I ate the moral high horse

Happiness is

2006-08-07T21:17:00.000+08:00

"Schools will now be encouraged to customize their sexual education classes to fit the needs of different groups of students."

2006-03-09T11:24:00.000+08:00

Truth is way stranger than fiction. Read this on everyone's favourite local newspaper today, gotta love these headlines.

"Schools will now be encouraged to customize their sexual education classes to fit the needs of different groups of students."

Gosh, CUSTOMIZED SEX EDUCATION, Sign me up man!

This I forsee could be way cooler than how McDonalds gives us such a wide variety of nutritious foods and their attendant options. Imagine if you will, striding up to your form teacher.

Yes, I would like the fellatio set with the doggy style sides and please upsize the fries.

wtf... what the hell do you mean by different groups of students? Being the good citizen I am however, I have decided in true consultant style to explore the possible methods and quantifible criteria to aid in this heroic quest to prevent the uninformed from learning more about sex while feeding the potentially sexually active ones more info in case they didn't know how to do it well enough. This is going to be one hell of an academic exercise...

Since we're probably thinking about minors entering Secondary School, a direct way is for a questionaire to be included in the PSLE exam. But as a nice value add, I would point out that this may be better sent to the people who know these Primary Schoolers best, their parents. After all, parents know their children best. I suggest slipping this into their report cards or having this conversation during the annual parent teacher meetings. Such as questionaire could be framed quite simply as follows:

1. On a scale of 1 to 10, how skanky/freaky is your 12 year old child?
2. When do you expect your child to become sexually active? If your child is fat or in the gifted scheme you may skip this question.
3. Does your child have access to video recording equipment?
4. How good do you think your child is/or wants to be in bed?

Given our predilection as a society for standardised testing, a simple vocabulary test can supplement this questionaire for a more rigourous result. Primary schoolers can be put through a test in the vein of the SAT.

Following this first level of screening, the children can then be segregated in classes or categories based on their different needs and levels of understanding(buzzwords required so that the ministry people can understand). In anycase, one such category may be

Can Understand Most Words However Oblivious Regarding Etiquette
or C.U.M.W.H.O.R.E for short.

This label can be sewn on the uniforms of the students for easy identification by the teaching staff. Who can then tailor their level of instruction based on these special needs. My hairy ass!

Segregating students based on their sexual education needs is rubbish.

Stereotypes are so wonderful, convenient and accessible

2006-02-09T18:43:00.000+08:00

The beautiful art of the GV Nazis

Land of Futile Hopes

2006-02-09T11:45:00.000+08:00

took a cab yesterday afternoon and ironically i was on the way to the career presentation of a certain foreign bank. how this is ironic will be apparent soon.

Anyway, taxi drivers being the veritable store of wisdom that they are, mine starting chatting the moment i got into the cab. Now this chap, drives like my auntie on the way to church gloves and all (talks like her too) and I was running a bit late. But being polite, I usually engage the other party anyway. I do know how bad it feels when no one wants to listen to you.

In any case, the topic of TOTO came up and that's when he said something that really struck. "This [insert synonym for national administration], only good at giving us futile hopes like TOTO, how to win?".

That really hit. People who are also searching for jobs now should know too well what I am talking about.

But more than that though, I think what really we should take away from any of this is this. Its certainly not enough to empathise with the underpriviledged when we are down. How many of us go through life not knowing the other side of Singapore? I'm not just talking about the romantically framed underpriviledged, the old, the sick and the dying. They need help too but I am referring to everyone else, people who don't appear on the radar because they are not "poor enough", the frustrations of being unable to provide all you want for your family in this consumerist society.

Now I am not advocating a campaign or some lame shit movement, all I am suggesting is that it might be time for us to not beat each other up and maybe just lend a hand or some guidance whenever wherever. I think if we give each other a break now and then, maybe more will start happening. Without the need to always wait for the government to do something. I hope I never become too successful to forget this.

wtf...

2006-01-19T01:22:00.000+08:00

Looks like the Chronicles of Naohiah is not the only one with unfortunate wording.

Took this pic in taiwan and since I didn't understand mandarin, I couldn't decide if it was weird porn so I didn't buy it. Knowing the level of spoken english in the place though, it might just be a self titled album... Can't decide if its an album title or the little girl's name...

Me: "Hi I am Shininggoat"
HTBTF: "Hi I am Happy to Blow the Flute, sister of Conceived Accidentally During Honeymoon".

Ok, I apologise about the english.

Some of my favourite taiwanese things

2006-01-08T23:15:00.000+08:00

The Chronicles of Naohiah

2005-12-27T11:43:00.000+08:00

Its tough to be a hardass all the time, so every christmas I cut myself some slack and follow the mindless hordes to catch a midnight movie. If you're in the age group 0 - 19, yes, this applies to you with precious few exceptions. If I ever wanted to get depressed about the level of education in Singapore or the future of the nation all I do is head down to Cineleisure. In between foaming idiots running around spraying each other with "snow" without realising the quasi homosexual references conjured, there were the others who just stood around trying to look like they just had sex with their little girlfriends who think its cool trying to look like each other.

But I digress and I suppose Narnia deserves more of a mention. This movie rocks for several reasons. Firstly it showed the world just how freakin irritating kids can be and makes a good case for abortion up to the age of 9 perhaps. By which time, parents should know if they got a whiny halfwit on their hands and should remove it from the mortal coil before it buys three 2nd hand "Live Strong" bands and heads to cineleisure to chew on condoms or something.

The first 30 mins of the movie should have come with the warning, "watch this only if you really love kids, or have a bladder the size of 5 big macs." I say this only because, to me boredom induces visits to the washroom and even the mindless hordes mentioned would know what a big mac looks like. McDonalds being their usual frame of reference, "meet u at Macs" etc... Anyway during the aforesaid 30 mins I kept wishing the Germans had been more accurate in the first scene but the krauts must have realised that letting the whiny kids grow up into emotionally inept adults was a far greater evil.

Another reason the movie rocked was the outrageous dialogue that they got away with. Never in my life would I have expected to watch a movie where an old man (Santa) gives a teenage girl a horn to blow on with the instructions: "blow on this and help will come" YEAH RIGHT... help will come all right...

Gee.. Mr Large White Bearded Guy who rides reindeer, I'm not too sure what will come but your horn sure is white shiny and hard, she must have thought.

