Pleasure is the flower that passes; remembrance, the lasting perfume..... . . ~Jean de Boufflers

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Thank You.
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This Blog has seen it's last post now. There won't be any more updates from here on.
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Thank you for finding your way to this site and catching a glimpse of Normal Life for the past year or so - and a good one too. Thank you for all the nicest quotes and remarks. Thank you for your continual faceless attention. Thank you for the time you imparted to soak up yet another social commentary on this space.
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Thank you for the memories.
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That said, thank you and good night.

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Holiday Tip : Beware - Bangkok Cicaks are Commando-trained!
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Travellers take note:
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When dining in a third-class tomyam joint, be wary of the ceiling.
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If you see anything that resembles a normal cicak, it is NOT.
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These are a different breed.
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They are commando-trained, ready to assault your fishballs at the slightest opportunity you present them.
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During your pleasant evening dining experience, they will suddenly undergo a tactical airborne exercise and literally fall from the sky (ok, ceiling) onto your table, scampering a mad dash across it immediately, leaving diners caught in a frenzied panic attack, which will, inevitably, lead to the bowling of, er, bowls of hot soup over one another in a state of delirious pandemonium, and drenching nearby patrons with an aftertaste of tomyam cologne and garlic perfume.
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They always work in pairs. And they are DANGEROUS. God help us all.
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Useless Caution : Using your chopsticks to catch their tails is a total waste of time.
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Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Escapism is a Four-Day Adventure.
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The keywords in Bangkok are: Sanuk and Len.
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Because if it isn’t "sanuk" then why do it?
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Sanuk means to have a good time and enjoy oneself.
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It is almost a rule of living for Thai people that whatever they do have to be "sanuk".
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The concept of "sanuk" goes beyond the moments of a good laugh or a good time at a dance or a performance. Rather it's the pumped-up adrenaline and sustained bouyant feeling you need all the time to keep on going in Life in a manner devoid of worry. I think it is an inherent sociological trait that allows the poorer Thais to wade through everyday of their inadequate lives trying not to think excessively of their miserable existence - a subtle escapism from reality.
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Some examples of "sanuk" activities :
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Thamngan sanuk - enjoying work.
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Khui sanuk - enjoying a good chat / being a good chatter.
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Daa sanuk - taking pleasure in scolding your friends ( and enjoying it ).
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Thuuk daa sanuk - enjoying people scolding you ( and not even near masochistic ).
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If you want to meet the real locals it’s actually dead easy.
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Show you are enjoying yourself, lob the biggest grin on your face, and look approachable. Who cares how old, how large, how smelly (well they do mind the smelly bit) you are, you will find Thais coming up and wanting to be part of your “sanuk”.
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The same concept of deriving enjoyment from whatever one does is reflected also in the use of the word "len".
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Poot len - you’re having a laugh / talking cock.
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Len pool mister? - Do you fancy a game of pool?
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Maybe Sanuk and Len (and tomyam) may actually help us all understand the priority of these tumultous Thais.
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So every once in a while a bit of “sanuk” is certainly a good “len” - like the calling of Chatuchak and other shopping places for the crazy bargain-hunters in all of us (take a cue from the land of a thousand smiles, stressed people out there).
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However personal experience tells me you can never have your 300THB back for not wearing a crash helmet on your rented motorbike, because Sanuk can only go so far.
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Thursday, February 15, 2007

Almost Indian.
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A group of students went on a school exchange programme in India recently, and came back to share these insightful photos.
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This is the entrance to the Biology lab of the school.
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The external facade looked rather spunky, inspired possibly by some Petra-esque architecture.
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This is what the inside looks like :
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I imagined some top Indian doctors and scientists spending countless days perpetually hunched over these lab tables experimenting on some curry powder during their younger days as students. Heck, for all you know, one of the tables could be the bed for Rabindranath Tagore.
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Check out the 'vintage' feel of the apparatus. Any ol-skool physician would be inspired by this set-up. You can wear Victorian-era get-ups and stand anywhere inside the lab and be mistaken for Alexander Fleming - with curly sideburns, of course.

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Check out this classic learning aid.
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I kinda dig how they portrayed the eyelids as 'hook-like' appendages - like in-built coathangers. Cool but very rigid-looking, evil eyelids that looked like they were casted in some kind of L-shaped mold and then superglued to the eyeball.
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BUT the real reason why they wanted me to see their photographs was because of this :
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Damn. I didn't know I had a market share in India's convenience stores.

