Month: October 2005

Finished… PS… essay…

Procrastination… in… blood… progress… so slow…

Worst… piece… of shit… ever…

(screech of nails on boards, ominous gnashing of teeth)

Just remembered I have another due in three days.

Just some random hilarious clip (work safe) of guys doing the thing where you sit in front of your webcam and mouth the words to songs whilst making funny facial expressions… errrm essentially a drag show without the female costumes. I can’t really make out what they’re saying before they start the clip, something like “Da4 jia1 hao3, wo3 men2 shi4 mei3 yuen4 de4”, which I am guessing means they are from the school of fine arts? I hate to stereotype, but…

How long do people take to rehearse for these things?

Rather embarrassingly, I am a regular visitor to Something Awful. Most of the time the American humour makes me a little sick, but the Hentai and porn reviews are usually good for a laugh, and strangely the authors are less racially-discriminating when talking about small-chinese-chicks-with-big-black-dicks than in articles describing “chinky” food. I guess some things are just above (or in this case, below) racial discrimination.

Awful Link of the Day was a website about Ocean, a “musical sorceress” (The Source, L.A.) with the largest eyes I’ve ever seen on an real human. She looks like something out of an anime-obsessed-geek’s nightmare.

As for her music… well, I may not be a literature major, but when someone rhymes “monkey – junkie – money – funny” over an entire song I’m sure all those over the age of twelve will agree with me it’s not good. I think this is why most chinese artists don’t pen their own lyrics.

Eeeeee. The pictures just freak me out. Worse – I can’t detect photoshopping.

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Another link, this time for charity. Do help put it up on your blog too if you have the time – Special is a community project to help the disabled find jobs, mostly in the IT line. And why not? Most of those in the IT line are mostly somewhat “special” anyway – a hearing problem sounds barely counts as an impediment in an industry where almost everyone seems to have some kind of social adjustment issue (I’m generalizing, I know).

Over the weekend I went out with QR and his girlfriend (I get the feeling I’m going to be going out with a lot of couples from now until the kids start popping out) and she decided that we would watch Flight Plan, the latest trapped-in-a-place-with-evil-movie starring Jodie Foster in a plane acting crazy. My guess is that the increased media representation of women hitting men with fire extinguishers and other heavy objects has led the contemporary Singaporean woman to be a lot more assertive, and men to be a lot less vocal about what kind of movies they want to watch – girls are calling the shots these days (or I just hang out with wimpy guys).

Anyway, as the title of the post suggests, in the final moments of the show, as Jodie punches an air stewardess (as far as I’m concerned the high point of the movie), the film burned. At first I thought it was some funky special effect signifying the air stewardess’s loss of consciousness, but it became obvious in a second that it was rather too low-budet looking a special effect. I have tried to recreate the effect in Photoshop:

(Those of you who can’t see animated gifs won’t be able to see anything, sorry I still use such primitive tech) I was at first at a loss to explain the strange scene, but QR assured me it was the film burning and that he’d seen a documentary or something that had old projectors with burning film. It was the most exciting part of Flight Plan, what with the audience getting riled up and shouting to the poor attendant that they’d better get the thing working again (the movie had major themes of poor customer service, after all).

With luck, when I watch King Kong, we will be accosted by escaped gorrillas from the zoo. That would be ironic (yes, Gary, I know what “ironic” means and this time I’m sure I used it correctly) and interesting.

I already know I’m going to be disappointed in the explaination for the fifty foot monkey.

Lesbian sex and linux. Punk rock woman teaches linux virgin how to get down and dirty. Ugh. Check it out.

This has to be the sick, sick fantasy of many a tech-boi. And… if you can get off to it I’d say you’re pretty-much-beyond-hope-of-redemption-by-normal society.

(By the way, the same site that hosts their torrents has a copy of Singapore Rebel on it, not that under any circumstances you should ever download it to watch because that would be so very very illegal)

* just a note – in my previous post, I meant by “I can Pee and Shit like a normal person” that my toilet was fixed and that I wouldn’t have to run half a kilometre to take a dump anymore, not that there was anything wrong with me physically that would have made me unable to attend to my sanitation needs *

I had a strange dream – rather out of character and also a little late. In it, I was back in my old army unit, and I screamed at some evil female clerks (I could tell they were evil in the dream, they wore flowing costumes that were inefficient and silly) who were trying to slack off, and they were suitably cowed. A peer expressed his admiration for my guts, and I beamed with pride over my asserted manliness.

Then I woke up, my drool leaking down my mouth.

I’ve never had a dream where I was aggressive. In fact, I’ve never been one to be aggressive (except to my family, and only in a rather sublimal and passive manner) and I have never ever shouted at anyone in the army. I just tended to speak rather quietly, review in my head the rules I had been given for being a GOOD LEADER and suck it up the best I could.

