Going all Wonky ...

Been falling asleep again and again, like last night. With the lights and everything on, still with stuff littered around me on bed. And it's horrid to wake in such a state. It's poor sleep, and I wake up flustered and ill.

Anyway, it's that time of the year again to change my halide bulbs! Damn. It's really one thing to DIY a lighting set (costs 20% of a commercial set!) but I really hate the annual bulb replacement costs. Thinking of upgrading them to 250W each instead of the current 150W, but juggling with the different brands. The wattage upgrade will cost only an extra $7 per month... hmm. Tempting. I'm currently using Iwasaki 20,000 Kelvin bulbs, which were supposed to be really blue but after 1 year of usage the spectrum seemed to have shifted towards the red, but still - it's a huge improvement over my old 6,500K bulbs. Thinking of using either XM 10,000K, XM 20,000K or Hamilton 14,000K bulbs next. Hamiltons cost a bomb but heck. These are some very good bulbs!

Was also contemplating totally automating the tank. Currently the only automation I have is the lighting schedule, they are on timers - thinking of adding a dual float switch to do automatic freshwater top-ups for daily evaporation, linked to a Nilsen reactor to supplement calcium and carbonate, but then I'll stop here. This shall have to wait ... the upgrade will set me back by a couple hundred at least, which I do not have. =( Gah ...

It's really no more fun when you can't meddle with the tank. Some guys in the US have elaborate microprocessors linked to every single piece of equipment on their tank - lights, calcium reactor, Nilsen reactor, pH controller, ozone generator, oxidation-reduction potential controller, wavemakers and a whole load of gizmos, which link up onto a datalogger on their PCs. Pretty cool actually, but it really takes the fun out of the whole thing.

Hmm. Chemistry. I wonder what Lindy Koh will say about my silly attempts to balance calcium, carbonate, pH and magnesium. I hate chemistry, but applied chem is another thing altogether.

Really hate Xmas season, I always end up completely broke. I shall keep myself sane from the battering of the upcoming test by trying to relax. Did another set of knee and hip examination on yx yesterday, I'm still very wobbly and hesitant. Not smooth at all. My tutors are really funny! Starting to learn their little quirks and strange habits. Like Prof. Hui. He has a fetish of smelling kids' feet - not sniffing, his nose actually touches their toes and he takes a huge, generous breath. And Prof. Wang was said some rather funny, slightly-racist stuff yesterday! haha ... He appeared a little stuck-up on first impression, but he turned out to be really nice. And the tutorial yesterday was Whoa! He knows his stuff!!

Feeling irritable now due to the horrid sleep. Maybe I'll go take a really HOT bath!! Hmmm ... tempting.

Oh - an update. The attempt at separating those vicious coral-eating nudibranchs has not been too successful, due to the fact that the colt coral I throw in for their dinners usually do not last beyond 5 days and start to melt, polluting the tank. Came back to find the tank murky yesterday, but all the inhabitants were still ok. Will have to measure nitrate and phosphate later in the morning.

This post is ending up very disarticulated, just fragments here and there. AH! I GOT FREE COFFEE YESTERDAY!! Starbucks was going mad. They gave away free coffee from 5-7pm at all branches. Basically you go in and order, and on the receipt it's like $5.80 Mocha Frappuccino, then -$5.80 X'mas special. Woot!! And by a pure stroke of luck I passed by the Holland V branch yesterday and was one of the first few there at 4.58pm! ;) Saved me that $8, as I originally intended to hop by Coffee Club for a cuppa.

I still like Peggy Lee's rendition of "Fever". Uber-sexy. Madonna's the worst, she TRIED to be sexy but sounded like a cheap whore. Buble's only so-so, not quite as sexy as Peggy Lee.

"Sun lights up the daytime,
Moon lights up the night.
I light up when you call my name,
and I know you're gonna treat me right -

You give me fever;
Fever in the morning, fever all through the night.
Fever! When you kiss me, fever when you hold me tight."

And my fav phrase in the song - "Fever, till you sizzle .. what a lovely way to burn".

Damned cats are having sex outside right now, I feel like catching the lot of them and feeding them to MY cat!! Stupid crying noises. Can't they be civilised and not let the whole world know they are copulating??