Morning comes

It is now 5.50 am as I type this. Gonna leave for the airport in a few hours. Just cannot sleep for some reason. been awake since like 3.30. Stomach just does not feel right. Went to the loo. Surfed abit on the Net. Lied down in between.

As I have mentioned before, Agnes and I are off to bangkok for the next few days. As I read the news on the Yahoo! news Tsunami scare puts Thailand on alert but threat passes. Not exactly the most reassuring thing to read when you are but a few hours from departure from the country in mention.

Thailand went on high tsunami alert overnight with its southwest coast scrambling into evacuation mode after an earthquake struck the Nicobar Islands, but the alarm was lifted 90 minutes later.

It was the second tsunami false alarm for popular tourist destination Thailand since the giant waves barreled into the Andaman coast December 26, killing some 5,400 people in the kingdom, about half of them foreign holidaymakers.

A massive undersea quake March 29 off the Indonesian coast brought thousands of tourists racing out of their Phuket hotel rooms to higher ground.

Bangkok is far inland and should be of no threat from any earthquake or tsunami but the mind does wander.

It is Hasli's birthday on Tuesday. So a happy birthday to him. Too bad I will not be around to celebrate it with him. I would have liked to write a sort of tribute to him here but that would be too gay. But he figures among my better friends despite what the skeptics might say. He is almost like a brother to me and that is something that will not soon change.

I think maybe I do not go abroad too often besides the occasional excursion to JB. Maybe I do too. But I still get the butterflies in the tummy and wide-eyed expectation of travelling even now like I did when I was just a little lion. Maybe that too has to do with why I am not in bed at this ungodly hour. In recent years I have been to Bintan,Bangkok,KL,Jakarta,Batam and others but still travelling (especially by plane) has not lost its lustre. I guess I have been struck by wanderlust. I do harbour grand designs on places I wanna visit and things I want to do. Good thing is that Agnes makes such good company and she herself does harbour similar aspirations.

Which brings me to the packing part of the trip. It is funny how no matter how well in advance you start packing, you still harbour in the the back of your mind that you may have missed out on something and wheteher you brought enough clothing to last you for your entire trip.

And yes...the fish. I guess I worry for the well-being of my piscean friends while I am away. What if they go hungry? What if the snails overtake the tank and start a mutiny? What if one of them jumps out? Probably a smaller scale of what my parents go through with the cats and dogs, and maybe us kids (not) too. Which probably explains why they have not ventured beyond these shores in years.

British police face demand for answers after innocent Brazilian shot dead
British police faced calls to explain why they gunned down an innocent Brazilian man in the hunt for the London bombers. Brazil's foreign ministry demanded an explanation into the "lamentable error" which saw 27-year-old electrician Jean Charles de Menezes pursued through a subway station before being cornered and shot repeatedly in the head. Terrified subway passengers scattered in panic on Friday morning as plain-clothed police pursued Menezes, who relatives said was going to work, through Stockwell Underground station in south London. Witnesses said the Brazilian -- described as looking "like a cornered rabbit" -- fell to the floor in a train carriage before a policeman standing directly above shot him five times in the head. "For somebody to lose their life in such circumstances is a tragedy and one that the Metropolitan Police Service regrets," London's police force said Saturday in their first admission they had killed an innocent man.

Armstrong wins seventh Tour de France crown
American Lance Armstrong secured his seventh Tour de France yellow jersey following the 21st and final stage, his final race before retiring. Armstrong came into the race as a favourite despite his imminent retirement, which he decided on a few months ago in order to spend more time with his three young children from his previous marriage.

Singapore budget airlines Jetstar, Valuair merge
Singapore-based budget carriers Jetstar Asia and Valuair have merged, the firms said Sunday, in the first major consolidation of Southeast Asia's crowded low-cost airline industry. The announcement comes after nearly a month of speculation about consolidation within the region's budget airline industry. The Jetstar Asia-Valuair merger had already been floated in the press and rejected publicly by the two firms, while Malaysian low-cost heavyweight AirAsia had also revealed it had held talks with Valuair. Southeast Asia's fledgling low-fare airline industry has been under pressure to consolidate amid tough competition, soaring jet fuel costs and reluctance by governments to open up their domestic aviation sectors. Jetstar Asia, Valuair, AirAsia and Singapore Airlines-backed Tiger Airways had all begun services in and out of Singapore since the middle of last year with some tickets costing less than a train fare between the same destinations.

Hollywood gets the blues with 'Smurf' revival
The classic blue cartoon characters "The Smurfs" are poised to make a comeback in a new three-dimensional Hollywood movie marking their 50th birthday. Paramount Pictures has acquired the rights to the tribe of small, blue-tinted characters created by Belgian cartoonist Peyo and propelled to worldwide fame in the early 1980s through a hit US television series. The studio is planning a 3-D computer-generated animated Smurf feature film that will form part of a trilogy of "Smurf" movies, the first of which is slated for release in 2008. The release of the first film will coincide with the 50th anniversary of the birth of "The Smurfs." "The Smurfs" were conceived in 1958 by Peyo, whose real name was Pierre Culliford, but popularised by an NBC series that was launched in 1981 and ran for 256 episodes. Screenwriter Herb Ratner has been tapped to write the script for the movie, the storyline of which is being kept under wraps.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' to be resurrected on big screen
The "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" are set to return to the big screen after a 14-year break in a lavish new computer-generated movie. The comic-book inspired stories of four humanoid fighting turtles caused a worldwide sensation when they were adapted for television in the late 1980s before hitting the big screen in 1990. But the lucrative franchise has laid dormant since the third in the trilogy of live action films, which together grossed a total of more than 256 million dollars in North America, was released in 1993. The new "Turtles" movie, which will be far grittier than the original films, will be aimed at adult and parentally-accompanied youngsters and will feature state-of-the-art computer-generated graphics.

Together with the impending Transformers live action movie,it is the 80's all over again.