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

You've Got VD?
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On a side note, everyone knows that Valentine's Day is a soulless abomination of a holiday invented by an evil consortium of wealthy gardeners and greeting card designers in a desperate attempt to make us buy more flowers and cards. Their nefarious ploy worked, as every year men are forced to buy cards and gifts or face scorn and ridicule.
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Let me show you Love in the way of the Force. Below.
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Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Back Side Issue.
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Another astute colleague came to me in the morning yesterday and asked me whether I knew the approximate direct length from the mouth to the rectum.
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I was like - what the??? - of course I couldn't give an answer to that question (duh), and I have no idea why he's interested in that measurement. Still I thought of asking him to measure his personal dimensions first, then letting me know the answer, but somehow I didn't dare to. The last person you'd want to upset is someone who's caught up in this anal-retentive mood trying to measure his ass, and is persistently adamant about knowing the rear truth behind it.

Monday, February 12, 2007

Tele-Phony
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I think this aggressive telemarketing thingy is getting too much.
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I don't know how these companies get hold of normal folk's personal contact numbers - like maybe they have some ninja network that can hacked through private databases or something like that. Your handphone number is really not a private thing anymore - just mere digits ready for commercial exploitation.
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And yesterday alone I received four calls from perfect strangers with nice voices telling me that (a) I've won a complimentary four-day spa retreat at some spastic place ( with a catch at the end, of course ), (b) an opportunity to renew my car insurance at very competitive rates (when I had insured mine just only), and (c) having to listen to two female customer service officers from two local banks here pestering me to sign up for their new platinum cards.
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I wish some bigshot would put a law out to stop this excessively-damning way of doing business. Spam SMS is already bad enough, but this brings Creative Marketing 101 to a new low altogether, and reeks only of sheer desperation.
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It's probably a matter of time when I'll receive a call someday that wants me to book my own funeral package, and to make it more attractive the offer includes a complimentary trio of professional mourners for twelve hours to do their thang.
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Now that's business for you.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

I Thought This Was Really Funny.
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A sort-of thank you note from one student during yesterday's O level results:
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Haha! Thank you, Steffi, for that vote of confidence. Now I need to rehearse levitating human organs in class soon.

Friday, February 09, 2007

The Release of The 'O' Levels Results.

From the inner-thoughts of a student-candidate:

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod.Will I make it will I make it or not? Please please God I worked so hard for this please give me the distinctions cos I need it to continue staying in [insert name of college]. Please please. I promise to do all my homework from now on and skip out on all those stoopid times lazing around doing nothing. Please please.

(Taking a deep breath) Ok. I'm ready now to take my results.

Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!!! I made it! I made it! Ahhhhhhhh!!!!! Five distinctions!!!! Ahhhhh!!!!! Can die!!!!!!!!!!!! Ahhhhhh!!!! Can't believe it!!!!! My future is saved!!!!!!!!!! Yahooooo!!!!!!!!!!
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From the inner-thoughts of a teacher teaching student-candidates:
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Ohmygodohmygodohmygod. Will they make it will they make it or not? Please please God I think they worked hard for this, even if some didn't, please please give them the distinctions cos I need them to continue staying in [insert name of current teaching school]. Please please. I promise to give more homework from now on and skip out on all those stoopid times lazing around doing nothing. Please please.
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(Taking a deep breath as the first student collects her result slip)Ok. I'm ready now.
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Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!!! They made it! They made it! Ahhhhhhh!!!! MSG 1.28!!!! Ahhhhhh!!! Can die!!!!!!!! Ahhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!! Can't believe it!!!!!!! My neck is safe!!!!!!! Yahooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!

Wednesday, February 07, 2007

Eulogy
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A family friend passed away yesterday.
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His death was no less tragic; while retrofitting some fuel lines inside the belly of a cruiser, he inhaled some noxious fumes which caused an irreversible binding to some blood vessels leading to the brain, which apparently caused him to collapse without so much an anaphylactic shock that some colleagues thought he was snoozing on the job.
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I think it took a whole hour for them to realise that his puffed-up body was actually the result of the accumulation of the toxic vapour in his lungs, and that he really wasn't prostrating at the chimney stack just for the heck for it for sixty minutes.
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At the wake yesterday night, the only thing for me to do was to diligently recite some Quranic verses - alms that hopefully will buoy him to the next peaceful plane of existence. I made a strong mental note reminding myself that death is just a transition in one's ethereal journey to Somewhere, because I noticed most of the visitors were not the least perturbed by this passing on, albeit the sanguine atmosphere.
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It is as if everyone has resigned to this penultimate fate of destiny, and no amount of tears or blood will hold back the inevitable claim - a waiting game with the grain of time as the rolling dice.
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In spite of a momentous feeling of sudden insignificance in front of The Almighty, I could not help but notice the young boy crying at the corner of the room, now fatherless and orphaned for the last 38 hours, and I too cannot hold back a tear.

