Some scientists predict that today's children will be able to live for more than 1,000 years. Is immortality just around the corner? Bryan Appleyard peers into a hair-raising future without death.

Here are the highlights:

Aubrey De Grey (described by Appleyard as "a brilliant, self-taught gerontologist at Cambridge. He is a 41-year-old cyclist with a 2ft beard, enormous whiskers and a rapid, high-pitched voice that on first contact is frankly terrifying") has seven strategies of Engineered Negligible Senescence — replacing cells that are lost, for example, through Alzheimer’s or Parkinson’s, stopping cells that multiply as in cancer, preventing mutations in chromosomes and mitochondria, the cells’ power plants, removing junk from inside cells and from outside and, finally, getting rid of “extracellular protein crosslinks” which cause hardening of the arteries. Find ways of doing all seven and nobody need ever die again.

“We have a pretty good idea of how to fix all of them,” says de Grey, “and some of the fixes are already in clinical trials. The beauty of it is that we don’t have to fix all of them completely. For example, we don’t have to clear all the junk out of the cells, just enough to stop its ageing effects.”

HOW TO LIVE LONG ENOUGH TO LIVE FOREVER: THE 13-STEP APPLEYARD PROGRAMME

1 Don’t even think about smoking and, preferably, don’t hang glide.

2 Eliminate sugar to lower blood insulin levels. Use stevia as a sweetener. It is a South American plant that is both very sweet and good for you.

3 Don’t eat any animal fats. Government guidelies tend to say cut these down, but they probably only say this because they think it’s the best people can manage. No saturated fat at all is probably best.

4 Eat lots of vegetables that grow above ground. Those below ground are heavy in carbohydrates that turn into sugar and raise insulin levels.

5 Don’t overdo the fruit. Contrary to popular wisdom it’s not unconditionally good as it contains sugar. Non-drinking Arabs and Indians who sit around sipping orange juice all day end up with diabetes.

6 Eat nuts. For incompletely understood reasons, people who eat nuts live longer. Not salted peanuts, however (see 7).

7 Don’t salt things. Salt raises blood pressure and will kill you through a stroke or heart attack. For this reason, don’t touch processed food.

8 Don’t have heart bypass surgery or have a stent installed to hold a blocked artery open. Latest figures suggest neither works. People who live longer after them probably do so because the shock made them eat better and exercise more.

9 Have a massive medical assessment, preferably at Kronos in Phoenix, Arizona, to establish what you are doing wrong and, if possible, what genetic weaknesses you have. Continue these assessments throughout your life and adjust supplements accordingly. Read all the latest medical journals to keep up.

10 Exercise vigorously and daily but don’t run. Running is bad for your skeleton.

11 Take a child’s aspirin once a day to thin your blood and a much larger dose before you get on a plane. Ideally, don’t get on a plane.

12 Eat very little. Rats on restricted diets live longer but it is not known if this would damage humans — particularly their brains. So if you forget what 2+2 equals, eat more.

13 Ignore all of the above. They may be wrong and, if a piano falls on you, pointless.

Reached home at about 2130, unpacked the groceries, had a shower, and found Boy on my computer chair. He was so cute lying on it I had to take some pics.

Of course by this time he realised I was there to usurp his chair and looked rather miffed when I took some photos of him.





It was almost as if the paparazzi had found him.



He glared and jumped off the chair and went sulking in the corner for a while.



Buffy came to see what the fuss was about.



He did later settle down beside my chair to have a nap. :)



And looked slightly less miffed when I wanted to record the moment for posterity. :D

Got home after a lovely evening with my Dad. Already when he picked me up from work, he seemed cheerier than before. I think he was looking forward to a restful evening, hopefully without me nagging about his diet. :)

We went for our regular chinese tui na and then had a Subway dinner. Tina noticed my lower back was rather buggered. It has been my lousy posture while squinting angrily at the computer screen. She spread some nasty cool lotion on my back that numbed it some and rubbed the knots out. I did feel rather human after that.

Then it was off to NTUC to stock up on groceries. Dad said he felt a lot better recently, but couldn't quite attribute it to either the diet, Western medicine, or the Chinese medicine (for clearing the blockage but was apparently a general non-interactive sort of medicine although needing to be boiled for 4 hours). He was going to check it out more with his chinese sinseh before proceeding with the third installment after the family's naggy and frantic warnings about possible negative interactions.

Anyhow, he said walked from one end of the hospital to the other without being breathless and that is a stark improvement from before! That is fantastic news and could probably explain the non-induced cheery. :D No matter, as long as he's positive and happy. As for the cause, I'd go with the diet, first and foremost. It's amazing what one week of proper eating can do. Having meals with Dad also makes me eat healthier. It is pretty symbiotic. :)

Whadda weekend! Let me screw my brain on and try to remember what happened. I'll work backwards.