WTF...What kind of world do we live in and what kind of messages are we sending to the young??!! If you are a girl in trouble you can get out of it by blowing a horn... goodness! Surely this cannot happen in a decent world.

But to its credit, Naohia never put itself up as a mirror of reality. For instance, nobody in the film had dicks not even the horses which is so surreal. Horses as many a naturalist knows have by human standards, impressively scaled appendages. How almost the whole world ran about buck naked without a single johnson swotting the beavers in the face is a mystery to me. In the context of the battle scenes, this becomes an even more monumental task where the 100s of thousands of dicks had to be hidden. Come to think of it though, no one in the movie had balls either... but who's complaining anyway eh? surely not the vibrant young men outside cineleisure spraying each other with "foam".

Anyway the filmakers being disney have somehow managed to take away the sole benefit of being a half man half horsed creature. I remember thinking it must be a tough job being the Centaur and writing my job applications of late has maybe increased my empathy. Try putting, "I was the little horse on the prairie" on your resume... tis sad indeed. Thinking about the Centaurs though brought home the fact that there are always worse jobs around, for instance, in a centaur, one could also end up being the tail end. For the textually inept, here's a proud visual.
Notice that while not all centaurs are cool, they are all undoubtedly sweaty.

I don't want to be the horse's ass. Naohiah Rocks!

is it just me or is the news just getting really really disturbing?

2005-09-21T22:06:00.000+08:00

these just heard on Channel News Asia...

"given Singapore's success in banning chewing gum, Asian health ministries in the region are looking at Singapore to take the lead in banning smoking altogether in 10 years time"

goodness... this is disturbing... our Core Competency is not timber, mining, biotechnology or Corss Stitch even... its BANNING THINGS!!!

I wonder how this is going to transpire though...

I can just picture the war cry now (think Braveheart or rather BraveLung):

"Come on guys! If we can ban chewing gum WE CAN BAN ANYTHING!!!!"

Meanwhile in the background the token inflated figureheads oops... mascots do their thing.

Sharity Elephant pulls a terminator and slices open his chest to show the real reason why he got decommisioned other than the fact that he was pink and kinda gay...

LUNG CANCER!! scary right?

Knowing the immensely talented pool of costume designers in Singapore though, the lung cancer will somehow strangely look like a Mcflurry mixed with ketchup and bbq sauce got split on his chest during lunch...

Next headline:

"Sharity Elephant eaten to death by fat children in Famine Camp, obesity in schools banned"

wtf.... we can ban anything my ass...

Anyway, the other piece of news that was quite disturbing...another IPC/charity in trouble apparently.

"Society for the Visually Handicapped has its IPC status lifted until it improves its governance... Spokesperson for the Ministry says " bet they didn't see that one coming".

ok... the second part was false. If you laughed though, you are burning in hell together with me. That said, singapore is fast becoming the land of impossible standards. Pri One kids now have to write compositions, I remember that in Pri One, having a kid next to me who was TOILET TRAINED was a big deal already... and you tell me they now flush too... wah... Anyway I couldn't help but think how unreasonable these people were: Corporate Governance? blind already how to do paperwork?

the evening news is just really really disturbing...

leave the world behind

2005-09-12T14:42:00.000+08:00

Just caught Quidam on a rainy saturday afternoon. I love Cirque, it just screams pure and simple... come in here and leave the outside world behind. Pity the prices are out of this world too though... 250 bucks for a paper mache mask for instance. Cirque is also not a place to go to feel good about being fat and unfit. Everyone there is in such great shape its... well... surreal... for lack of a better word. Perhaps that is exactly why we call it escapism.

So there i was fat and unfit in a crowd of similarly unfit people munching on an overpriced hotdog in a seat that my pri school cousin couldn't fit into, gazing in awe at the antics of a group of majorly talented fit people. Anything wrong with the picture? Maybe that is where the fat skinny divide will end up. Slim people will belong in the circuses and fat people will belong on the stands which are nearer to the hotdog stalls. I knew there was something freaky about being slim.

finishing

2005-08-15T01:36:00.000+08:00

This is one of the rare times I have been or rather will sound hopeful around here. I reckon it sounds horrible but sometimes honestly I do feel that the revelation of emotions, particularly hope, is a sign of weakness. Feeling hopeful or voicing commitment to me is akin to painting a huge bullseye across my ass, wearing a fuck me t shirt in a bad part of town and ordering chinese food in amsterdam. Though conceivably you can do all 3 simultaneously in amsterdam, it is the last example that perhaps illustrates the principle the most.

You can hope all you want but you WILL NOT get good chinese food in Holland. The next time your friend says "Gee, lets go into this dubious looking fortune cookie, "Asian Noodle" serving place, maybe they serve authentic stuff and this horrible decor and faint smell of cabbage is really a guise" ... Punch him. There's probably some cool latin phrase to insert here but since I don't remember it, I guess I'll just have to, in a manner of speaking, go straight to the point. (How's that for oxymoron?) i.e. I believe that Hope really is useless, and we create our own luck by using our brains or abusing our friends.

So it startles me no less than anyone else that as I write this now, I am hopeful. I will be the first to admit to my own faults, people around me know that, and they hate me for it. Primarily because there are so few of them hah =) One of these though to me is cardinal and that is not finishing. I have the attention span of a louse on a camels ass and I have a bad habit of not finishing projects that I start (to my satisfaction at least). Tonight I have done a few things though to set in motion a series of events which I believe may change me forever.

First, I have just finished building a water filter or rather a recepticle for my water filter. I have crafted it from hard wood and it took me 2 days to complete without electric tools. I do like woodworking and making things with my hands. More importantly though, this is the first step for my DIY revamp of my garden so that finally I can have all the nice garden barbecues I been wanting to have for ages. If you want to have my lambchops, you'll best find a way to help.

Second, I have just initiated contact with an automobile manufacturer in Thailand and this is where the hope part comes in. Trying my hand at deal making or just plain sales. If they do take up the component and incorporate into their vehicle design, it would mean a new area of business for the company and the best thing I have done so far in my adult life. This adds on of course to the little bit of running around that I have been doing for another little business venture which might come a close second to making the sale in Thailand.

Third, I am at this moment preparing for a business case competition in Thailand where I'll be from 16-21 August. I've got a great team with me, the best probably anyone can hope for. Still, hope here yet again... Wish me luck

happy birthday Singapore, 40% off petrol my ass!