Tuesday, February 06, 2007

What Stare-Stare?
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Got problem is it?
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Yup, we do. Our people like to stare. A lot.
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Case in point - you came down with fever and a really bad runny nose and lost your voice at the end - so you went to the doctor for a check-up, and there you were given a mask to cover your facial orifices.
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Not like it's an abnormal thing or what, and especially not uncommon in hospitals, right?
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Wrong.
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While you're sitting down on the couch and humming to Justin Timberlake's What Goes Around, you suddenly realised that everyone who passes by was staring AT you, like they were sheepishly antagonising some leashed, muffled canine or mentally mocking your poor imitation of Hannibal Lecter.
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Either way, they think you're worse off than phlegm.
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You suddenly became paranoid of the mask, and wondered whether the nurse with the hairy legs has sabo-ed you by giving a mask with a pink-coloured outside with pretty little yellow sunflowers on it - and therefore you really looked that screwed.
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Anyway, phobias aside, it's really rude to stare, and we all know it.
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Sheesh.
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Because if I wanted attention I would have worn this.
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Sunday, February 04, 2007

So it all boils down to this.
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I think we are all materialistic in some sense.
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During the first introductory lesson with my new batch of Biology students this year, I asked each and every one of them to introduce themselves to the class, state a few lines about their hobbies and family and stuffs, and lastly to share with the rest their aspirations and ambitions for at least ten years down the road.
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Not surprisingly, most of them mentioned the urgent need ( or could it be desire? ) to become rich and have lots of money.
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One or two came up with an honest ( or rather cliche ) forecast of spending their future in some third-world country slums and villages as medical doctors.
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A quirky one wanted to open her own bread shop.
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It's not a surprise, really - about those who prefer the company of manna than men. Everything in the world revolves around the greenback.
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But when it hit the present minds of fifteen year old teens that above everything else comes money - now that is shuddering thought to bear, for I can remember vividly what our replies were when our Form Teacher way back in secondary school asked us that same question - none of us could say that we wanted to be rich at that time. Yeah well, we wanted to, of course, but it would be that we rather have richness by wanting to fill the stereotypical roles of doctors, lawyers and engineers.
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Then we'd be rich with a purpose, see?
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Now, being rich is simply an enforced attitude.
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I dare say possessions are careless means of swaying our orientation towards the quality of life, because then we'll never see the other full spectrum of Dr Jekyll - for good and bad times, till moral bankruptcy do mankind part.
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Seriously.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

The Most $#%&^*@ Guy in The World!
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So there I was, being introduced to perfect strangers around the dinner table by a friend when this buttmonkey ( apparently a sorry excuse for a boyfriend of one of the ladies ) suddenly came up beside me, and with his index finger pointing at my face, ASKED ALOUD to the whole bunch "WHO THE HELL IS THIS?!?!?" in the most obnoxious way ever deemed possible to come out from the human buccal cavity.
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What an inconsiderate, unethical socially-uncouth baboon !!!(and a real baboon has better butt-wiping manners!!!). That was ^%#^%$@*& rude and uncalled for, you pathetic excuse for a neanderthal!!! Acting like a fake-Crocs-wearing pai-kia with a dash of megamoron tendencies in front of your woman is soooooo NOT cool, you dumb ass.
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Losing my cool, I quickly decapitated his head using the chopsticks on the table, and in the next instance, the ugly blob of pimply-skin and hair fell to the group in a silent thud.
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Or I wished I did. But then knowing me, I just walked away.
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I'll leave the jerk for the Crazy Horse girls to do their one last scintillating death-kick at him.