Of course, it makes me wonder if I am no different from the actively-aggressive types like Seet and Nick, who pursue bloody (and most ugly) activities like capoeira (the cha-cha is just a dance – capoeira isn’t). After all, deep down the same impulses to cause hurt are still there, and I can even recall the intense feelings of satisfaction as the evil-office-ladies (oh who am I kidding. They weren’t evil. They were dressed as Chang2 Er2) starting blubbing. I also remember telling myself to keep up the range of volumes and tones so as to keep them on their toes.

It was the most poetic dressing-down I’ve ever given.

Urgh. Scolding office ladies? Fawning peers? I have deep seated repressed emotional issues, don’t I?

The title says it all. And I’m off to enjoy it.

When the bloggers were jailed for being rascist, I thought it was a rather severe punishment for such an infantile crime. And it was somewhat insulting to have half the nation suddenly turn their attention to bloggers in general and start tirades in newspaper forums about how bloggers produce nothing but EVIL WORDS and are exhibitionist fetishists wasting their time blogging instead of productively watching mandarin drama serials.

I’d hoped the newspapers would publish some of the EVIL WORDS – if I’m going to be warned against producing EVIL WORDS it would be nice to have an example what to avoid. Unfortunately no sign of the EVIL WORDS appeared, resulting in a polarization of ideals – one side possibly imagining the worst and arguing for all rascists to be severely punished, and the other thinking no comments could possibly be that bad and that we should be a little more maganimous. Singapore played safe, as usual, in case anyone reading them should suddenly be mistakenly influenced by the EVIL WORDS.

I managed to net myself a short excerpt of some of the stuff written, thankfully (I wonder if Google has cached, or if the Singapore government managed to get them to remove it?) and after reading it… well, it’s not so bad. It’s insulting, I guess, and absolutely untrue, but then again Singaporeans should be pretty used to being insulted. I think what got the bloggers stuffed was the call-to-arms. Yes, folks, they encouraged others to join in their little Malay bash and I think that was what our government was trying to say was a BAD THING.

I wonder, if the police had said that they could not charge the bloggers under a public offence, and required an actual Malay to stand up and sue them for libel (which is really a sure-win case), if it would have ended up such a huge affair. What I mean to say is, if the prosecuting party hadn’t been the Singapore Government and had instead been that Malay girl who blew the whistle, would Singaporeans have cared as much?

I’m not so sure they might have, though of course, I can’t be sure (Singaporeans’ concerns are sometimes a little surprising). Which then begs the question – has the government become our moral compass, instead of representing our moral values?

Today was Wei Chuen’s birthday, and we went to celebrate at KTV and then dim sum. Didn’t sing much, and ate too much dim sum, meaning I was mostly rather bored during the evening, and had a stomachache after. Wei Chuen maganimously ordered everything on two pages of the menu other than the fried food, which didn’t meet the approval of the healthy-and-sick-people and we stuffed ourselves on semi-good dim sum stuff.

Sometimes I think classy Chinese food names are the best part of the meal.

Along the way to the restaurant, these taiwanese tourists asked us if we were locals. I said yes, though the alarm signs should have gone off in my head to warn me against speaking to anyone in the Chinese language (I’m so bad at it). They asked if we knew the best place to have Hainanese Chicken Rice in Chinatown.

I was stumped. I seldom eat chicken rice (after a horrible experience with a maid in my youthful years) and even if I did eat chicken rice with any regularity my ability give directions has been commented on as being poor at best (YOU’RE USELESS, ALEX!!! at worst) Luckily Wei Chuen (a Malaysian) managed to point out some street directions to some eateries around the area, but I am now suitably embarrassed that I am Singaporean and I know little of my country’s tourism hotspots. My confidence in making it in a hospitality career has died.

Shamed, I went home and checked it out on the internet. Here’s some recommendations for good Hainanese chicken rice at makantime, and here’s confirmation that any red-blooded Singaporean should know where to find good Hainanese chicken rice – it’s supposedly one of our representative cuisines.

Before you mock the dish as having another country’s name tagged to it, might I remind you that it’s borrowed-name nature very distincively portrays our nation’s migratory origins as well as our willingness to import foreign talent to supplement local manpower, making it symbolic in so many ways. The fact that the dish combines so many ingredients of different colours could also stand for our multi… And if that still fails to convince you, two words – french fries.

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I’d actually wanted to take WC to ride the reverse-bungee at Clarke Quay (WC, if you’re reading this you escaped, but only barely), but I thought the only way I could possibly get him to get on it was to have some of us ride with him. I was fully prepared to do it, of course, having done it before and knowing that it’s really fun and exciting – just thinking of it makes my balls shrink and gives me that crawling feeling in my gut (or that could be the dim sum) – but I knew that wouldn’t get him in and that I needed another certified coward to do it also.