2005-08-10T01:45:00.000+08:00

Its National Day today, and the mood of the moment is ambivalence. This is not a particularly good time of the year for me and has not been for the past coupla years. Most national days pass rather quietly, but this one was special not least of all thanks to some bleddy fucker who decided to start a hoax about there being 40% off petrol between the hours of 4 to 8 pm today. If you haven't already, you should have seen the freakin jams.

Must admit that the bugger had a brilliant idea, it was a masterstroke in a sense tinged with all the deliciousness of irony, that on our nation's birthday, many among us would be caught up in the uniquely Singaporean pastime of queuing for non existent bargains.

Quite funny in a sense though sad too in many others. Whoever you are, fuck you but hats off to you all the same.

For a brief moment, I pondered if it might have been part of a horrible terror plot... lure the greedy singaporeans to petrol kiosks and then have a "barbeque" in some form of perverse social admonition. But I realised that unless the terrorists read lit at JC level, they might not have fully appreciated the depth of what they have achieved, and thus bereft of intention, there could not have been motive. Most of the lit students I know somehow end up doing law or NIE with working for a terror network ranking pretty low on the job list. And even then, surely there were better targets, placing landmines under the luxury cars of the rich buggers who snatched free textbooks from the less well off for one... Bumping off moses lim before he crossed dressed as a nonya would have been another.

Learnt that I need to work on being more assertive today. Its a start I guess. My oven's broke and I'm looking for an espresso machine.

Happy birthday Singapore

The ERP and me

2005-08-03T00:33:00.000+08:00

Hate to flog a dead horse, but this ERP thing is getting to me. Gantries are so common now I think that every home should have one for national day decorations. Think about it a personalised gantry to place over your car. I think we can even have variations... A nice BIG POWERFUL looking gantry for the SUV drivers and maybe a range of small itty bitty ones for the the plastic fisher price cars and the Perodua Kancil. Our embassies overseas can also have gantries over their gates so that Singaporeans living overseas need not go too far to have a taste of home... brilliant sia. But none of them will be as awe inspiring of course as the spanking new gantry they planted smack in the path of my way home from school.

Like alot of things in Singapore, the new gantry appeared out of nowhere one day. Ok, maybe it was sitting inside some bureaucrats asshole until it was ready to be sprung on the driving populace. But anyway, from day one, I knew love was not meant to be. The bleddy thing almost caused an accident because the idiots infront of me slowed down to see it...

"Wah.... new gantry...."

Like fucking moths to the flame I reckon. I was surprised though that no grassroots types were there "spit shining" the pole since it was the latest thing out from the government.

"Wah sir, your gantry erect so fast, so hard and so accurate. And by the way ah, can you helps my son get into the gifted steam?"

Oh well, I'm so glad it will solve the traffic situation though, after all surely by charging us motorists money, we will not use the roads during the said timing. Go figure...

The communists would just have instituted a curfew, clean and simple. Travel between 6 to 8 and one of your children dies but not before we take your pigs and chickens. But nooo, since we are a market society, we need to apply market mechanisms hence this ultra sophisticated approach of hitting our wallets which would surely work. My ass it will! I think the scheme is as likely to work as I do of becoming skinny.

But just for once I would like to get into the minds of the policy folk. How does this fit into the grand scheme of things?

Firstly, I can see how this might be good for the economy. By penalizing exit from the city area, more people would ostensibly be "persuaded" to remain in the town area or better yet have their dinner in town thereby fueling the retail and f&b scene. Just a hypothesis.... but I do know that hungry people have to eat and they will not wait till past 8.

But how about this whole work life balance shit they were sprouting not too long back? Time spent in town is time away from the family. So much for having close knit multi generational homes. In a perverse way, this is a tax placed on the family dinner. If you want to have dinner with your family, you pay the price. Or you can wait la, but don't blame us if grandma gets ulcers... though if she does, then you can thank us for medisave in an election year.

Suffice to say, I think the gantry will not solve any problem and will instead create one far worst at least in the short run. The problem I have is that it is such an elementary conclusion, it could not have escaped the planners who so happily put the gantry at its current location. This is troubling and I will tell you why later.

The gantry comes after the moulmein exit, so this means that to avoid paying, all one has to do is exit at moulmein. Stroke of genius yeah? So this means that the already crowded Thomson/Novena area is set to become impassable or worst because of the regulating traffic lights. Lets just say I'm glad I don't stay there. And this is where it gets sinister...

There is no way this could have been overlooked and it says to me that a second gantry is hiding somewhere in the recesses of someone's bowels waiting to be expurged on us again... probably at moulmein, if it is not already there. The jusitfication? Because of the jams in the Thomson area. Well done....

Anyway, I suppose that I should not be surprised, such ham-fisted high handedness is nothing new. And I reckon as we celebrate our nation's 40th birthday, we should all realise that we have had 40 years of getting used to rolling over and playing dead.

Frisbee anyone?

So like a good hardy Singaporean, I will learn to enjoy what I cannot avoid. I have decided thus to name the new gantry, this way the next time I am beeped, at least I can say hello back yeah?

Or maybe on a whim I can drive down to town and back and pretend I am a submarine commander getting pinged (At least 4 times since I live in Seletar). This will be good because I will then be able to film the Hunt for Red October (SG Edition) for cheap in my Uncle's old Hyundai. On a good rainy day I can actually get some rain in.

Good lobang for digicams anyone? Happy National Day

ithink therefore icopy

2005-08-01T02:47:00.000+08:00

names changed to protect the guilty

it had to happen and I guess I should have seen it coming the moment the first iMac rolled onto our shores. Somehow, anything with the prefix "i" in lowercase letters became cool, and it would also be cool to ignore some basic grammer. Suddenly what might have been the product of a faulty spacebar became an overnight marketing phenomenon.

I had a keyboard like that too, and was once too a marketing god, what with gems such as isicksonotcomingtoschool and inotfeelingwellsocannottakePE. But that was another time and another me, ran out of sorry excuses soon after and hit the sad reality of ifatsocannotgetlaid.

Foolish fat boy that I was, I know now that I should have bottled these up and gone to "Oshim" for a job. Come to think of it, I might have attended TAF club with the same guy who came up with the whole "Oshim" line of products such as the ipok, isqueez, itango and iincontinent (got 2 lower case "i"'s so doubly cool). If you don't believe me, check out their website, its freakin amazing.