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Ten Happy Thoughts to Live By.
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1. Be contented with what you have. Gripe, but not in excess.
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2. Stop daydreaming of your wants and be realistic with your needs. Proceed from that point onwards.
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3. Take one day at a time, but plan for the future.
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4. Never mind about the people who don't like you. Remember, it is IMPOSSIBLE trying to please the whole world, so don't bother. If you feel that there is some meaning in what was being said, then try to change yourself for the better. Or else don't bother still.
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5. Never mind mistakes and failures. Learn from them. And move on.
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6. Say goodbye to anger and jealousy. Because the only one suffering in the end is you.
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7. Be confident, never arrogant. You might think the world owes you a living right now, but be prepared for the underbelly of real Life later. Staying positive is an asset you must inculcate.
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8. Always have high spirits. Not the liquor, please. Don't be a lazy bum and wait for things to come for you.
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9. Enjoy everything. Your work, your school, your workplace, your present state of existence. Everything. Soak it up.
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10. Keep a clean and free mind. A mind free of fears, tensions, obsessions and cravings ( Exception: Ben & Jerry's) is a pure mind. A pure and clean mind means a steady character.

Tuesday, January 30, 2007

Auto Photo.
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Yesterday's quirky encounters:
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Number One - A Car With No Butt.
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Damn! No Rear Bumper!
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Number Two - A Spectrum of Wheels.
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Wah! A colourful coincidence of Picantos!

Monday, January 29, 2007

Typical Movie Cliches
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If staying in a haunted house, women should investigate any strange noises wearing their most revealing underwear.
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All beds have special L-shaped top sheets that reach up to armpit level on a woman but only waist level on the man lying beside her.
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All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French bread.
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It's easy for anyone to land a plane, provided there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.
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Once applied, lipstick will never rub off - even while scuba diving.
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The ventilation system of any building is a perfect hiding place. No one will ever think of looking for you in there and you can travel to any other part of the building without difficulty.
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Should you wish to pass yourself off as a German officer, it will not be necessary to speak the language. A German accent will do.
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The Eiffel Tower can be seen from any window of any building in Paris.
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People on TV never finish their drinks.
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The chief of police is always black.
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When paying for a taxi, never look at your wallet as you take out a note - just grab one at random and hand it over. It will always be the exact fare.
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Kitchens don't have light switches. When entering a kitchen at night, you should open the fridge door and use that light instead.
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Cars and trucks that crash will almost always burst into flames.
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If a killer is lurking in your house, it's easy to find him. Just relax and run a bath - even if it's the middle of the afternoon.
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Any person waking from a nightmare will sit bolt upright and pant.
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Even when driving down a perfectly straight road, it is necessary to turn the steering wheel vigorously from left to right every few moments.
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Creepy music coming from a graveyard should always be closely investigated.
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If a phone line is broken, communication can be restored by frantically beating the cradle and saying, "Hello?, Hello?"
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Most people keep a scrapbook of newspaper cuttings - especially if any of their family or friends has died in a strange boating accident.
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It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involved martial arts - your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessor.
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When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your room will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish.
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Dogs always know who's bad and will naturally bark at them.
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Action heroes never face charges for manslaughter or criminal damage despite laying entire cities to waste.
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No matter how badly a spaceship is attacked, its internal gravity system is never damaged.
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If there is a deranged killer on the loose, this will coincide with a thunderstorm that has brought down all the power and phone lines in the vicinity.
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You can always find a chain saw whenever you're likely to need one.
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Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their arch-enemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gases, lasers and man eating sharks that will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.
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All bombs are fitted with electronic timing devices with large red readouts so you know exactly when they're going to go off.
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It is always possible to park directly outside the building you are visiting.
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Guns are like disposable razors - if you run out of bullets, just throw the gun away. You can always buy a new one.
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Make-up can safely be worn to bed without smudging.
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A detective can only solve a case once he has been suspended from duty.
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If you decide to start dancing in the street, everyone you bump into will know all the steps.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Five Guys and A Woman In White.
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There is this strange attraction towards horror movies that depict the supernatural elements closely associating with our Eastern mysticism. So it was only natural that almost everyone I know was talking about this latest Indonesian horror flick featuring the legendary lady in white, featuring yet back again on the silver screen.
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I don't know if this is true, but after hearing countless tales of supposed encounters from all corners of society, I have come to believe that this legendary lady of the night has haunted every child's sleep at least once in his / her lifetime, and especially so if you were once a malay kid.
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More if you served NS.
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Or are serving NS now. Gulp.
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Blame it on the deeply-rooted discrete laws of 'pantang-larang' and the lore of superstitions deeply embedded in a kampung lifestyle of yore, and voila! a juxtaposed conundrum of illicit and unfounded fears gushed forth from a spring of concocted alternate realities.
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It also didn't help that relatives would hurled stupendous exclamations of 'tido! Nanti ada momok!momok!' at the sight of a kid sleeping late past bedtime to warn the child of an impending finality, or the third cousin who'd coaxed you into accompanying him to the toilet late at night because he swore there was 'something' lurking inside.
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The only something, I believe, that was lurking inside was the putrid excrement of our bowels, hopefully flushing down our unsubstantiated fears of the unknown as well.
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Because if we fear the unknown then surely we fear ourselves.
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Which is exactly why we always tempt our fate; to see its incantations on celluloid and see if it fits our description the way we want it to be.
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As far as I know, way before Sadako came out from the TV in The Ring, the Indonesian Film Industry had another horror starlet grazing its movies. Her name was Suzanna and she was, in the literal sense, a killer in the box-office.
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An epitome of the genre she famously sucked dry after waves and waves of potraying the Lady in White coming back to life to seek revenge and redemption, Suzanna had no qualms playing the lone lady at the cemetery waiting to hitch a ride from an accidental motorist late at night.
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And boy was she scary.
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It wasn't her make-up that was so horrifyingly horrific; rather I thought it was her pair of eyes, they seemed to throb on their own, like having a pair of frickin' laser beams that could crack the bravest of us and reduce the fearless to a fragile state of child-like permeability.
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I caught some of the films back then on VHS, and I made sure I was with somebody when I was watching them. Usually grandma came in handy because old people would dismiss them as 'mengarut' or hocus-pocus when they watched these freaky shows, so I kinda felt safer with them and their guarded principles.
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The last person I want to watch with, is my youngest auntie, who till now, still screams like a banshee with diarrhoea at the mere sight of a ridiculous actor in hantu make-up that looks like the mask came from a Toys R Us cheap sale.
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Anyway, the movie was a let-down, and the actress was no Suzanna.
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We left the theatre unrepented of our ghoulish aspirations, but if there was ever one consolation, it would be that we did not scare ourselves silly after that.
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Or at least I tried not to. Which was why I sped at 120 km/h on my way home, alone in my car, with the clock striking two past the witching hour.
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Scare myself silly? You can say that again.
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Thursday, January 25, 2007

