One glass of milk in every slice...

Cheese Test: What type of cheese are you?

Arseholes 'r' us.

We are a nation that probably deserves every bad thing that happens to us. Economic recession? SARS? Invasion of Tekong by dumb@$$ bandits? The casino? All deserved. Singapore's basically a nation of pricks.

Yesterday, not one but two prime specimens of Singaporeus Idoticas managed to steal two lots from me despite the fact that I was waiting for them for like 20 minutes before either one of them even pulled into the carpark. The first one was an older couple that basically pretended that I wasn't there and didn't even look me in the eye when they left the car. I'm broadcasting now: Silver Nissan Sunny with the numbers 9424, if anyone actually sees this car, this would be licence to cut him off, steal his parking lot, run through a puddle as he's getting out of the car etc...Remember people, SILVER NISSAN SUNNY, License plate number: 9424 The second car was a black Toyota Corolla, but they had 3 kids so I think that it's punishment enough.
Meanwhile, that put me in a foul mood that I took out on other cars...a pathetic attempt at spreading my misery. My horn had a workout last night. I'm saddened really. I mean I thought that there would be some attempt at civility and simple courtesy. You see a car waiting, you let them have the lot if they came first. If they really wanted to be cutthroat about parking lots, then all bets are off. We don't scratch cars or smash in windshields because we respect other people's property and that comes from civility. But if civility is to be ignored...well there's always savagery. Life's a game and we don't have a great spirit of sportsmanship. In games, they tend to punish people for it. Unsportsmanlike behaviour.
So, once again: SILVER NISSAN SUNNY, License: 9424
Enjoy.

D'oh.

The RSS Courageous. Navy patrol boat. State of the art technological guiding systems. Manoeuverability of the proverbial dolphin. The ANL Indonesia. 52'000 tonnes of merchant vessel. Not quite state of the art technology. Manoeuverability of the proverbial 52'000 tonne merchant vessel.
Navy vessel decides to cut into the path of the 52'000 tonne merchant vessel. And said 52'000 tonne vessel is supposed to try to avoid the little naval ship? Uhm...I didn't do so well for physics but I'm just assuming here that a 52'000 tonne vessel really doesn't have that much manoeuvering capability...
Anyway, today's verdict was that culpability lay with the naval vessel. No big surprise there. But then the judge says that the people at the helm of the merchant ship are also sort of to blame, opening up a possibility for a civil suit that may allow the Singapore police to sue them for damage to the naval ship...OK...I didn't repeat 52'000 tonnes of merchant ship that many times in my post just because I like typing it...(OK, I did actually...but here's the point) I would think that a hulk of a ship that's 52'000 tonnes would have no culpability when it comes to a collision with a ship that cut into it's path. What's the deal?

Meanwhile on other news. A parent of our brightest 1% of Singapore modelled an excellent example for her kid when she decided to go totally against the teacher's request to not turn into an already jammed carpark to drop her precious darling into the compound. The teacher rolled his eyes, I stared daggers into the expensive continental car. Of course this led to a larger jam.
And in the spirit of the post, the organisers of today's walkathon managed to choose an absolutely pointless route in order to create a walkathon that ended at the youth park. This was, all in all, an absolutely pointless exercise in futility. What did it accomplish? Bugger all. And I had to pay $6.50 for a t-shirt that was just about made out of sackcloth...(the biblical type that's used for mourning)

LXG

>
>Which Extraordinary Gentleman are you?

Off topic...the funniest movie scene that I've seen for the longest time (quite literally laughed till water almost came out of my nose) would have to be from Looney Tunes Back in Action. The scene where they run into Dali's sluggish clock painting is just WAY too hilarious.
Never figured to be AQ for LXG.

Enter Sandman.

In lieu of an actual post...due to the fact that I've just been really swamped with who knows what...By the way, don't you just hate it when people write "your" instead of "you're"?


Death, the second of The Endless, you are
responsible for ending all lives and taking
them to your realm, from which no one ever
returns. You are bright, positive, happy,
optimistic and enjoy everything about life, but
that does not mean you're silly or stupid. You
can lay the smack down when you have to!
Everyone loves you, and they don't know why.