And it gets worse... like all nice little diseases, unoriginality is sustained by a core group of dipshits and a happy statutory board has hopped onto the bandwagon. Won't be naming anything here but you might had the misfortune of having seen the damn ads on the taxis already.

Next thing you know, Geylang jumps on the bandwagon and the way to lorong 9 frog porridge gets spotted with ifuck, isuck and imagicfinger, the last being a massage service of course.... right....

I am going to buy a huge black marker. The next lowercase 'i' I see gets farkin punctuated.

we all scream for ice cream

2005-07-28T16:14:00.000+08:00

less angst today... I am not really big on vengence though sometimes it feels like the right way to go. Wouldn't make for a fun world though, all this killing and unkilling, the real danger also is that you never know if you're the one being the asshole.

So I went and made some ice cream today. Not too bad for a first time effort if I say so myself. Don't ask me how, but somehow the conversation went from what flavour to the need for an alternative voice in the press.

We live pretty much on stories, markets move on them, we base our lives around them. And sometimes I just wonder what it might be like with more than one storyteller. I am no perenially dissatisfied Singaporean, but sometimes I do wonder about the flip side of things; like how on the way back from the city I now have to endure another ERP gantry while still being caught in a dumb jam. Like how our government has 2 interesting objectives in relation to my quandary...

1) Help all Singaporeans achieve the dream of car ownership
2) Reduce road congestion

hmm.... interesting.... these objectives taken to their logical conclusion scares me... seriously, what is so logical about buying a car and leaving it at home? Yet it is this our society must aspire to. Typically Singaporean maybe, half fuck for everything. Enjoy yourselves but not too much yeah.

no blogs for awhile

2005-07-27T12:57:00.000+08:00

won't be blogging for a spell

Young Sin Chinese Family Restaurant

2005-07-17T21:06:00.000+08:00

some chinese names should never be used for restaurants...

I can just imagine some idiot like me going past saying,

"Hmm... Young Sin .... I wonder what they serve?"

Can't help it though, with a name like it came from the creators of the Bang Bus, you are bound to be an easy target. Lunch at the Golden Puxi Palace anyone? =)

Receipts like that will also be a little bit difficult to explain to the wife yeah. Don't say I didn't warn you...

After all guys are always getting maligned. Just like fat retrievers get no respect.

Why just the other day, during a conversation with Sheena, I broached the topic of my boy Rupert making friends with her erm... "girl dog" Pinky. Little did I expect that she would be inclined towards a more pornofied version of "he just wants to fark her!!". Goodness.. what has the world come to?

In any case, I am sure that there are worse things on earth than a Golden Retriever cross-bred with a chihuahua, chinese lessons for one comes to mind. And you can throw in the Bhangra version of "In the End" by Linkin Park too.

Poor fat retrievers get no respect.

remnants

2005-07-13T02:31:00.000+08:00

I have been asked recently why I appear to be so much in love with Bangkok by a native no less and somehow the answer didn't come too quickly. True the last trip was fun, it IS tremendously difficult to say that a 2 bedroom serviced apartment plus good food, drink and company every night isn't. But fun just doesn't seem to do the destination justice. So I have decided to document some vignettes from my trips to Bangkok and maybe in doing so, find the answer there.

Billboards
These have really stuck with me since my first trip and I always get a familiar feeling everytime I see them on the way from the airport. For me they exemplify Bangkok the sense of the surreal. In Bangkok, the new is built on top of the old, or just going around it. Its as though the city planners just decided to forget that most of the place is crumbling in some kind of mad race, and just piled something on top of it while below life happily goes on. The path of least resistance maybe. There is this sense of the old and new that we don't really get in Singapore all that much. I remember having a champagne martini at H1 bemused that across the street, a bus that looked like it was in service since world war 1 rumbled past.

Bangkok taxis
One of the more enduring features of Bangkok, a typical conversation from my visits goes:

Me: Silom Village?
Driver: Yes!
after 40mins
Me (murmuring) : Oh fuck where is this place?

Driver: Yes!

Annie the Clock Seller
I saw Annie on a trip with my family in 2003 and here I must apologise, her name isn't Annie, it is a name i affixed upon her as a passing observer of her life. A name which stuck for a lack of effort on my part. Her simple makeshift stall sat in front of a closed store front and there she sat on a stool surrounded by her clocks, probably none of them telling the time of the moment, or at least they could not agree. She wears what is to my mind, a checkered jacket. If I could have photographed her I would, but I didn't have a camera with me. All I have are a few scattered sketches of her solitary figure fringed by the clocks which hung about her, still arguing about the time, though not very hard.

The whole scene struck me as quaint and I wondered what it must be like for her. Putting on her jacket before leaving her house, hauling her bag of time from her home to this location. Waiting for customers to come by. I wondered if she ever did get confused about what time it was, I know I would... all the bleddy clocks don't agree and I can't remember which one tells the time anymore maybe... If someone came over and asked me for the time, I probably would have to reply in all honesty; "Choose"

either that or punch the fucker in the face for being an arsehole - if he doesn't buy of course.

See, I wouldn't make a very good thai, too not non-violent.

better warn the Thais, the Japs are back and this time they mean business!

2005-07-12T23:33:00.000+08:00

empty bottle of smirnoff + half empty bottle of green label =

2005-07-10T06:27:00.000+08:00

0630 am Sunday morning:
I find myself just home from a night out with the visiting Thai students. Note for intercultural communications scholars... when inebriated aka piss drunk, we are all the same. Seems like if the UN had an international year of booze, we would be a more happy and similar world but I digress. Must admit that I did not expect to have such a nice time initially but I am glad the evening turned out very well. Took them (though sometimes they it felt like they were taking me) to mustaffa, rochor beancurd then momo where we stayed till approx 4 30 am.

In between, managed of course to squeeze in a discussion of some suitably weighty topic (not my waistline) about the Thai economy and society etc... while waiting for the ladies to get ready for clubbing. A bit like JC days but less hormonal. Took in a lesson on Loansharking 101 in thailand as well from Pom, a 19 yr old chap who speaks with more sense than I do on a good day.

