As usual, expos are full of great freebies.

I was at the PM Expo (Property Management Exhibition) at the Metro Convention Centre. attending one seminar on air quality control and a second one on energy efficienient fluorescence lamps: T5. The rest of the day was spend around the 500+ booths.

In a way, it is a day off for me, as I didn’t have to go to the office. As it was an expo meant for “insiders” (industries and professionals), it is somewhat different from other exhibitions like autoshows or job fair that I attend. I think it is a bit more “in-depth” and most booth representatives expect you to have a good understanding of their industries and prodcuts. I apporach several representatives who simply try to distinguish their products by highlighting some sophisticated features, while I was completely lost in their speeches full of jargons.

Besides some useful information and tons of brochures I received, the best thing about any expo is the goodies…and the following are some of the coolest of what I got, among many many others:

A magnetic puzzle, a hardhat squeegy and a packet of mints.

Half a month passed with no update to my blog.

In order to close the time gap, here is a simple entry: a look into my routine. I think I am living a typical white-collar life. Get up, squeeze on subway trains and buses with highschool kids (cos there are two high schools near my workplace) and other white-collars, sit in the office until lunch, eat lunch as quickly as possible, just to spare myself a 10-minute power nap, back to sitting in the comfy office chair and stare at the multi-colored screen for another few hours, impatiently for the needle to tick 5. Pack up, cram on to the sardine-filled buses again.

Arrive home, only to find out that there is nothing readily edible, neither was the meat defrosted. So eggs, vegetables, and rice are the usuals for dinner.

Dinner is accompanied by any TV shows, (currently alternating between ‘Lost’, ‘Prison Break’ and ‘阿旺新傳(Life Made Simple)’… … and sooner than I know, it would be bed time. So, goodnight.

Turned on the TV to check weather for the day. Max 18C, min 4C, partly cloudy.

“Very warm weather for a mid-November day”, I thought. But it was what was on the news that caught my attention. Two parents appear on the screen crying over their dead daughter, followed by several screenshots of a web browser showing words like cyanide, cutting wrist, suicide, and then ASH. I never knew a club such as ASH exist. It is an online club/interest group for members (appropriately named “ashers”) to share feelings, information on suicide, and even methods to commit suicide. Literally 100 ways to killing yourself at your fingertips. Although the site claim they are merely informative and does not encourage or discourage people from attempting it, the news reported it with a somewhat negative image.

On the other hand, talking and discussing about suicide doesn’t increase the likelihood that a person will commit suicide, therefore, there is nothing wrong with ASH, or is there? For me, I guess not. But making the instructions available freely may have made it easier for those people who wanted to do it.

I scanned through the methods and found an interesting acronym: CAD - computer aided decline - what a nerd I am. I was laughing my asses off (ashers, excuse me) when I see this, only to find that (and I quote):

CAD was the means chosen in Australia for triggering the suicide machine which was temporarily legalized (a program running under Microsoft Access asked if the person was sure he wanted to die and, if yes was clicked, activated a servo to release drugs down an IV).

The world is strange enough. But my life is still “my precious”.

有人曾對我說過：「第一份糧最易冇」，事實的確如此，連日多宗大交易 (付租金、買了件皮外衣、今天再來一個LCD螢幕)，剛好把我的荷包枯乾。

亂花錢本是零藉口；不肯作儲蓄，零儲蓄也罷。如果連可運用的金錢的沒有，就真的「零用錢」了！