So, do I look a bit more fleet of foot? 
spaceroo was kind enough to bring me some memory chips, expanding the iBook to 640 MB RAM, and we installed it this morning and ... all seems to be well, so far, knock plastic. We gave it what we hope is a reasonable trial, including some memory-intensive challenges like playing a DVD. For this, we used one of the tougher DVDs I have, a collection of the early 60s King Features Syndicate Popeye cartoons, which are mighty challenging to watch.
So anyway for today we took a trip on the full north-south line of the MRT, giving a fair view of suburban Singapore, which is admittedly not that greatly different from the area where I live, or from any reasonably suburban spot like you'd see in New Jersey (which passes for 'urban' in most states). This was all along the way to Orchard Road, the big downtown shopping district, an area proud to try appealing to tourists and shoppers.
Usually there's something big or at least odd happening (see earlier entries about, for example, the ``Entry point for half-lane cheerleader zone'') and I expected something would be ready for the 40th National day (9 August), but nothing much was happening. The street musician who a few weeks ago just left the synthesizer on Generic 80s Tune was playing what sounded like the Marty McFly cover of ``Johnny B Good.'' We watched aquarium (complete with sharks) in Ngee Ann City, and looked without success for better earphones for spaceroo's much-too-soon flight home. At least we found out the recommended impedence for earphones to be iPod-compatible (32 Ohms), which is valuable information for people who can hear differences in speaker quality, unlike me. I noticed also ``Otter Bags'', plastic bags in which an iPod can be sealed to keep it safe from water.
Trivia: In its first year of operations about 8,744,000 vehicles used the Holland Tunnel. Source: New Jersey: America's Main Road, John T Cunningham.
Currently Reading: The Tough Guide to Fantasyland, Diana Wynne Jones.