I am still trying to come to grips with the dynamics of Thailand, somehow looking at another society has made me appreciate certain nuances of our own more acutely. Apparently, our reputation precedes us too well and someone must have hit the Thais with horror stories about our "fine" city. They actually thought that it was illegal to eat while walking on the streets since no one was doing so... presumably because I was not in the area. So after buying some old chang kee and looking around, they decided to play it safe and find a "safe" place to sit and eat first.

Anyway back to 04:45 am and I have just sent the Thais back to their hotel with Sheena Nicole and Glendon who came down to join us at Momo. I sat in the lobby and waited before I got called to one of their rooms by Nicole. Those who did not go clubbing had been "busy" and the above mentioned bottles lay smugly in different corners of the room witnessing the scene that they have caused. And an interesting scene it was.. 4 Thai girls and 1 Singapore girl in one toilet stumbling to help a fallen comrade. The smell of camaderie and international cooperation hung in the air, or maybe it was a slight smell of puke, can't really decide. Minor debate later, they decide that the floor is a safer place for their friend in case she falls off the bed. Then in a moment reprising the best of my brotherhood moments at their age, they took out a camera and starting striking poses over their drunk oblivious friend.

My dog is going into surgery tomorrow, a lumpactomy they call it. There's a not too agreeable lump somewhere on his right flank and they have to check if it is the big C, really hope nothing happens to him.

a day in the garden

2005-07-06T16:55:00.000+08:00

finally got down to all the gardening that I was supposed to have done. The afternoon was primarily spent on the water plants. My water lillies were getting out of hand so I had to go into the pond and trim them. Potted the lotus today as well, the one that I grew from a seed I carried back from bangkok. Usually this activity would have made me happy. The goldfish which I bred were doing well in the mud pot too. Gardening is supposed to be somewhat carthartic no? But now I find myself alone again still feeling like shit for some reasons I would rather not discuss.

Maybe I need a bigger garden.

its strange how humans can invigorate and drain each other at the same time. A moot point for the creationist camp. human emotion to my reckoning does not seem to follow the strict utility that evolution implies. Unless of course the point can be made that somehow, our capricious set of emotions has the effect of prolonging lives. Is it for joy that we live or does the avoidance of sadness drive us along? If the latter than it must be that sadness somehow is a condition more undesirable than death. Something to think about yeah? If the former, then by any yardstick, I am a failure along with many others. How much joy does our life give us or the people around us? Darrr has said it, grades for grades sake is useless. It doesn't of course mean that attaining good grades is a joyless affair, though where to draw the proverbial little line is a question that is too personal for anyone else to answer.

Have we forsaken our friends and family? Lived lives less than honorable for petty gains? I had a dream or rather a nightmare in which I was boiling with a certain rage. In it, I was shouting at a certain someone, "you are nothing! you are nothing because you have no one!" Freudian projection aside, it made me ponder if the real reason I was angry was because that person represented the ugly part of me that I hated in myself. Its really hard to tell when you are the asshole.

I used to be easily agitated and angry on the roads. Consequently I have been less than civil in my manners to say the least. Now I take it easy. In a world filled with so much grey, you may obtain some gratification from cutting back into someone's lane or blaring your horn. But like I said, its hard to tell when you are being the asshole.

All that said, some behaviour I still cannot stand, and if you are one of these types... all I can say is stay away.

I hate buggers who go at 80 on the right lane of the CTE. No excuse there except a blatant lack of consideration or plain stupidity. The right lane is an overtaking lane and should remain so. This also means that if you stay at 90 on the right lane when there is a car behind you on a relatively clear road ahead, you are also a prick. These rules of course are flexi for instances such as jams etc...

If you travel at 80 on the right lane, you don't deserve your license.

addendum to modest proposal

2005-07-04T23:15:00.000+08:00

Thinking back, while probably absolutely unnecessary I realise that perhaps I need to explain more about the choice of using gurmit singh as a campaign spokesperson.

Somehow, everybody identifies with Gurmit, I'm not too sure why but I guess it has something to do with him appealing to the "Non turban wearing Sikh posing as a Chinese Contractor who doesn't speak hokkien" within all of us. Free tickets to Phua Chu Kang the musical anyone?

We are such a funny society it hurts...

Speaking of pain. I am in pain pure and simple. After happily suggesting that wy receive a kick to his erm... "delicates", to divert attention away from his busted knee, I find myself in the unhappy position of contemplating the same treatment myself. People who are about to volunteer to help me, you are unsympathetic pricks. And before you buggers start forming a queue at the door to "help me", I would much rather do the deed myself, like run into a chair for instance.

Dude, I feel your pain.

On another note, this is an interesting feeling to say the least. I have not had such a strange feeling since the last time i tore my frikkin shoulder. I have difficulty using the phone and wearing shirts is pure hell. But for the sake of public decency I have soldiered on and have not appeared shirtless in public as yet.

being in pain sucks.

a series of modest proposals

2005-07-01T02:42:00.000+08:00

just thought that I would do my part as a concerned citizen and give my humble opinion here on how certain societal issues may be best handled. Probably my longest post ever.

-Problem-
We are slowly turning into a nation of fat couch potatoes (like me) or thin nerdy chaps with bookish glasses and bad posture (feel free to play around with permutations such as "fat with bad posture", "thin couch potato" etc...). At this rate, there may no more poseurs left to fuel the retail and entertainment industry, thereby plunging the economy into an irrecoverable abyss. There will also be the additional problem of what to do with all the surplus "live strong" bands, skate shoes and hair wax. Smelting them into condoms comes to mind but the demand for prophylactics among the fatties and nerds is not exactly strong. We might also see a dire shortage of mammary shaped mouse pads for the same reason that condoms will not be needed.

Converting all the live strong bands, skate shoes and hair wax into chewing gum is also unacceptable, since under the terms of the Singapore - US free trade agreement: the only rubbers which can be chewed and sucked are those which are good for the teeth. Fortunately for us, just coincidentally, a number of american rubbers fit this bill, and after chewing and sucking on them, we will have nice clean teeth with which to smile and say thank you.

The prevalence of fatties and nerds will also exacerbate the babe drain problem Singapore faces. SDU's membership might also swell (pardon the pun) to surpass the number of NTUC union members who are easy to count because they stay so very still. The ensuing dearth of couplings will also send the real estate market into a quagmire since F&Ns (no relation whatsoever with the company) are also more likely to stay with their parents till their late 50s or the CPF withdrawal age whichever is earlier.