Daniel is One With The Force. Well actually, he's just crazy.

It is no big secret that most Star Wars toy collectors are all grown-ups. They are neither ashamed to reveal this passion, nor do they feel the need to share them compulsively.

Therefore I had to chronicle the pleasure of meeting up with Daniel this week, a long-time friend and one who is strong in the ways of the Force, who invited us over to see his new rebel base.

If I thought I was crazy about my stuffs, Dan is worse.

His whole goddamn place reeks of 'em! Not a single space was NOT occupied by plastics made in China.

Whoah! A customised glass display cabinet!

The Battle of Hoth and Endor reenacted on the lower glass levels. Sweet.
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The AT-ATs looked damn cool. Must be the lighting or something. Check out the Hoth Turret with the trooper. Awesome.

Whoah! Jedi! And loads of them! A busy and bloody reenactment (above) of Jedi knights haggling over the price of fish with them Federal Droids at Tekka Market.
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Seriously, it's a mockup of the Battle of Geonosis.
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Whoah! Republic gunships to the rescue!!! Jedi are not good with bargaining, eh?
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The arrival of Sith Lord Palpatine with his entourage from the shuttle Tydirium. Vader is kneeling down, not as a sign of respect but most probably a consequence of bowel disorder from yesterday's Annual Force Vomit Competition.
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Seriously, this is a setup uncannily similar in Return of The Jedi. Even the troopers are in the correct sequence of formation. Whoa.
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"Yo, Palpy, I'm not feeling too good below. And I think I can't get up".
"The Dark Side in you stirs, methinks".
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There was literally so much stuffs everywhere, I just didn't know what to shoot at. Imagine a house with every single element an influence of the Force, and you'll get the idea of a big-ass residential toy gallery masquerading as a home. What an incredible collection.
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Dan is one of the millions of collectors worldwide who painstakingly collects these figures and displays them out for showcase. I understand that Dan spends at least a four digit sum each month scouring the galaxy for new stuffs, and is a keen buyer from auction sites Yahoo and Ebay.
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It's pretty amazing how Star Wars has garnered a relentless, undying obsession among it's rabid fans here. They don't give a rat's ass what people think of them all these years, kinda like the weird looks they get from people when they're hovering in the toy section of Takashimaya and Metro, carefully examining every figure on the hooks.
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I'm guessing it will stay for at least another decade or two, before some new phenomenon ( not Blossoms, Buttercup and Bubbles - please) takes over a new surge of collecting to a new height. Even then, I don't think Star Wars wil fade just like that in a whimper. Except maybe when Hasbro gets blown up in a nuclear accident or whatever - now that'll be an explosive way to go.
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And as the Dark Lord would say: "Impressive. Most impressive".
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Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Ad-venture.
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I was pondering about the recent MOE commercial which showed a geography teacher freezing her classroom to sub-zero temperatures, a physics teacher levitating zero-G moments in his tutorial class and an art teacher provoking a stegosaurus to take a hike outside the school's windows, among other things.
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I wonder what sort of practical magic the geniuses in the ministry would come up for an inspiring biology teacher.
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I was thinking of gigantic kidneys with trails of bloodied ureters magically magnified out from the insides of a volunteer student for a real-time dissection practical in class, and the teacher continues to pull out all the other organs and somehow enlarging them for others to touch and examine them, all these without anaesthesia. Cool.
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Although somehow I seriously doubt they will ever air it. I think the gory bloody fest is fine, but the sight of an enlarged prostate gland is just so wrong.

