Journal Entries
Sea Monkeys!
Posted Oct 8, 2005
Well, I'm finally back, after an almost two-week ordeal without my computer, which had to go to PC hospital. And I have Sea Monkeys! 
It's not unusual for me to go out shopping for books when I get upset (and if you've been wired almost your whole life, you'd know what it's like to spend two weeks without a bright screen and a keyboard), only this time I also bought an executive Sea Monkeys kit from the local science store. The moment I got home, I cleaned out the new tank, filled it with bottled water and purification powder (part of the set) and then, 24 hours later, threw in the packet of Sea Monkey eggs and sat myself down in front of the tank to wait for them to hatch.
Nothing happened.
I checked the tank the next day. No Sea Monkeys.
I checked the tank the day after. No Sea Monkeys.
By the fourth day I was going to give up the ghost and call the experiment a failure, when I saw something tiny and wiggly in the tank. Upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a Sea Monkey. Apparently, if the tank doesn't meet the *exact* conditions specified by the instructions (*exactly* 24 hours of purification, *exactly* how much water, *exactly* how much light etc), the hatching process is delayed.
So there I was (and if anyone dares make jokes about the monkey's uncle, I'll throw the gunk I pumped out of the bottom of the tank at them!), with a tankful of Sea Monkeys that were growing bigger and fatter and more frisky when, a week and a half later, disaster struck.
My friend had come to have a look at the Sea Monkeys, during which time I fed them... only I accidentally used the large Plasma III scoop instead of the small one. Whoops. So more than twice the normal amount of food wound up in the tank. The Sea Monkeys were elated. Unfortunately, when we returned from lunch, I was horrified to find that at least half of them were ensnared in the gunk at the bottom of the tank. My attempts to free them with the bubble blower backfired, with the result that they became even further ensnared.
By the time I got around to cleaning the tank, all of them were dead, but for a big one (Tim) and a smaller, unnamed one. (I stopped naming them the day I had more than two Sea Monkeys in the tank). Reasoning that if the instructions said for you to top up the tank water with bottled water, that the hybrid Sea Monkeys had probably been engineered to live in fresh water (a ghastly mistake, as we shall soon see; but perhaps I may be excused for the reason that I wasn't thinking right at this point), I transferred them into a cup of mineral water. The mucky water I filtered in hope of finding more survivors, but all I kept seeing were dead Sea Monkeys with their little black eyes staring blindly at me; by the time I had sifted through half the tank, it was obvious that Two were all I was going to be able to save. So I poured the water into a bottle, cleaned out the tank and refilled it with fresh bottled water and released the two Sea Monkeys.
About half an hour later, it became apparent that, in spite of my claim as a scientist, I'd completely overlooked the fact that brine shrimp were brine shrimp. The two Sea Monkeys were no longer swimming around the tank; they were lying at the bottom, feebly wiggling their legs. I let out a string of expletives, unceremoniously dumped the two Sea Monkeys back into the mucky water, and changed the water in the tank to the old one that I'd been meaning to throw out.
By now the smaller one had stopped moving entirely. Tim was still pathetically wiggling around and, for the next two hours or so, looked for the world as though he weren't going to make it. Finally, after about three hours, he weakly started swimming again, and I decided he was going to live after all, and went to bed.
The next day I decided I wasn't going to take any more chances with gunk and sucked the lot out and dumped it all into the empty bottle. By this time, Tim was his frisky self again and was making himself Lord of the Tank. And three new Sea Monkeys had hatched, so it looked as though there was going to be hope for my tank after all.
... And then this afternoon, while I was checking the muck bottle for eggs to harvest, I saw the smaller Sea Monkey, which I had left for dead, swimming around the bottom! It couldn't have been too happy - there was about a centimetre of water in the bottle, and there were Sea Monkey corpses left, right and centre. So of course I wasted no time getting it back into the tank - and, in the process, found two more hatchlings in the water.
So I'm back to having about seven Sea Monkeys in my tank; hopefully more of the eggs I saved will hatch. In the meantime, I've named the smaller guy Lazarus. 