-Analysis-
With my rigorous business school training, I felt compelled to do this consultant style because consultants get paid for common sense and knowing words that other people do not understand... not unlike a Spelling Bee competition. This approach will not be duplicated subsequently, ostensibly because it is a. Repetitive and b. people might actually see through it for the bullshit that it is. Anyway here goes...

Applying various management tools such as Porter's five forces, SWOT, passing the buck and an extended executive lunch after golf; I arrived at the heart of the issue. [Future policy makers might want to take note of the stunning brevity]

-->We have too many fat kids and nerds.

Tada... Short and sweet yeah... I can also say this without guilt since I am both fat AND nerdy.

I will probably go to jail for this, but I believe that if you are feeding someone bullshit, you should give it to them straight, pardon the oxymoron. This I believe is preferable to a statement which could have been said like,"There are 3 CRITICAL things we must do in order to boost the birthrate in Singapore:

#1 Get Singles to form relationships.
#2 Increase the number of marriages in Singapore
#3 Get married singaporeans to have children

No shit sherlock... But lists are good notwithstanding, especially when you are talking to people you think are idiots. The pause helps us idiots digest the points you see. for instance...

#1 Wow
#2 Such
#3 Bullshit

but i digress yet again. Back to the issue at hand I have contemplated some possible solutions as outlined below.

Possible Solutions

a. Ban obesity and nerdism and jail offenders
b. Create a campaign with easily recognisable local faces such as our very own Gurmit Singh and some under 21 national soccer players for the ethnic cool edge.

However, as preliminary proposals these are bound to have shortcomings. Banning obesity might work since time in jail has been known to induce weight loss among other things. On the other hand, the poor skinny kids will still be passed assessment books by their parents during visiting hours, thereby preventing them from fully enjoying the physical aspect of prison life, such as running around and playing with the other inmates. The more optimistic among them might also find the environment more invigorating than the underground tuition centres they are forced into after class everyday. Heck, they might even catch some sun.

At this point I must apologise for proposal B, it is getting rather late as I finish this. I will not be able to recognise the under21 squad myself, though I hear you just have to look for the chaps in soccer boots at 7 eleven buying Menthol lights. Still support using Gurmit Singh since any campaign with him inside is bound to succeed yeah. Just look at "too tuff to puff" not to be confused with "too dumb to spell" - our national speak good english campaign that never quite got approved.

Suggested Strategy

No consultant would be caught dead without considering the use of existing resources so in tackling this monumental issue, I call upon the most terrifying, brutal and powerful force in Singapore --- Overzealous Parents. Anyone who disagrees should spend an afternoon manning the book or uniform store at any primary school before term starts. I've seen little kids in braces shoved out of the way like bowling pins and maimed before they can touch the coveted assessment books. No doubt about it, overzealous Singaporean parents make the Yakuza and the KGB look like the Carebears. (No discredit to the Carebears of course... anyone who can live their lives looking that gay must be tough). Singaporean parents regularly engage in espionage and intelligence work worthy of the Mossad in scouting for tutors and getting the secret test papers of "top schools" (a shitty and unimaginative term no doubt, but an effective image nonetheless). These are people who would willingly deprive their own young of sunlight, food and youth in the pursuit of academic success imbue in them a slavish lifelong devotion to external validation... Son you are only smart if other people say so...Scary indeed.

In anycase, capitalising on the primal energy of this frenzied horde, I have hatched the ultimate and most brilliant solution to our tiny problem. A solution that promises not only to kill the proverbial 2 birds with one stone, but also in all likelihood, some fat kid like myself too. Went to the gym today, almost died on the treadmill... but i digress...

Our society has spoken at length about wholistic and balanced education; creating a breed of fit and intelligent Singaporeans well versed in history, heritage yada yada yada. And I got to thinking about the assessment methods.

If we are indeed testing the whole person, why test fitness separately from academics? Why not instead just hold the fitness test right before the any academic paper? Or better yet, incorporate the exam segments as part a the fitness test. A test of stamina, speed and mental acuity under stress. This can moreover be achieved with a few simple instructions. For instance:

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PAPER

Run 2.4 km to station A and complete all 10 MCQ qns over there. Star Jump over to station B for short answer questions. Complete 60 situps before going to station C for essay segment. Papers completed before 3 hrs is up will be awarded bonus marks. Every minute later than the first submitted paper carries 0.5 penalty marks.

Knowing the overzealous parents, we probably won't have the stadiums to cope with the surge in demand, something that has to be addressed. On the upside, I believe that this should fuel our fledging biomedical sector as parents turn towards modifications for their children... some wheels perhaps to go with the braces. We might also have a fighting chance at fielding a soccer team at the world cup which can fly in on the non smoking flight. This scheme as foreseeable will not meet much resistance as prior experience has shown. Just ask the cinema operators.

back from bangkok

2005-06-28T15:33:00.000+08:00

just got back from bangkok... read darrr's post and would like to clarify that it is not that I do not blog often, but rather, I'm just not very good at it. Haven't quite gotten the flow of the style etc, and somehow sharing what I think has not always been a strong suit of mine.

And then of course, there are these fat obese fingers of mine, rather unwieldly and not the best to blog with. Have been putting off the posts so that i can change the look of my blog first. too similar for comfort with zuobolan's, a resemblance i assure you was purely coincidental and also mildly troubling in that sense.

Bangkok was great (as usual) but also tiring (also as usual), got myself a new list of restaurants to visit, 3 pairs of pants, a lotus plant and shoes this time round. I might feel the inclination to write about some of the eating places in Bangkok soon but thats for another time. Will have to get around the vow of secrecy I took with theguineapig first, so for now one of those places will have to remain known as the "puki puki cafe and bar" (heres one for the annals of catchy fake place names). Had to watch the spelling of annals, its ones of those words which one does not misspell lightly. Anyway, it is home to the most divine warm chocolate cake ever created. I could show you the place, but then I would have to kill you, either that, or as the potential scandal might go, if there's not already one in place, theguineapig might want to see you in his pen/sty.