Unfortunately certified cowards are, predictably, rather hard to get to go on reverse-bungee rides. And in the end I scrapped the idea, after being disappointed with answers of lack of money, courage, potentially-popping-blood-vessels and weak hearts.

Strangely enough, though no one had the guts to ride, they still wanted to watch.

Those cowardly friends of mine who have birthdays coming up, be prepared – you can find more information here. In case you can’t figure out where it is, here’s some maps (courtesy of Streetdirectory.com):

Someone’s gonna have an exciting birthday.

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I’ve never really noticed it before, but I get bored very easily when I’m with people and we’re not doing anything. Things like sitting around in a cafe and talking, or having meals meets the limit of doing things.

I’ve never noticed it before mainly because 1) I don’t really meet people unless there’s some activity planned, and 2) my friends are starting to work, meaning they have precious little time to do anything but go for meals or drinks.

I’m not sure if I should envy those who can really, really appreciate good polite conversation.

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Went home today finally. Mother plied her tactics once more – this time the conversation was strange (even stranger if you don’t understand Singapore’s housing laws – singles in Singapore can only purchase housing after the age of 35, those who are married or have parents, kids, etc can get them at 21 – for more info, check out the HDB website)

Mother: You know, if you want to buy a house we can sell off this one.
Me: Sheesh. I can’t even buy a house till I’m 30. Singles need to be 30. Or 35.
Mother: Dad can sign up for it with you. Then you could get a house now.
Me: What? But Dad’s already signed up for this house with you.
Mother: But he can sell off his share of this house and then he can apply again.
Me: What? Sell off his share? Then where would he live?
Mother: We can get a three-room apartment.
Me: What? Then who would live here?
Mother: Whoever buys the flat lah!
Me: What? Why would you want to sell the flat? (As you can see, I’m rather confused by the whole conversation)
Mother: So that you can buy a new flat lah.
Me: Then where would you live?
Mother: We’ll get a three-room apartment.
(I am stunned for a couple seconds as my mother’s words make an impact)
Me: But why would you want to do that? I don’t need your help to buy an apartment. I’ll earn the money.
Mother: (snorts in derision) You don’t know how expensive it is, you have to pay so much to buy a house.
Me: No need lah. I don’t want your money. (This is a blatant lie, I DO want my parents’ money, and I take it from them on a regular basis)
Mother: You say that now, wait until you want to buy a house.
Me: Please. Give it to Victor to study with lah. He needs it more.
Mother: Wah. so kind ah, give money to your brother
(I rush off before it can get any weirder)

It’s never figured to me before that my parents would ever leave me anything (other than my poorly-constructed body, alienation from my roots and siblings who will want money from me). And it got me to thinking that I couldn’t, on any basis, take any money from them, not after telling them for so many years what Bad Parents they were for not being richer, or more well-connected, or having given me a better education (if it sounds like I’m horrible, my siblings are worse – at least I don’t complain about not being breast-fed).

It feels a bit too much like extortion. And considering how much they’ve given me already, I’m really quite thankful. I feel like the evil son that I always read about in the evening tabloids who get headlines like UNFILLIAL SON BEATS MOTHER, TAKES HER MONEY!!!, though it really touched me that my parents were willing to do this for me. They’d probably get the headline that says PARENTS SACRIFICE ALL FOR UNFILLIAL CHILD WHO RUNS AWAY!!!. Yeouch. No way my parents are going to pay for my flat for me (big words for a 24-year-old who still takes money from mummy).

If it ever gets that bad I’ll find a sugar-daddy. Daddies not related by blood are okay to take money from. And if there’s one thing my parents raised me up to be, it would be to be independant (despite being somewhat tardy about laundry and cleaning the floor) and resourceful.

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On the other hand, if I did have some money, I would want so very much to do a road trip.

A few glitches:

1. I don’t own a car
2. Even if I did it wouldn’t matter, because I can’t drive
3. Even if I did own a car and I let others drive I don’t trust those friends of mine who can drive
4. Being rooted to my country (ie. never been out of it for more than a month) I can only road trip in Singapore
5. A road tip around Singapore is about as exciting as getting your nails polished (assuming you’re not Elvira Deville)
6. Assuming the stars align themselves, I’m still too much of a coward and a stick-in-the-mud to drop everything and run off
7. Lastly… I may be too old

I always knew the day would come when I’d start regretting not doing the things that kids do because otherwise I’d never get the chance to do it again because some things you can only do as a child. I just didn’t think it would be this soon.

Regretting my youth marks my first step to middle age. Next stop – concealing age. Looks like it’s concealer instead of car.

Just a little article about happiness and Gross National Happiness (such a horrible name). I agree that life shouldn’t be an endless cycle of production and consumption!

Note that the whole concept is rather utilitarianst.