Interests & Obsessions

My interests are typically nerdy and you would be forgiven for thinking that those don’t require too much explanation. But hey, it’s my blog – I’m entitled to wax eloquent.

Personal Computers

I was first introduced to a personal computer in the early ’80s – the era of 4 color “dumb” terminals and tape drives. I found it fascinating to make this machine respond to my commands – and distinctly remember finding Lotus 1-2-3 “cool”. That early interest would stay dormant for many years – until, in the late ’90s, I got to use the Internet for the first time and the interest quickly grew to full-blown obsession. Despite the usual frustrations and limitations, the unique quality of computers to alter one’s life completely – and leave you wondering 5 minutes later “How did I ever live without this?” keeps me hooked.

Gaming

In the latter half of the ’80s, a friend of mine whose dad worked for the CMC received a hand-me-down 8086 PC – no hard drive, 4 colour monitor and 2MB of RAM. Yet, it was on this antique device that I would spend many many hours lost in games such as Prince of Persia, Test Driver 4 and most notably Microprose’s F19 Stealth Fighter. In the years since, I’ve come to love the RTS/TBS and RPG genres – Age of Empires:Rise of Rome, Civilization III and Caesar III ranking as all-time favorites. My personal collection of PC games now stands at 150+, but the time I spend actually playing games gets smaller with every passing year.

Books

I am a bookworm and I am not embarrassed to admit it. I got hooked on books at an early age, thanks to my parents (mostly my mom) who figured it would be the best way to keep me and my elder brother out of their hair. It worked – a little too well, because when I’m engrossed in a book, I can forego sleep, food and even toilet breaks. I’m a pretty fast reader – which means I often pick a book by size. All time favorite authors are J.R.R Tolkien, Isaac Asimov, Frank Herbert, Dick Francis and Tom Clancy. More recently, I’ve liked the works of Joe Buff and Dale Brown. As you can see from my list of favorite authors, my tastes lean towards to military fiction and epic fantasy. That’s not to say that in moments of desperation, I haven’t picked up a Nora Roberts book, something I have never admitted to in public.. until now.

Music

My interest in any sort of music is fairly recent – for the longest time, I only occasionally listened to old Bollywood tracks and music by A.R. Rahman. It was only after college that I was introduced to classic rock – centering around Pink Floyd and The Doors. I branched off into the other bands such as Metallica, Dire Straits and Aerosmith – this, during my “Give me Rock or Give me Death” days. I’ve recently mellowed and now listen to quite a bit of electronica – The Chemical Brothers and Massive Attack are recent favourites.

Pink Floyd in particular, still holds the power to take me through a roller coaster ride of memories and emotions – far more than just music, Pink Floyd is the soundtrack of my life.

Photography

My interest in this has been sudden and unexpected. In early 2006, I signed up as a member of Flickr, intending to use it as a backup for my photos. As luck would have it, I signed up just in time to learn about a get-together of other Flickr users in Singapore. I decided to check it out and was surprised by the enthusiasm and skill of the people I met there. Over the next few months, I saw photographs of astonishing quality posted by these folk, and then one day – I just knew that I had to try and capture some of that magic that seemed to be all around me. I’ve had the occasional moment of inspiration since – but far more valuable has been the gift of “sight” that photography has given me – to actually see, and not just look.

Last updated: April 04, 2009