September was a glorious month for me. Here are the highlights:

• Bought my birthday present (the Canon PowerShot SX120 IS) way ahead of schedule. Yes, I was naughty, so what?
• The Piano Idol finals at the Copthorne Orchid Hotel—it was the second time I was asked to judge, and I was very pleased with the overall standards. Will there be a third time for me? Dunno.
• The BBQ gathering at the Pau’s residence was awesome. Lots of food and drink and nice company.
• My 49th birthday of course, on September 26. And the crème de la crème was spending a night at the E & O Hotel, coupled with an unforgettable buffet breakfast the next morning. What a blast! Er…Mike, if you’re reading this–can I do it again, soon?

Now here comes October (or what’s left of it, almost halfway through) and—blech, nada, nothing much happening. There are peaks and there are valleys, I suppose. Here are some “exciting” things (yes, I’m being sarcastic here, hee hee) that I’ve been doing to keep myself preoccupied:

• Relearning some classical pieces from the past. See this post.
• I’m still contemplating about giving my website a total makeover. It’s beginning to fill with cyber cobwebs and someone said it’s high time I gave it a good spring-cleaning.
• I’m trying to get my blog-writing juices running again. Hopefully this post is a sign of more stuff to come.
• Bought Avira’s Antivir Premium antivirus locally. Pretty decent price ($13 USD) for a 13-month license. I’ve also downloaded and installed Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE) which is a neat antispyware program. It’s free and except for a strange quirk (which I’ll explain in a later post) I like it.
• Christmas rehearsals for the lighting of the Christmas Tree at the hotel are due to start this Friday October 16th. Time flies.
• Catching up with some of the current movies. I prefer to watch them on DVD because I despise the censorship in the cinema halls. Some movies I’ve watched and enjoyed include: State of Play, Obsessed, 12 Rounds, The Taking of Pelham 123, Terminator Salvation, and Star Trek. The last one is simply amazing—I’ve been a Trekkie all my life and J.J. Abrams did an excellent job with the retelling. Looking forward to the sequels!

So there you have it. Aside from eating my oats, doing my laundry, having leftovers for lunch, paying the monthly bills (ugh), teaching students, I lead a pretty exciting life huh. Until the next post, this is Philip, signing off.

Tags: Avira, BBQ, birthday, Canon, E & O Hotel, Microsoft Security Essentials, piano, piano idol, Powershot, SX120IS

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