theCollectiveUs

Apparently I chipped my tooth between 8 and 17 January.

And I can’t figure out how and when.

I do recall that there were 2 days when I woke up with a very bad toothache on a front tooth which I blamed on my retainers. It was bad enough that I didn’t wear my retainers for the next 2 days. That kind of falls within the time frame but it STILL DOES NOT EXPLAIN how I chipped the tooth.

I THINK SOMEONE’S WHACKING ME IN THE FACE WHILE I’M ASLEEP.

This story from The New Paper made me smile. I’ve written before about the laughable standard of journalism in that paper but this one’s actually pretty ingenious albeit unintentional.

The story’s titled “Too many burdens on local students?” and laments the amount of time students spend on activities (like school for one). It’s hard to justify that students are spending too much time on school when the writers (yup, there’s two of them!), presumably educated, consider burden a countable noun.

I sold off my set of 5 juggling clubs today. They’re Mr Babache Flip clubs that have probably 2 or 3 months of use to them – I still have the invoice on my desk dated Jan 09. I still have a set of 4 plain white clubs somewhere so it’s not like I won’t have anything to throw around when my hands get itchy but they’re nowhere as light as the Flip clubs even though I don’t exactly like the feel of the Flip clubs either. The idea is to offload toys I don’t really need so I can amass enough money to buy a GIANT KITE that I won’t feel bad about splurging on.

Such tough decisions.

There was a good reason though why the Flip clubs weren’t as well-used. I just couldn’t get used to its spin for numbers-juggling. A friend’s tried them out once and had no problems with them so it’s probably that I’m not skilled enough. Still, if I do get another set of clubs – and believe me I’m quite keen on – I’d probably get a set of PX-3s. I like their look and feel better. One of the things that drew me to the Flips initially was that they weren’t gaudy. It’s almost like prop-makers had a bunch of sugar-infused 9-year-olds to decide their color scheme. Henry clubs have the ugliest colors even though they’re quite highly regarded. I like my stuff plain and one-colored. The Flip clubs I had were black which sounded good in theory but were horrid to juggle with at night. White ones get dirty very easily and I’m sort of partial to red.

We’ll see. It’s probably unlikely I’ll acquire any new props soon unless someone wants to share.

DID YOU KNOW…

… that FTP clients for Macs are generally slower than getting Starcraft 2 released if you don’t change the default settings of the clients?

Apparently, each file upload requires a new TCP connection, that is, your client needs to

1. Connect to the server
2. Authenticate your session
3. Upload a file
4. Disconnect your session
5. Repeat 234761 times til your files are done

Compare this to connecting with Windows where your client

1. Connects to the server
2. Authenticate your session
3. Upload ALL files
4. Disconnect your session

In short, you’re pretty much wasting half your life connecting and disconnecting.

See, aren’t you glad you’re reading this and learning something new from me?

*Edit* I forgot to state the solution to the problem. Most FTP clients (I actually don’t know one that doesn’t have this function) have an option somewhere in the menu that allows you to increase the max number of simultaneous uploads. If you’re getting webspace from a host, check what the maximum number of connections they allow and fill that into the field. That should significantly increase your upload speeds.

I hate people who put smileys at the end of their messages when it serves no purpose.

The Tampines bike trails seems to have changed quite a lot from my last visit. There are now at least 4 different starting routes to take. I think there was work done on the place on Friday because there seemed to be a lot more loose gravel then than there was today. On a segment, the gravel was so bad it scratched my rim just to ride straight. At another turning – and this wasn’t even a sharp turning – I skidded and dug a hole with my wheel each time I went through it.

The trail was much more rideable today. The old dusty routes are very very unicycle-friendly without steep slopes or rocky terrain. The new paths had very narrow lines which are actually very fun once you get the hang of them. Unfortunately, since they are new, they tend to be unnecessarily rocky and loose.

I think I’m going to make this a weekend routine. I fixed up 145mm cranks on my 29″ and and expecting a set of 125mm/150mm dual-hole Moments. Can’t wait to get them.

While pumping up a muni (that’s mountain unicycle) tyre at the petrol kiosk -

Bystander: Can you juggle while riding that?

Me: Yes but I try not to.

Bystander: *polite laughter*

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I’m going muniing tomorrow. Exciting stuff.

Guess who’s back in town?