Which Endless are you?
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Buffy: Year 6.

We've restarted watching Buffy. Season 6, while being ultra depressing has also shown a hint of the good writing from the first few seasons. The characters have all grown up, granted, and the plots have gotten a whole lot more serious, but it's still good. Or it was anyway.
Watching the series on DVD sure beats watching it on divx...d'uh...Plus, subtitles rule. Season 7 releases on DVD in Australia on the 14th of April, drool. It's playing over Singaporean TV now but with all the cuts, I'm wondering if it'll even make a scrap of sense anymore.
There was this pub which had a Buffy viewing every Tuesday night in Australia. We managed to get there to watch the finale of season 5 where [spoilers ahead] Buffy dies. [End Spoiler] <- pointless really, because you'll read the two words anyway...) It was a whole load of fun with the entire pub watching intently as the action unfolded, cheering madly when the Buffster opens a can of whoop-ass on Glory and grown men going "awww" when Spike starts crying. Fun times indeed. It would've been fun to be there for the grand finale of BtVS. Interesting point, every Tuesday, the pub would have 50% off all drinks starting with B. Beer was one of those drinks. They also had slayer inspired drinks. Quite cool overall.
I miss that.

Damn...wish I had a thought.

I did...I swear I did. Yesterday, I was ready to get back in the blogging game with a witty and well thought out piece on something...I even had a title.
But I forgot.
OK...
Nevermind...I was in Borders last night browsing through the comics section when I overheard a couple talking.

Boy: "Do you like the Legolas or the Aragorn? Or do you prefer the Gimli?"

*smacks forehead*
When did the characters from LoTR get "the" tagged onto their names? Yeesh.
Yurp. I have officially run out of things to write about for now. Note to self, write these damn thoughts down!
On another note, I read the first volume of the Battle Royale comics. Wow...I had no idea that it was that violent. Well, maybe I did but it was quite shocking...and surprisingly addictive. I would like to get my hands on the manga collection. Interesting perspective for the Lord of the Flies.

Heya.

Don't you just hate it when you get a song into your head and you can't get rid of it?
For me it's Heya by Outkast. I heard it the first time during the NBA All Star game. They used it as the introduction for the Eastern Conference. Then, I heard it over the radio and then again tonight at the play. It's a fun song and it's VERY catchy but I know that it's probably going the way of the Macarena and it'll drive me crazy soon enough.
Speaking of other irritating songs, The Ketchup Song and the aforementioned Macarena. Irritating like poke a pen into your eye and swizzle it around irritating.
On an unrelated note, I managed to roll up near perfect stats during a course that I was attending. 18, 18, 17, 16, 15, 14. It was my fifth set that day and because no one was around to see it, I can't use it...Aarrgh. This guranteed that my dice will never roll up another good set of stats ever again. (Anyone who has no idea what those numbers mean, apologies.)

Whose Line is it Anyway?