Tuesday, January 23, 2007

Redoxon Ruckus.
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The morning sinus strucked again with great fury this time.
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Apart from the chronic nose-twitching and nose-running and tsunami-level sneezing inside a freezing staff room, I was fine. Really.
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The persistent atchoo-ing must have alarmed my nice co-form teacher, who was seating just in the next cubicle.
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Without any warning, she suddenly got up and thrusted a orange bottle of pills in my face, and not without saying 'Jo, you don't look so well. I think you need this Vitamin C tablets'.
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I felt really thankful for her concerned kindness, and immediately after whimpering a weak 'thank you' with my nose still buried in Kleenex, I popped one capsule instantly.
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I didn't know what I did, but my kind colleague suddenly stared in me in horror, her gaze transfixed onto my oral orifice, waiting for some implosion to happen.
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I was feeling funny too, but not from her stare.
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There was some vigorous bubbling on my tongue, and then it got so intense I was suddenly foaming at the mouth. I thought I was going to die from some Plutonium radiation causing excessive salivation or something that will eventually drown me in a messy pool of amylase.
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Needless to say, I was a mess. The colleague was still standing rooted to the spot and hadn't budged an inch. I think she didn't know whether to laugh or react in shock. All I know was that she gave me this 'Eeeee...' look that thinly disguised the fact that she was pledging an oath not to come an inch closer to me anymore for the rest of her life.
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I didn't die that day, but during my recovery I learned a hard lesson though - that I must learn to believe that not all Vitamin C tablets are chewable, and that there is such a thing as a Vitamin C tablet that you need to dissolve in water to make it into an instant isotonic-like drink, or risk getting severe effervescence in your mouth with an innocent pop of that one killer capsule.
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Sunday, January 21, 2007

The Case of The Incidental Glycogen Depletion at Pengerang
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One wonders why anyone would want to give up a nice clear Sunday morning to agree to a treacherous 160-km cycling round trip to JB via Pengerang from Changi Point.
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You'd kick yourself if you had said 'yes' without even thinking about the terrain - miles and miles of undulating hills and valleys on a typical two lane Malaysian asphalt that grinds the rubber tires of seasoned motorists for all its worth.
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Our peloton didn't halt at all throughout the journey (save for a flat tire belonging to one of the riders), even though we were mercilessly basked by the morning sun and the endless hills of terror that seemed to traverse throughout the whole distance like a super-long anaconda humped over acres and acres of red earth.
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It took us a good eight hours to reach the Causeway, which by then left all of us completely drained and wasted. I was lucky enough to escape with a butt-ache. Seriously.
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I'm reminiscing about this quote I read sometime back from the biography of Lance Armstrong.
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Its says that only through riding can you appreciate the contours of the surroundings, unlike an automobile. The hard upsteep pedalling and the acceleration of downhill frenzy will be etched in your photo-brain for a long, long time to come.
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Yup. A long, long time. Especially with the butt-ache.
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Friday, January 19, 2007

