Pens II

Funny how time flies...two months left for the year when we all went through tragedies and celebrations(both not at the same time, well). Time for my pen addication again.

Last week I switched to DIYplanner's HPDA suite after losing my pocketmod. Everything's fine so far. Nevertheless, following the fall of my Uni Signo bit .38 black, I'm looking for new pens to fill the thin lines on the white index cards.

Candidate 1 is indeed another .38 black gel pen I'm using now, Pilot G-2. The colour is dark and sharp, which is what I like a lot about the G-2 line. Yet comparatively I prefer the dark grey colour and seemingly thinner lines of Signo bit. G-2 ink always feels a bit too...umm, rich, like the ink just flows a bit too much. Yet, currently there's a pen sale at the bookstore nearby, selling G-2 .5 pens with ink cartilages at a very attractive price. So...well I'll give G-2 .5 a try also.

I take my old G-2 .5 blue pen as candidate 2. Surprisingly the lines look a bit thinner than .38, but it's probably because the ink is almost used up. Well.

That leads to another .5 candidate. Uni-ball Signo UMR-65. The line again looks not-so-surprisingly-now thinner than it should be. Okay, I prefer its lighter blue colour to that of G-2 though.

Lastly there is Slicci .4, feels great, but not particularly my favourite. I know Slicci is probably the best pen I've ever come acrosee, but I find it hard to enjoy using it as much as I do with other pens. I have no idea why. And Slicci, it's one of the most expensive pens in my pencil case.

I'm thinking about buying a Hi-tech C again, though I'm not too sure if I'd be happier spending the same amount of money on trying Jetstream instead. I don't know! :P I'll probably snatch a Hi-tech C from my mates and see how it feels. Hopefully I'll come back again and report my final decision later. Urh I'm such a pen addict. :O

Half year around...

Finally got time to sit and type here. Last day of exam, boo! It's all over. I can't help feeling excited looking at my list of projects and NAs. So much good stuff is waiting for me to go through. I slept for some hours after catching tales with Jamie Cullum, and McFLY too. :) Miss their good old summer tunes.

Before starting anything, the first thing I need to do is to get back onto the GTD track. I haven't done any weekly review since my revision for the exam started. So that's quite a long time...a long long time indeed. Everyday I finished one subject and I stacked everything related including books and note sheets on the inbox pile. Papers, folders and books stacked up to an arm's length. The in-pile looks a bit scary I'd admit. But thinking about how good it'll be to process everything through gives me chills. :)

And next, recently I've been very much into Steve Pavila's self development blogs. I even have a project regard this. I haven't figured out what to do next, my NA there is just to "read Steve's blogs". Yet I'm sure I'm gonna get so much from it. Oh yes I am sure. :D

This is the post of the 30th June as you see. Half of the year 2008's gone...wish you all best at the rest half of the year. Happy 2009 to come...ignore the black hole down there mate.

Awesome McFLYness, how I miss the old days...

Room on the 3rd Floor album sampler

Pens

I've had this little obsession of pens and stationery ever since I got into Moleskine hacks, of blogs where people mention the pens and such they use for the little beauty.

I'd admit that I wasn't very happy about the stationery I have, before this obsession started. My pens, well, my ball pens, literally speaking, either the ink stopped half way through its first usage, or it just stopped in the first place, right after I bought the pen, which was working perfectly fine at the shop.

I consider myself pretty unlucky with ink pens, so I switch to the gel ones, still the problem exists, only to be from always to often. Yet it's better than nothing at all.

And that's how I've made it through for like, many many years, with constantly buying new pens and constantly throwing new pens away.

Still I have my passion for pens, I keep trying new brands and models and such, ranging from Bic to Pilot and to Muji and to some unknown brand from outer space. And now, I'm quite happy about my pens, all of them(well not really, still) are working well and I love them. The only problem is of which one to use everytime I write. :)

So there they are, some of the pens I am using right now:

Pilot G-2 0.5 Blue

Muji 0.38 Gel pen Blue

Zebra J-Sharbo Black

Stabilo galaxy 818M Blue

BIC Bu2 Red

I can't be bothered to set up a Picasa acc to post the pics this time...so go google if you're interested! :P Sorry.

May, here it goes again

I know it's been a long time since my last post here. But considering I have no reader to be responsible for to write now, I suppose it's quite okay, as long as the one who's hitting the keyboard is happy with it.

Writing something on this blog has been on my NA list for quite a while, literally, 1 month plus 15 days, so long that I've finally decided to get my hands on it, so that I could tear the page with another 50+ NAs on it.

