday, woundsday, freeday and shatterday. each day sees the alternative version of the guy going about righting the wrongs that the other half have committed in his lifetime and on shatterday the original protagonist disappears and we are left with the much improved alter ego.

if only we could renew ourselves this way. like a snake moulting to accomodate growth and maturation. rewriting all the wrong decisions that we have made thus far. changing lives for the better as we go along.

hypochondriasis is a 15 letter word

Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary
Main Entry: hypochondriac
Function: noun
: an individual affected with hypochondria or hypochondriasis - a person can be said to be a hypochondriac when his or her preoccupation with health or disease is so intense that it disrupts normal living habits —People

Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.

i know someone who can be best described as a hypochondriac. living a privileged life off the fat of his family's enormous fortune, he has never put in an honest day's work. the quest for self-improvement via financial gains has never figured in his earthly existence. lacking this focus, his mind naturally wanders and for the past few years he has been beguiling doctors all over town with a series of vague, ill-defined bodily annoyances which he terms 'big problems' . he never seems to be in too much of distress and yet he talks about nothing else. he has had recurrent throat infections for which he has been treated with an avalanche of antibiotics. he admitted that he has sent his phlegm in for microscopic examinations at least 50 times and each time they find some innocuous micro-organism, he will be duly prescribed antibiotics. he swallows these religiously but every few months his symptoms will recur and the cycle repeats itself.

he has a long history of mysterious chest symptoms for which he has undergone numerous threadmill tests. not surprisingly the tests have amounted to squat except to line the pocket of the attending doctor. to his credit someone did finally find some kidney stones and he went for a procedure to get rid of them. at the end of the treatment he collected tiny fragments the stones in his urine and demanded that the doctor run tests to see what minerals the stones were made out of! he is convinced that this piece of information will unlock the secrets of the universe and hence it is as significant as the holy grail.

god knows that i have tried to feel sorry for him but this is usually replaced in a split second by mirth and a keen sense of the ridiculous. if via some divine intervention he happens to read this, here is my advice : don't be so preoccupied with dying that you forget to live! (i actually read this quote from an old copy of reader's digest - oh the shame!).