The Real Clone Army
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It is interesting to note that, during all my Star Wars transactions with perfect strangers on Yahoo auction sites, none of the sellers seemed to be below twenty one years old.
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Which proves a point that when Star Wars first came out in our galaxy in 1977, it spawned a new devoted army of star-strucked kids who grew up along the lines of five other chapters of the saga throughout a span of nearly thirty years - by the end of which the army would have homogenously morphed into a battalion of adults, daddies and boy-men, and with greater ammo in their wallets.
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This ammo would thus provide the catalyst for Hasbro, the toy-wizard moneyspinner who continually churn out endless versions of Han Solo and Boba Fett on various cards like the bloodsucking bloodsuckers they are.
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And of course, the endeared, obedient clone army loyal to Lucasfilm would keep on buying them. Like me, of course. Wave after wave with panache. With no end in sight - for the figures, at least - but alas alack for the credit limit in the Mastercard, we would nonetheless continue to uphold the sacred testament of all things Star Wars, and remain true to the Power of the Force.
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I regretted the day I ripped apart the first vintage Star Wars figure-card Dad got for us way back at Plaza Singapura a century ago. Those days saw a basic figure for only $3.90.
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Nowadays, a mint 1980 Star Wars vintage card would fetch at least a hundred times more. I would have retired in the Bahamas if I didn't succumb to the Dark Side and opened up all my vintage carded figures.
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Yup. All 80 of 'em.
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Well, whateva. You win some, you lose some.
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Which is why I'm still gonna buy a pair of the following figures from the next wave below; one to play with, and the other as a potential investment for the next thirty years. I'm hoping its value will be at least double, but I'd be crazy enough to believe it so. Especially when everyone else I know has a pair as well.
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Oh well.
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Thursday, January 18, 2007

You Know Things Have Changed When...
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...even the random auntie who sells a packet of tissue paper to you at hawker centres while you're in the middle of your yong tau foo is refusing the twenty cents you offered and demands a dollar instead.
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Wah lao.

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

One Of A Kind
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After I finished pumping petrol at Esso, I headed straight into the station's store for the cashier counter.
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Now we all know the entrance to these stores are all swing glass doors - this particular one had labels indicating 'push' from the outside and 'pull' from the inside. The entrance is actually big enough for two people to go through side by side at the same time.
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At the same time I was pushing the door to go in, a pudgy uncle from the inside was pushing the same panel to go out.
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Realising his action, I played the gentleman and released the door, so he could make his way out.
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I was lucky too because his brute force used on the door nearly bowled my nose, which I avoided in time by side-stepping to the right immediately.
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The pudgy uncle shoved the door wide-open now, and immediately after blurted out to me in the most condescending tone I've never heard in a long, long time.
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"Can't you see I'm coming out?" he exclaimed arrogantly, even as the other motorists stood rooted staring at his outburst.
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I'm not the type to initiate a Bruce Lee Kick Of Death at a petrol station just yet, but this cockroach deserves a piece of me, and I wasn't letting go of his anal action so easily.
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Quickly I rebutted "Can't you see the label put 'push' on myside and 'pull' on your side?"
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Like a blur sotong, he stared at the small signage on the doors, but not before muttering something softly, saying, "put so small who can see..." .
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As I stood triumphant on the steps of the small kiosk feeling like Superman, the cashier auntie suddenly hollered on the mic, her nasal tone blearing across the whole station telling me to hurry up and pay $23.50 for Pump Number 5.

Monday, January 15, 2007

An Impression No Longer Foreign.
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I lost my handphone tonight.
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And I got it back again later.
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I must have left it on the table after we finished our dinner at Queenstown. Upon realising that it was no longer in my pants' pockets, we made our way back to scout for it.
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I was prepared to not get it back, but the real pain was losing all the contacts inside. You'd have to start all over again filling up your address book, a Herculean task I wouldn't want to be caught in for months to come.
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I was looking under one of the table when a Bangladeshi worker came up behind me and tapped me on the shoulder.
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"Sir, this your handphone?" he chirped in croaked Singlish.
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In his hands was the ancient Nokia I had in my possession for years.
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I quickly nodded with aplomp, but not forgetting to thank him profusely.
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"No problem, sir".
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I had every intention to stash whatever amount I had in my wallet to reward him, but the kind samaritan declined, his bodily gestures reclining away with every bit a genuine sense of modesty expecting nothing back in return.
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I asked him for his name.
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"My name Shah, sir".
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Words could not express how much I was in gratitude towards him. For Mr Shah proved to me, that once and for all, a simple act of wanton selflessness did not have to come from someone richer, more influential or more established in life.
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All the simple man did was just being honest.
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Mr Shah is a hero among men.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Canadian Quirks

1. Almost all local tourist shops in town are run by non-locals - mostly enterprising sikhs, vietnamese and hongkongers.

2. When a police car or ambulance drives on the road, all vehicles on the both side of a dual carriageway automatically come to a halt beside the kerb. In Singapore, we follow behind the ambulance for traffic-free speedway.

