In case you're wondering, I've long moved to my own blog at motochan.com. I'll see you there instead eh?

Conferences are such a pain in the butt, for the following reasons:

1. You're on your feet almost all the time - total opposite from being on your butt in the office
2. Sustenance is hard to come by - demand usually outstrips supply and prices of even a simple sandwich skyrockets
3. You get people-spammed left right centre - all sorts of people try to convince you that your company needs their products and services
4. You meet too many new people, too quickly - before you know it, the person in front of you gets replaced by someone new, and you've forgotten what his/her name was. How absolutely impersonal
   
5. Your weekends get burnt preparing for a successful trade show
6. Worse than that? Your Valentine's day gets burnt as well! Sweet...

1. Free plane ticket to 'scope out' the destination city/country - not quite enough time to tour the place proper, but pretty good to just get your feet wet and know where to go the next time you come back
2. Nice change of pace - from the humdrum of the white-collared worker's life
3. The thrill - of helping the companies you bring up to exhibit score a lead
4. Daily allowance from IDA! $$$$$ you can save a bit if you scrimp some here and there

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog.

Hmm now that wasn't so bad after all. Thirteen-odd hours of flying and a transit later, I'm still able to punch these out on Singapore Airline's new Krisworld handset's tiny buttons. In case you're wondering, I'm using Sun's adaptation of OpenOffice, StarOffice Writer to type this entry in offline mode. A nice 10-inch LCD, USB and ethernet ports, composite video in, personal white reading light under the LCD...man! In-flight entertainment has really come of age.

Oops, had to pause for a bit as the B777-300ER taxied off the runway, towards our final destination, Barcelona. As we pulled above the cloud layer, light broke. Bluish hues of the pre-dawn sky rapidly gave way to a fiery ball of flames that rose leisurely, casting an orange sheen upon the sea of clouds.

Scenes like these that remind me of my love for the beauty of nature. The past 6 months of work amidst the Singaporean concrete jungle have left me drained at times. Sure, the Lion City's way greener than most of its peers. Still, one doesn't feel that he's truly surrounded by Nature.

Hmmm I think I'm long overdue for a holiday :-). Suggestions anyone?

I don't believe it - apart from Cafe Cartel, there's no other restaurants in downtown Singapore that serves chicken lasagna???? Spizza, Prego's...all of you are found wanting.

A hungry man is a judgmental man.

It all started with a blog.

David, a young man with severe cerebral palsy, decried the way his friend Ashley was being taken care by her parents.

"Ashley's parents have committed the ultimate betrayal," he writes. "They have treated their daughter as less than human, not worthy of dignity.... What strikes me about 'the Ashley treatment' and has brought me to tears is that the very people in all of society whom this child should trust have betrayed her."

When Ashley was 6 years old, her parents and doctors agreed to have her uterus and breast buds removed so she'll never reach puberty. She was given estrogen treatments and will never be more than 4 feet 5 inches and 75 pounds. Like the Terri Schaivo story before her, Ashley and her story have a lot to say about what it means to be disabled, what it means to be different and what it means to be human.

Ashley, 9, has a condition called static encephalopathy, which means an unchanging brain injury of unknown origin. She's in a permanent infant-like state -- can't hold her head up, speak or roll over on her own.