Have also a new idea for a restaurant format somewhere so deserted u need a map to find. A true Shangrila in Singapore. But that will probably have to wait till when i have money to burn, an event that is not likely in the near future with the ever increasing movie and fuel prices. On that topic, I believe that government policy is sorely misdirected. You need couples to have more babies and without cheap movies, where will people go to pretend that they are interested in each other as individuals? (as a prelude to whatever it is a prelude to... take the hint policy man). They won't go to NTUc (borrowed from tangoh) for sure, though I hear that there is some even more inexpensive rutting going on thereabouts. Being far from civilisation has its advantageous i suppose.

So we're stuck in a horrible position, higher prices = more revenue for government and a nice sturdy surplus BUT less avenues for the erm "youthful exertions" of an uncreative people and less babies for the Singapore farm. Conflicting policy direction?? I think not and therein lies the rub. Quite simply this is where the injustice lies. My proposition is that raising movie prices is a hidden tax on our primordial instincts. The raising of such prices, and their associated demand inelasticity is a testament of the fact that we cannot help such behavior and as such are putty in the hands of the pricemongers who must really feel like warren buffet when increases here and there send us scampering in either direction.

Like it or not, Humans love to congregate and engage in congress (check the dictionary for the real meaning). And movies are the only means of doing so. I am convinced that this must really be the case. Since somehow, we as a people cannot help but succumb to such hikes without a struggle. Surely we cannot be that rich a people as to stomach such blows with impunity and somehow we have. Other than admitting than we don't have a spine of course, which is of course unacceptable. So there you have it. Caught in such a scenario, we are being punished for behavior that we cannot help, much like punishing the caucasian for being white, the chinese for making money and the indians for setting up mamak stalls among other injustices. Ok, maybe that was stretching it a bit far, everyone knows that it is impossible for a white to be punished for being white, except for Vanilla Ice that is, though Micheal Jackson might not agree, depending on which colour he is feeling.

some things you can't forget

2005-06-19T01:46:00.000+08:00

Happened to be at Hougang South interchange earlier this week and got all nostalgic. Its been a long time since I was there and an even longer time from when I was growing up. Though I did not live in Hougang, the place featured regularly in my childhood since I would stay over at my cousin Darren's place at Yimei Garden almost every week. Of all things, I was there to hand some documents over to Xueyun from internal audit. A queer sensation it was being handed a slice of nostalgia under these unlikely circumstances, but yeah... i suppose that's the way the story usually goes.

I would love to talk about Yimei Garden, 3 of my uncles had homes there and growing up there with Darren, Samuel and Daniel was unforgettable. It was there I learned how to swim... sorta... I was aquaphobic till I gain water confidence with my first try at snorkelling. It was also there where we played games in the lobby, lit lanterns during mooncake festival and nintendo'd/Sega'd till we all went short sighted. But I digress and that is story I will leave for another time.

Rui Fa minced pork noodles
You know you are getting old, when you can lay claim to having eaten at a particular hawker stall for more than 15 years. Though not really hungry that day, I decided just for old time's sake to scout around for this minced pork noodle stall that we used to patronise way back in pri sch back when Hougang South was still just good old Hougang. Stall 01 34 at the hawker centre still stands today the same as 15 years ago. I'm not too sure about the name of the stall, I believe it to be Rui Fa Shu Shi, not that there was never a need to remember the name... It is a stall you would know by sight, if for nothing else then by the iconic curry puff uncle who helmed it.

Curry Puff uncle, so known by the brylcreamed do that he keeps was and is to me, the ultimate consumate Hawker showman. A person who takes pride in what he does and his food, it was never just a mechanical pulling of noodles and timing learnt from some franchise manual or a mere dishing of soup. Bowls were tapped and ladles flashed with flourish when curry puff uncle held court. And hold court he did, with his killer herbal tinged soup that accompanied every bowl of dry noodles. And what a discovery it was to a young boy (for there are old ones too), finding this stall and knowing it like close kept secret shared only with friends. I believe that it was Darren or someone in his family who introduced it to me. And in doing so, it went from being one of their "secrets" to being one of mine as well, spreading the joy so to speak. Perhaps this sharing of good things lies at the heart of friendship and kinship and it is through the sharing of experiences that relationships develop a language of their own, a shared memory and piece of history. Maybe that is why I am particularly uncomfortable eating with people I do not like. At the risk of over dramtism, the meal table is no place for hypocrisy.

But I digress again as I am wont to do. Back to the present, to the event which sparked off this reverie. I found curry puff uncle at the stall, his hair styled the same way I remember, his full head of hair a testament to the non abrasiveness of Brylcream and the stall looking like it did in my mind's eye. Though a bit slower, there was still that little flick of the wrist here and when he was cooking. And then it hit me, how everything has changed.

I saw his hands, perhaps not as steady as before, his skin, dotted with the tell tale signs of age.. and most tellingly maybe, the absence of a queue. Ironically, there was a long queue right next to curry puff uncle for noodles as well, helmed by a young guy who might have been curry puff uncle some years ago.

The sauce and the soup were not as fantastic as I remember and on any other day, I might have dismissed this as another stall which is no longer as good as it used to be. But somehow in a world driven by novelty and menus with more foreign words than sense. Lamenting the drop in standards seemed out of place here. And maybe, it was left to me to wonder, whether it was part of the flavour lost, or part of me.

In Transit

2005-06-13T15:52:00.000+08:00

On the MRT...

Souls in purgation, drifting between
Periods. Where we don't know what to do.
We Fear... Nothing
Not having a frame of reference, reduced to anonymity
We shift,
into blank forms dreary faces.
Newspaper readers.

old lady and tv

2005-06-02T17:36:00.000+08:00

Gave an old lady a ride out today on the way out of school... or at least I had wanted to... she didn't walk too right, holding a pink umbrella the same shade as her shirt, she was walking with a limp. My physiotherapist would have said that her left foot was too pronated, some volunteer type would have commented on society and a minister might have stopped for a photo op. But perhaps thankfully or otherwise for her, today it was just going to be her, an old lady in a pink shirt holding a pink umbrella walking down the slope alone.

And maybe in that split second, there also was me.

Is there a point to any of this? you wonder. I would like to play the sage and speak of the grand plan in the sand and the stars but that is for another time. Random thoughts flitter in and out of our minds the same way we cross each others' paths. Stimuli and reaction. Life is formed of a series of transactions. What did I think of today?

Did I think about my own grandmother deceased? How in her last days, she wasted away while her grandchildren and family extranged looked on. What is one to do in the face of something unfamiliar? Assume the form of something seen on television perhaps? The teary eyes, the awkward silences, don't satisfy me, I've seen it all on channel 8 before, can we change the channel please?