Monday: Woke up at noon. 8 hours sleep. Removed self from bed at 1pm. Messaged Amy about the meet-up. Checked email. Jolene was going. Ahhh! Quickly got dressed, grabbed bag and left.

Remembered the rather disturbing dream about leaving the girls somewhere I'd forgotten. Ran around the mall trying to find them. Even sat down twice to backtrack what I did that day. Remembered this shop I stopped by. Thankfully the girls were in there, in the bag buried under some stuff. I was so way grateful. Had another dream about breaking coke bottles in someone's backyard, but that's another story. Just realised it was the memory of Amos trying to break that Chivas bottle the night before. Damn!

Back to the now. Reached Chijmes and found the flurry of people beside the chapel. Said hi, met Amy and Jolene, nana, starling, qiqi, and of course, the legendary kookii. :D

We had lunch at Raffles City food court and then headed to the Esplanade where we took a bunch of photos on the way. There, we snapped even more, before crowds of curious humans.

From Jolene, I bought the girls a pair of jeans and boots, stuff I can't quite make myself. Plus 2 pairs of brown eyechips. Popped the new eyes into the girls' empty eye sockets - qiqi was quite horrified but fairly convinced by the time we reached TCC at Millennia to change her girls' eyechips.

Coffee (iced tea for me) at TCC and more photos. Jojo, qiqi's LM was quite naughty but endearing. Kate was quiet for the most part, rather shy among unfamiliar Blythes. She was also rather disturbed that everyone had new clothes but her. I felt like a really bad doll mother, having stuck the three girls into my bag headfirst. Their hands got stained black but is now rubbing off.

I compensated by buying a blue version of nana's case from Carrefour. We had dinner at Ichiban Boshi after. Lovely food and service, as always.

The evening was a blur. I washed the girls' hair and brushed them. Jo and Biao stopped over for an impromptu visit. I surfed some and chatted with Tina online about Blythes. Might convert her. Then played WoW for a couple of hours (will try to add separate blog), and finished Reprisal by F. Paul Wilson after. Zzz...

Sunday: Woke up after a heavenly 12 hours sleep. Felt human again and refreshed! Had lunch with folks and then headed home to rest and play WoW for another few hours. Dinner at Hard Rock Cafe with the girls (and respective partners). An aborted trip to some club at MS. And finally karaoke and nice hot honey lemon to round up the night. Crashed after.

Saturday: Even more faint in my memory. Vaguely remember watching a couple of movies. But I do remember one morning, Saturday or Sunday morning, when Kaku came into the bedroom, went beside my dresser, and before she slipped under the bed, looked up at me at said, "Mweh!" It was the sweetest thing. :`)

It took longer than expected - had to hunt for some documents - but it is finally done. Tried filing for Zomb but the system went down for maintenance!

Anyway, this eve I had dinner with D and went over to her place to hang out. Her apartment is huge and absolutely gorgeous. :D We watched Sin City and were totally blown away! It is by far the best movie I've seen this year. Ooh! Wickedly delicious describes it all.

Darkly gothic like Dark City, immeasurably as cool as Blade, and action faster than his blade, Sin City is the amalgamation of three stories into one. With a star studded cast and a lightspeed pace, the sharp witty script is played out comic book style fleshed out in brilliant technicolour (figuratively speaking) in one's wildest drug-induced imagination.

Devon Aoki was superb as the swift and uber cool Miho and Elijah Wood immensely disturbs as Kevin, the serene and deadly cannibal. Benicio Del Toro was almost unrecognisable as Jackie Boy but his head definitely delivered some of the movie's most hilarious lines. A beautiful cast and powerful acting. That is just the least attractive parts of Sin City. Go watch it already.

A rather leisurely jaunt today from Dolanaar to Darnassus, some herb picking and slaying of creatures that attacked me on the way. It is the most beautiful city without a doubt in WoW. I thought of the dreary tunnels of the Undercity and the starkness of Ogrimmar and decided there was no competition whatsoever.

I ran around admiring the landscape and architecture, visiting the homes of the tradesmen. Picked up fishing and fished for 10 minutes (with the +25 bauble) but my catch was dismal: 1 Catfish, 1 Smallfish, and 3 of those toadlike fishes I never recall the name of. Anyway, stashed it all in the bank and decided to go do a quest or two.

I headed back to Starbreeze Village to slay 7 Mystics and their boss who dropped a necklace for a dreamcatcher this guy at Dolanaar lost. He paid me some silver as a thank you. Then I decided to try and find this lake up north but fell into Shadowglen instead. Rather annoyed with myself, I returned to Dolanaar, sold my stuff, and settled down for the night at the inn.

W00t! The much anticipated (and awaited) Land of the Dead will be here in 2 months! :D