Just came back from Mixed Blessings, a play that a friend of ours was in. It was an interesting experience to say the least, forum theater. For the uninitiated, like I was before watching a couple of TNS plays, forum theater introduces audience participation that shapes the way that a play plays out. In this case, we had to resolve an unresolved issue in the play regarding the two main characters.
Interesting but not quite my cup of tea. The first few people who went up to (re)enact a part of the play that was, in their opinion, unsatisfactory was quite bold and I applaud them for it. It was interesting to see the solutions that they applied to the problem at hand and the way that they acted it out. But not quite what I would've done. And therein lies the problem with forum theater. It's inclusive in the sense that the audience is literally a part of what is going on onstage and I think that it raised the interest level in the theater (room actually, it was a small and cosy venue) dramatically. But then again, it manages to exclude some of the audience at the same time. I for one definitely would not have played out the story the way that the 17 year olds played it out. And I definitely would not have done it the way the lady, (who in my mind labelled as the NE [National Education not North East] lady) played it out.
I know I know. Then why didn't you actually give it your own two cents worth? Well, it's a ton of factors that begins with a horrendously bad reindition of a Sicillian priest in a Primary School play that was an intermarriage of The Godfather and Goodfellas. I got crucified on stage (a line which in hindsight, wasn't quite appropriate in a mission school) and basically got crucified offstage for my pathetic attempt at an Italian accent. Further attempts into a career in acting landed me with a role that was a combination of Bruce Lee, the energizer bunny and the killer rabbit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. (Along with a stuffed pink bunny toy...) I also decided that my own version of events would be way too tragic and would probably end up with the director / facilitator yelling at me...yes, the scars do run deep.
I also was among the few in the theater who really didn't give too much thought into participating because the love affair between the two leads was rather chemistry-less. It lacked passion and the whole row of teachers came down with Icouldn'tgiveadamnitis. The two leads were extraordinary I'd have to admit, but together, there was no spark. So...
But props where they're due, all the actors played their parts very well and I applaud them for the great first half of the play. (The non-forum bits) Also to their amazing improv skills for the second part of the play. But not quite an experience that I really could relate to.
Tomorrow, I'm headed out to watch The Reduced Shakespeare Company's The Complete Works of Shakespeare (Abridged). On Saturday, I've got Cinderella, the ballet. This is turning out to be Dan's arts week. Yay!

Grand Day Out.

Today was probably the first of the rare enjoyable holi-days. Went cycling with the mini police brigade in Ubin. Aside from the fact that the place brings back bad memories of sandfly bites and sleeping with an intrusive rock that was trying to get intimate with my spinal cord while I slept in a tent, going back to PU as a civillian was quite therapeutic. We took a couple of bikes out and rode around a bit. It was quite fun...
Well aside from the fact that there was a kid who didn't know how to ride a bike (or had learned and, amazingly, forgotten) and I had to take him tandem...Sadly, being a large boy, I had to haul him up a slope...and that almost killed me. Aside from that we were hitting a pretty brisk pace that, while being nice and peaceful, lacked the thrill of speeding down the road with the wind in my (sadly whitening) hair. All the while, the other 15 kids were zooming around the island on their multi-speed double-suspensioned monster bikes. Having had enough of it, I hijacked a kids bike and took it down a hill while racing some of the other kids...Last minute sound judgement and self preservation lost me the race when I decided to brake the bike instead of break my neck.
Day was spent marking in front of De Palmas Mission Impossible. Evening was spent with Al, Luce, Terz and Tym at a Jap restaurant in Miramar hotel...(Highly recommended) where we had our brush with local celeb Zoe Tay. (She was sitting at the next table...in my local celeb spazzness I just thought that the woman bore an uncanny resemblance to Zoe Tay.)
All in all, I'd say this was an incredibly enjoyable day.

The Last Picture Show.

I give up.
I officially cannot continue this whole movie title thing so I'm dropping that shtick. Sad actually...I found out that I really lost what I meant to do with this blog (Titlewise) when I started really stretching it and alienated myself by searching IMDB for movie names (most that I hadn't even heard about let alone watch) that even hinted toward the topic of my posts.
OK...So starting with the next post, I will just have titles that coincide with my pop culture view of the world that I live in.
Meanwhile, I'm officially on holiday now. Unofficially however, I am actually not. I have courses and a cycling trip to Ubin with the sec 2 little cop boys. I think it'll be fun but it's a bit sad that I still don't get to sleep in till Wednesday.
O well. C'est La Vie.
Meanwhile, I'm currently stewing about a friend who's just dumped the moron of a boyfriend who somehow talked her into an open relationship. It's sad. She's a relatively well adjusted girl who's somehow got herself into a relationship that took away a lot of herself...
All philosophising aside, all I want to do is break the guys kneecaps.

Baby Boom

HAVING babies is a duty. Make that a duty to self, society and country.
MPs like Dr Ong Seh Hong (Aljunied GRC) want to pump up the social pressure on such people whom he described as 'irresponsible'...he suggested making this group bear the costs of their old age by having them contribute to an account he called the 'Preventive Eldercare Account'.