I don't think Tim is too happy about having to share his 'private space' - I saw him snapping at Lazarus' tail several times. Something that none of the literature I'd found on Sea Monkeys had mentioned.
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Latest reply: Oct 8, 2005
Getting back on my feet
Posted Sep 7, 2005
I've been rather disinclined to go online and talk to people for the last month or so, but now that the darkness has lifted, the need to rejoin the internet community is once again pressing me forward.
My maternal grandfather died on August 4th. People grow old, get into road mishaps, contract an incurable disease... people die all the time and, unless they're exceptionally famous, their deaths usually don't mean anything except to those who are close to them. I suppose that if the said person is very old and wheelchair-bound and going senile, that you would expect death to be just around the corner - and, in your pain in watching the person stumble through life, half-oblivious to things around him, it would not be unnatural for you to wish for a quick end for the person. Yet it can come as a shock when, one day he starts coughing loudly over dinner and your relative feeding him admonishes him for kicking up a fuss and making life miserable, and the next day you find out that he's having respiratory difficulties and systems that eventually fails over the next twenty four hours as you and your family do the emergency waiting room scene at the hospital. I guess it's right to say that, even when you are prepared for something, it can take you by surprise.
So that's pretty much it, really. I'm now minus a grandfather, who was my best friend while I was growing up... and I've run out of grandparents. That kinda sucks, especially when you're incapable of expressing these feelings in spoken words to those closest to you. Ah well.
Oh wait... I'm allergic to tea.
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Latest reply: Sep 7, 2005
Bullfrog with laryngitis
Posted Jun 14, 2005
That's pretty much what I've sounded like for the past week, while being held hostage by a teeming mass of nasty renegade rhinoviruses. Half of my family and a certain Other 
Person simultaneously came down with common cold at the time my parents visited; being surrounded by people with drippy noses and scratchy throats, it would've taken a miracle for me to avoid being the victim of contagion.... and of course we all know that there's no such thing as miracles. (It *certainly* didn't help that I got violently whacked on the left side of my skull the day before I came down with cold...).
Things to remember:
1. Playing the trombone while suffering from cold can actually help clear your phlegm, and temporarily stop your coughing.
2. Playing the trombone while suffering from cold *and* vertigo is recipe for disaster. (oh my poor baby!)
3. Never snog someone who seems to be displaying early signs of cold.
At least I've pretty much gotten my voice back (although it sounds a squeaky major 2nd higher). It was hell trying to communicate the past few days, especially when the convenience store lady seemed convinced I would keel over and die at any moment.
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Latest reply: Jun 14, 2005
Some aliens buzzed me...
Posted May 13, 2005
OK OK I'm being absurd. But it doesn't change the fact that something really weird happened to me yesterday.
It was around noon, and I was simultaneously working at my computer and listening to music on my headset, when I got this 'deet deet deet...' interference over the set, which is what usually happens right before I get a call on my cellphone or an SMS. As I picked up my phone, an incredibly bright light suddenly flashed through my window (like from a very bright light source or from a highly reflective surface, like mirrors), blinding me for a moment. I jumped out of my chair, and looked out of the window. There was nothing around that could've emitted or reflected light like that (I live on the 7th floor; there are no high-rise buildings facing my room); in fact, there was *nothing* out of the ordinary... which left me feeling really puzzled.
Any ideas what it could've been?
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Latest reply: May 13, 2005
Haydn's Farewell Symphony
Posted May 8, 2005
Whoof, went for a 'historical' performance of Joseph Haydn's 'Farewell' Symphony yesterday! I'd initially intended to purchase tickets for the concert at the beginning of this season, but well... having grown up hating all of Papa Haydn's piano sonatas (that *one* live recording was the final straw), I didn't know if it was worth attending, just to see something that might or might not be acted out.
You know, I never thought they'd really do it. But they did! The musicians one by one turned off their electric music stand lights (nope, they didn't use candles ) and left the hall quietly. They'd dimmed all other lights in the hall too, so that by the time only the two violinists and the conductor were left, we were left in almost complete darkness. The only 'disappointment' was that nobody was out of tune while playing the third movement...
But still, all in all, a good performance!
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Latest reply: May 8, 2005
Farlander
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