"We Went Before We Came..."

Things to remember before we ever go for a medical checkup again - there's a urine test involved, and we've to fast for at least 8 hours since dinner the night before. Fasting was fine, since when we called up the hospital to enquire they reminded us. But not the urine test bit.

Firstly urine tests depresses us somewhat, why, no idea. But we're not really happy with it even though it be necessary. Talk about performing under pressure. The only good side to it is that guys have it easier than girls. We wonders how the guys manage in sperm banks, though.

Next, we went for the checkup first thing in the morning after the necessary ablutions, so that we could proceed to the topic of food ASAP. So of course the bladder is nice and empty until we made our first medical checkup stop: blood and urine tests. Wwhen suddenly passed the bottle by the technician, we'd to tell her, "We already voided before coming for the checkup."

She goes, "What?"

"We went before we came."

And after that sentence left our mouth we realized how wrong it sounded. It sounds better than if put the other way around, but still.

Good thing lab tech was rather innocent, or at least a very good actor and told us to take a drink and do it after all the other tests.

Blessed Christmas!

It's Complicated, These Heroes

Gawds. Am reading the rules to Heroes Of Might and Magic IV Collectable Card And Tile Game and I'm thinking - the mechanics don't seem to be worth the effort. As Richard Garfield puts it, there's too much busywork.

And I still don't like IV's gameplay.

Pen-tiful

This is the amount of pens we've picked up in our hospital days, and a few from the retail years that followed:

Those were the contents of 1 venti-sized Starbucks plastic cup. If we had stayed longer in the hospital line we probably would have had on average...2 venti-sized Starbucks plastic cups filled with pens per year. And our few favourite pens among the lot?

A bit obvious - must have cost Pfizer and MSD a fair bit more to have them made compared to the same old, same old. However, our longtime favourite Kytril pen is missing!!

O Fortuna

This, if we remembers well, was our first ever Latin choir song ever sung. First semester in university, for Friday Night - the choir team traditionally kickstarts the event with a song before any other performance.

When we heard it, then we recognized it. Once recognized then it was just a matter of remembering the lyrics. Which, given the time and practise we had, not much of a chance really.

Anyways. Bodycombat had some sort of version of it (Nick Skitz's "Excalibur"), but the lyrics didn't match. We couldn't find the songsheet for quite some time and thought we'd lost the songsheet, but stumbled upon it yesterday when we were looking for cardboard paper for wrapping purposes. So here it is:

O Fortuna

O Fortuna, velut Luna statu variabilis
semper crescis aut decrescis, vita detestabilis
nunc obdurat et tunc curat ludo mentis aciem,
egestatem, potestatem dissolvit ut glaciem.

Sors immanis et inanis, rota tu volubilis,
status malus, vana salus semper dissolubilis,
obumbrata et velata michi quoque niteris,
nunc per ludum dorsum nudum fero tui sceleris.

Sors salutis et virtutis michi nunc contraria
est affectus et defectus semper in angaria.
Hac in hora sine mora corde pulsum tangite,

quod per sortem sternit fortem, mecum omnes plangite!

Lazyman's Wrapping 104

When we've clothes to deal with and no boxes for easy wrapping, we've got to make do with what's available.

Requires:
Wrapping paper (Ikea ISIG wrapping paper was used)
Plastic bag
2-way tape

First, fold clothing nicely and place inside plastic bag - the ones normally supplied by the clothing boutiques are fairly good ones, retaining their shape without getting crumply. Once clothing is placed neatly inside, fold the bag so that there's no empty space.

Next, measure out enough paper to fold over twice width-wise. Leave about an inch on each side.

Use the 2-way tape to stick the edges. Now it can be used as a pillow until opening day.

Minute musings

How much does a person's taste in fashion or what the person wears tell you about that person's personality?

Miserere Mei Deus

Gregorio Allegri's famous piece (think Pachelbel's Canon). First time we heard it was on Civilization IV, although we've had a compilation CD that actually had a version of it much much earlier!

It's an a cappella piece with two choir teams singing with the tenor singing every alternate paragraph. What makes this piece rocks? You could check up Wikipedia for the full story. Highlights include how Mozart, at age 14, heard the piece once and later on transcribed it from memory; how this piece is some 10 minutes long (it could be longer); or that it's performed annually at the Sistine Chapel; or that it's played on Civilization IV (whoops, said that already).

However.

Civilization IV's version doesn't enthrall. "Wahhh!" factor is at 3 exclaimation marks, a good clean full version but unfortunately the parts (SSATB/SSAB) do not stand out in terms of clarity.

Another version we have, courtesy of a classical compilation called 'The Best Classical Album Of The Millennium...Ever!' (yes yes stop laughing already) featured a recording by the Choir of King's College, Cambridge, conducted by Stephen Cleobury. This one has a "Wahhh!" factor of 4 exclaimation marks (no half, half an exclaimation mark is what? A period?) as it is slightly slower, and the clarity is profound where you can make out each individual part. However, this version was cut short. Wikipedia states that the most famous recording is by the same choir but conducted by Sir David Willcocks. We'll listen out for it, hopefully it's the full version.