I think that the country's gone completely bonkers if we're actually going to listen to Dr Ong Seh Hong on his rather moronic views on baby making. Firstly, can you say Police State? We've got tons of ridiculous laws and I think that trying to force people to have kids by hanging a porverbial sword of damacles over their heads is pretty insane.
Secondly, think of the cost saved by not having kids...Money that you'll save by not having to put them through school, college and a fortune saved on diapers. The retirement fund's looking really fat right now. And the Preventive Eldercare Account? We already have something like that don't we? Say it with me Dr Ong, C-P-F.
Thirdly, there are people who really don't want to have kids because they have major problems bringing a kid into a world where students get so stressed out that they commit suicide for lousy PSLE scores at 12 years old, do you really believe that they'd REALLY love to have kids because you force them to?

D'uh!

Peanuts

You are Snoopy!


Which Peanuts Character are You?
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In The Cut.

I've had to do the unthinkable and have officially censored my blog.

Enemy of the State

I was in a foul mood all this weekend and this morning...but then I had an epiphany. It was weird really, the turnaround that can happen in a day.
Chapel was a message about faith and fear...it was a message that somehow really touched and revitalised me. Had some idea that I was where I was for a purpose and there is a higher power than I watching over me. We also had a rather interesting panel discussion today with some of the distinguished products from my school and I realised why I was where I was. There will be people who will put me down, but as an ***ian, it's my responsibility to stay. The school's changed and I think that it's changed for the worse, but my pulling myself away from all that and stepping down from the plate is probably what'll hasten it.
ANoises said that he came to the school expecting what he had read in "******, ***** and ****", my school and when he arrived it was the school depicted in the *** story. There are dedicated teachers who still believe in what the school stood for and I want to be there as well for as long as I can. I think that my purpose for the moment is to stem the tide. We'll see which way the wind blows next. Maybe we'll see a revolution.
For the moment, I'll stay paranoid and just keep myself out of trouble.
For all the people who gave me support these past couple o' days, thanks.
I think I'm going to be better now.

8 mile.

"Now I'm here, so shut your ************* mouth, and show me love, *****"

Dunno why but I feel exactly like that in school right now. These lyrics particularly stand out from the 8 mile soundtrack. I guess I have that right now, a love hate relationship with this massive dame of mine. The ol' red, blue and gold.
Funny really.
Still in a horrendously bad mood.
I don't think I belong here.

Boy's Night Out.

Well I went for my OBA dinner for the first time last night. It was an eye opener really. We're 118 and the atmosphere was pretty good I thought. It brought back memories, having people who were passionate about the school and school spirit was at an absolute high...which was kind of brought down by a sense of dread about the coming week. So I did the only thing that made any sense and left before the leaving got difficult.
ANoises, Jayse and I left immediately after the fish course (what more is there after fish really..?) and made our way down to No. 5 Emerald Hill and chilled there with chicken wings and wedges with a couple of other, initially unwilling, colleagues. It was fun especially since No. 5 really is a place built for chilling.
Ultimate therapy for overworked teachers: 2 hours of 80's music, a couple of drinks and Jayse spilling his guts about the women in the staffroom.
All that said, I really enjoyed the OBA dinner. On the one hand: Forced to go...not too good. On the other, I haven't seen such great school spirit since we owned Stamffy Institution in the rugby finals in my graduating year. The school anthem was sung with great gusto and there was a whole load of fun that was had ribbing da Man about his affiliations. :) Of course, I didn't actually see anyone I knew from school. But I did manage to mingle with a boatload of people that I haven't seen for a while. Students, staff from the college I never went to and some old family friend. I also bought a brolly for the greater cause of the ol' alma mater. And the whole old boys thing...quite true. This was also the night of reunion for the graduating class of '74 and there were people who were old and greying, there were high powered lawyers, doctors and even a speaker of the house (what house, I do not know)...but it was a night when they all just took a step back and remembered what it was to be boys (and girls) again.
It was fun.