For a very long time I've come to realise that May will be as busy as you-know-it. Jammed with deadlines of two of the biggest projects I've ever had ever. And many of those smaller ones as well. It's jammed. The whole month. And then I'll have my tests and exams at the end of the month. It's bloody busy.

Today, 17th May, is 9 days away from the tragic DL day, when two deadlines crash and burn and burn, baby burn! I suppose I couldn't even give myself a thumbs-up after the DL war, that's if I could ever survive with it. Still a long way to come mate...the battle's never over.

Yeah you got the glue!

Muse, again

I know this blog isn't supposed to be like a Muse fan-based thing, but I can't help mentioning the greatness of this band, again.

Nick Wire of the Manic Street Preachers called them "the Rush of our era", personally I'm not sure of that comment, still I have to agree with Nick, and everybody I know on the boards(well, Muse boards) that they are (possibly)the best band of this early 21st century. I love them anyway. :D

This is nothing new, but yes, Muse's live CD/DVD charted no.2 last week, just behind Duffy. It's great, really. Both the CD and DVD are amazing...bloody amazing. And this is one of the tracks that keep echoing in my head recently. My, the Map of Problematique, not the HAARP version though.

Sleeping vs Working hours

Watching the 60 Minutes talking about the importance of sleep(saying that lack of sleep may be related to obesity and some psychotic diseases) did give me some insight into how much sleep I should give myself.

I used to think that I do not need that much sleep, not as much as 9 hours people said in those science reports anyway, that it is quite necessary to eliminate some of my sleeping time for higher productivity, to get more things done, and to be competitive with my fellow colleagues who, well, sleep 4 hours a day.

But now it's occurred to me that indeed I am not a working machine, I am 100% human that sleep does play an essential role in my biological health, and thus, my productivity. It could be the 2-3 extra hours of sleep that actually lead to higher productivity instead of the lack of them. I used to sleep 6 hours a day and to be honest, in those days I didn't feel about myself as good as I do now, with 9 sleeping hours per day. I might lose a couple of working hours, but now I can actually wake up with a fully conscious mind. Unlike the past when I sometimes drooped in class, I can kick start my work right after getting up. It simply feels different. Surely I have not conducted any scientific research regarding the issue, but I can say I feel more productive than before, even though I work for less hours now.

My conclusion is that, well, while it seems to be a trend for people to sleep less and work more, saying that you can achieve more and get more things done, it is not any close to the (very scientific bullet-proof)truth that you shouldn't really scrimp on your time for sleep. The price you pay behind with sleeping less could be physical health issues like obesity and fatigue, and even mental ones like stress and depression, and most importantly, giving your sleeping hours away does not necessarily lead to increase in productivity, or worse, you might just get less things done with more things screwed up.

If you feel uneasy spending two hours more sleeping instead of working, fearing you might be "left behind" or whatever, you could just try it out during long holidays like I do. You might be surprised, you know.

Holiday: Day1 report

My holiday kicked off yesterday. :) Still lots of work to do, school and school-unrelated stuff. Lots and lots of work. The following week should be pretty much of a buzz. I do enjoy work though, an insane workaholic I am. I know I am gonna feel great after clearing all those piles of work. Here I go!

As I have mentioned in my last post, this whole week of holiday will be used as the one and only golden shiny shiny chance to turn some of the things around. My Chemistry. Poor Chemistry, the Chemistry that I love. The words've been said, and the actions?

Day 1 was more or less about relaxation and taking a break. Tidying things up for the journey ahead. I watched the Muse DVD H.A.A.R.P. again. It's pure magic. I love it.

And I do feel the need to start a new paragraph for the DVD alone.

I have to agree with lots of fans that the DVD misses lots of the brilliant visual effects they saw in the concert though. The editing itself is not that satisfactory. Could have been a lot more better with less close-up fan screaming(I am not saying that it's not nice to see fans enjoying the music, but really, it's overdone, too much), more visual effects like those in Starlight and more of Muse themselves. It's the editing's bad. :( And yeah, the sound is great, a bit too perfect to me that it almost doesn't sound like live, it almost doesn't feel like live. Too perfect maybe? It's hard not to prefer Hullabaloo when it comes to this live sound thing imo. Anyway, just personal opinions. Everybody's different. At the end of the day, both H.A.A.R.P. and Hullabaloo are amazing alright. ;)

Basically I just took a nap after watching H.A.A.R.P. and went straight to dinner when I woke up. Then it's the usual routine, TV, and sleep. Then another day came, that's it.

It doesn't seem that productive at the first glance, but this day did make me feel recharged and able to start the next day working and working and working. Cracking things huh. I'll see how the next day goes, as it starts...