This is one piece we would definitely want to be part of, if given the chance.

Anyhoo, onwards to the Miserere. Translation? Loosely, read Psalm 51.

Miserere Mei, Deus.

Miserere mei, Deus,
secundum magnam misericordiam, misericordiam tuam

Et secundum multitudinem miserationum tuarum:
dele iniquitatem meum

Amplius lava me ab iniquitate mea:
et a peccato meo mundame.

Quoniam iniquitatem meam ego cognosco:
et peccatum meum contra me est semper

Tibi soli peccavi, et malum coram te feci
ut justificeris in sermonibus tuis, et vincas cum judicaris

Ecce enim in iniquitatibus conceptus sum:
et in peccatis concepit me mater mea

Ecce enim veritatem dilexisti:
incerta etocculta sapi entiae tua manifestasti mihi.

Asperges me hyssopo, et mundabor:
lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor

Auditui meo dabis gaudium et laetitiam:
et exsultabunt ossa humiliata

Averte faciem tuam a peccatis meis:

et omnes iniquitates meas dele.

Cormundum crea in me, Deus:
et spiritum rectum innova in visceribus meis.

Ne projicias me a facie tua:
et spiritum sanctum tuum ne auferas a me.

Redde mihi laetitium salutaris tui
et spiritu principali confirma me, confirma me.

Docebo iniquos vias tuas:
et impii ad te convertentur.

Libera me de sanguinibus, Deus, Deus salutis meae:
et exsultabit lingua mea justitiam tuam.

Domine, labia mea aperies:
et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam

Quoniam si voluisses sacrificium, dedissem utique:
holocaustis non delectaberis

Sacrificium Deo spiritus contribulatus:
cor contritum et humiliatum, Deus, non despicies.

Benigne fac, Domine, in bona voluntate tua Sion:
ut aedificentur muri Jerusalem

Tunc acceptabis sacraficium justitiae, oblationes, et holocausta:
tubc imponent super altaretuum vitulos.

Pictures in time...

Camwhoring never existed until blogging became popular. To be more precise, until places like Blogger made it easy not only to blog but to upload pics. After all, not everyone has the know-how to make their own webpage. Anyway, we've a whole boxful of nostalgia under our bedroom table.

We remembers this: when we were thrown into the Editorial team for our student batch one of the few things we remembers is telling the photographer (Mr JA with the complicated equipment) to take as many photographs as possible.

Looking in retrospect, we really, really WISH that digital cameras were already the in thing then.

Sad to say, we were one of those who never really jumped on onto the digicam bandwagon until...we got our own digicam this year. We'd always advocate film cameras. Why? We still remember our arguments against:

"Expensive lar to develop the photos compared to film."
"When run out of memory how to take more pictures? When go long holiday zhia lat la second half of trip cannot take anymore photos."

So while we have a wide variety of pictures of our uni years in Malaysia, it's sad to say that pictures of our time in UK were slightly limited. Well, we were trigger happy, but not as trigger happy as we are now with a digicam, taking shots, deleting shots, retaking shots, going macro, snapping happily at anything and everything. Oh, and when we first got our Nokia 7650 we did go trigger happy but memory confinements limited the pictures we took.

James Blyth Court, taken with our Nokia 7650.

Sigh. If we tabulates our expenditure on film itself, added the fact that we have jerky hands and there's the risk of film exposure (evident in the pictures we took at Glasgow's Necropolis) and that we developed all our photographs taken in Glasgow in 4R instead of standard 3R. And really it was more of pictures taken on trips rather than things closer to home [see Nov 20 entry].

Now, all we have to worry about is hard disk space and file corruption and that once we'd burned the photos onto CD the CD may get scratched, and with it all memories gone.

Wow-whee

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Many Many Many Mouse

This is bad for them who enjoy Latin in Final Fantasy, but good for those who always wanted to be able to sing to One-Winged Angel of Final Fantasy VII.

Just go here. Music and lyrics provided.

*For the sake of those too lazy to do an age verification check, here. You'll have to fill in the music by yourselves, tho.

Estuans interius (Burning inside)
[Bells Frogs Bing Cherries]
ira vehementi (with violent anger,)
[Jingle Bells Magic Cheese]
Estuans interius
[Bells Frogs Bing Cherries]
ira vehementi
[Jingle Bells Magic Cheese]

Sephiroth!
Sephiroth!

Sors immanis (Fate - monstrous)
[Swords in my knees]
Et inanis (and empty,)
[Ed peed on this]
Sors immanis
[Swords in my knees]
Et inanis
[Ed peed on this]

Veni, veni, venias, (Come, come, O come,)
[Many many many mouse]
Ne me mori facias (do not let me die)
[Then adore me crunchy love]
Veni, veni, venias,
[Many many many mouse]
Ne me mori facias
[Then adore me crunchy love]

Gloriosa (Glorious)
[Oreos are]
Generosa (Noble)
[Now upon us]

Sephiroth!
Sephiroth!