So in many ways I blame TV, it doesn't take much to plunge into existential ennui when the scenes of all of your tragedies and joys look like the replays, the networks well.. replay in the afternoons, just without the killer angles, the attractive people, surround sound and theme music. TIVO takes it one step further. Now you can have your stimuli whenever you want it the way you want it.

And it is no longer safe to be a niche group as well. You can say that "Hey, I'm a fat guy with an embarassing hairdo, surely there is no precedent on TV" but tough luck chum... I'm sure with a large enough satelite dish, I can watch midgets wrestling in siberia, sponsored by Nike no less.

Ok maybe the fat guy with the bad hairdo was an unfair example. I should have mentioned, some people more unique and original, such as the throngs of similarly clad people hanging out at the youth park or the heeren shops expressing their individuality.

Acrimony aside, I paused too long or rather drove too fast, and the "time" between the old lady and me, passed.

I think that if you want to help someone, don't wait too long.

Women think too much. Fat retrievers get no respect

2005-05-27T15:08:00.000+08:00

Just this morning, while having a brief chat with a Ongie, I casually mentioned that my dog Rupert would love to meet Gray, her stuffed animal held hostage in the back seat of her car. For the yet uninitiated, Rupert is a small lovable golden retriever, just a tad overweight at 36kgs. I have been told that he weighs as much a primary school child, though I have no idea why, he has not had any of those in years.

Anyway back to the topic at hand, methought that Gray, being a creature with no friends and having only the occasional bum planted next to him would have loved to socialise for a change.

But Nooooooooo.... Ongie said, apparently horrified that her "baby" would actually BECOME INDEPENDENT. Ongie, if you are reading this, Gray is a big stuffed toy now and needs to leave the fold now and then.

Anyway, I just had to come to the horribly sexist opinion that women certainly think to much.

The evidence certainly shows.

I recall a similar conversation with my girlfriend not too long ago. In fact, it is a conversation we reprise every now and then. Out of the kindness of my heart and my dog Rupert's good and gentlemanly nature, I offer up my garden and my home for her to bring her 2 ladies (read: bitches) so that my dog can play with hers. But "Nooooo!!" the woman says, followed by something incomprehensible like "he just wants to fark them". I mean, what's so wrong with our dogs playing together??? It must be because he is a fat retriever. Women are such blatant dog nazis.

Its a fact. Fat retrievers don't get any respect.

a little bit of insanity: the burden of consistency

2005-05-25T22:20:00.000+08:00

I'm not too sure how it all began, but quite sometime ago, predictability became entrenched as the cornerstone of existence and so being; the ability to read patterns equipped one with the necessary skills to survive.

Looking around it should not really surprise, it is a fool who denies that there are seasons and this darkness and light we call night and day. The intelligent among those who were there in those early days took heed of these patterns and hunted and stored in response. Those who didn't, simply froze or starved whichever came first...

And maybe so it was that little by little, identifying and adapting to these patterns became easier and easier as part of our very natures, driven by our innate ability to learn and this consciousness of the past that we call memory.

I don't know exactly when and it might have been quite a long while ago, when the tribe of human realised that finding no more patterns to follow, it was quite possible and comforting to create our own. And then not inconceivably so, from each person to each tribe the message and the expectation grew and from then on, each person bore this burden of consistency; our wage to the rest of humanity for survival.

The "mean" is a formidable master and futile to resist. There is a tremendous duty to be one with the mean, to be identifiable and comparable, and adherence or any petty resistance only serve to reinforce this. Indeed we as a species have even come to love it, in a manner not unlike how hostages develop stockholm syndrome. We have fallen in love with our captor and have enshrined it in our deepest notions of of beauty. In symmetry, the beauty of sameness comes to full expression.

Speech and writing is no different, for all our protestations of craft and art, whatever can be said, must have been said and understood before. In this way does vocabulary gain in strength and force as recognition and resonance increase, passed through the mouths of babes and fools.

Aging Gracefully is bullshit

2005-05-21T13:36:00.000+08:00

Aging gracefully is bullshit!!
There is nothing graceful about incontinence, alzheimers or erectile dysfunction. Anyone who tells it otherwise is lying or sick in the head. For these reasons and many more I fear growing old...despite the obvious perks

Remembering girlfriend names for one will not longer be a problem since they may not even remember their own.

Also, the old can be real arseholes and just be thought of as "eccentric". If I was old had a shitload of cash lying around, I would buy a white Volvo and park it on the expressway shoulder with the external battery for my pacemaker, or my half filled urine bag lodged out of the window like a fucking speed gun, and scare the shit out of young punks tearing down the expressway in daddy's car. JUST SO that I can say, "now you know what that feels like!" before the warmth in my adult diapers signals that it is time to go home, to my warm sponge bath by my hapless domestic helper.... ummm warm sponge bath.

Come to think of it, a warm sponge bath by a nubile young nurse might probably rank as one of the biggest perks that might Come with old age, no pun intended, IF NOT, for the 3rd "little" problem as stated above that also "might come" with old age. Talk about tragicomic...

And this is probably where growing old really sucks... To the buggers who say "I don't believe in paying for it... " Believe it, sooner or later we will all have to pay someone just for handling us.

And you best be grateful for who you have today.

Visiting Time

2005-05-17T12:48:00.000+08:00

Some fools believe that time, she waits for no man, but I know better. For I have seen the face of time and it is not pretty, I know she waits for all of us.

Waiting is all she does.

Time is waxy flaxen and weak, it is dry and flaky like the edges of a rice crock, where the broth had beat a hasty retreat. Now the fire’s gone out, and all that remains are indelible marks upon its canvass, our skin. Where once resiliency stood in testament of youth now does the show of vaguely vanishing dents and furrows, announce that we have found time, where she has been waiting all along.

I have seen Time, and held her by the hand. I have sat by her bedside and looked upon her toothless face in helplessness.

I know what else waits.

Sometimes I can hear her faintly calling out my name or mouthing the words that never came, straining to hear my replies. Until it became, time, to say goodbye.

The way of the shining goat

2005-05-13T09:34:00.000+08:00

don't ask

These are dark dark days

2005-05-13T09:26:00.000+08:00

testing testing 1 2 3