3. There is no central mount in a dual carriageway. This is to facilitate safety measures during winter when snow will cover roads and vehicles might whack into raised kerbs accidentally.

4. Everybody says hello to everybody here. This guy said hello to me in the toilet. While we were pissing. I played cool, contracted my bladder and left the loo halway through the osmoregulatory process.

5. The only self-professed 24-hour shop in Delta, Surrey closes every 11 pm.

6. It is true that Canadians don't think much about the Americans. And vice-versa.

7. Contrary to popular belief, there are people jogging in 2 degrees Celsius. Most just walk.

8. The maple tree is not found everywhere.

9. You cannot squeeze maple juice from a maple leaf.

10. The equivalent of Carrefour is The Canadian Superstore, a big-ass hypermart which kicks the butt of every hypermart-wannabe here.

11. Star Wars figures here are cheap. Period. On good pre-Christmas sales, you can get three basic figures off the rack for ten Canadian bucks at Zellers.

12. The downside : Most of the figures are Senator Jar-Jar Binks and Emperor Palpatine.

13. People here drive miles for hours to visit friends everyday. Here, we swear quietly when we need to drive a relative back home to Woodlands, a mere 25 km away.

14. Garage sales are bigger than the Great Robinson's Sale. You can get a fridge for ten bucks if you haggle right.

15. Prata cost seven bucks. And the meat in the curry looks like artifical protein carved out from Fusarium.

16. Bathing is optional here. Heaters are a must.

17. Normal shoes don't work while walking in snow.
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18. Women here play soccer too in a domestic league. And Ice-hockey. And Bryan Adams perform at half-time.
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19. You eat more at night than in the day. Maybe this has something to do with very little daylight in winter.
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20. Vancouver is one heaven on earth where the escape is just perfect; so perfect even some bloggers can lose touch on blogging for more than a month.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

High Altitude Quirks. And Other Miscellaneous Apnoea.
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Well, one wonders what kind of innate force would make anyone stay airborne and get stuck in an economy seat for 21 hours straight on a transit flight to Vancouver every year.
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Like many people, traveling always puts me in that Mood. The urgency and expected delays aside, there’s just something about being in such close proximity to masses of people that really (and literally) rubs one's face into another human's anatomy. Some observations on a recent flight :
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When boarding a plane, the idea is to get everyone inside as quickly as possible. Therefore, you need to stow your carry-on baggage as fast as you can and get the hell of the aisle so others can pass. I don’t care if you absolutely need to get your neck pillow, your bottle of water, your Winnie the Pooh bear and your favorite paperback out of your bag before you can sit down; the reason that the people standing behind you waiting to get to their seats are giving you looks that suggest that they hate you is because they do.
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Despite the fact that you get to stay up late and watch movies, an overnight flight is really not a sleepover party. There’s no excuse for grown adults to go about in public in pajamas and stocking feet.
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If you need to get up to go the lavatory right before the meal service begins, don’t come back and force the flight attendants to move their cart 10 feet back so you can get to your seat and then demand your meal. It’s not their fault that the aisles are so narrow; maybe if your ass wasn’t so damn fat, you might be able to squeeze past them.
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Don’t be the asshat who opens his window shade in the middle of the flight while everyone else in the darkened cabin is trying to sleep. I don’t care how pretty the cloud are, if you do it again, you will get hurt.
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To the people who jump up out of their seats the moment the plane touches down on the tarmac, I have one question: What the hell is your hurry? You know damn well that it’s going to be at least another 15 minutes before they even open the doors, and besides, us poor folks in the back aren’t going anywhere for a long time. Jeez.
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To the people that laugh loud as hell when there’s a 3rd rate comedy shown when it’s also sleepy time. Jeez.
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To the people who grab your seatback from behind as leverage to heave their fat asses out of their seats. Jeez.
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I trust you've met the next-seat guy who can sleep in all types of conditions, even when the airplane's going through a typhoon from Hell. If his nonchalance didn't bother you, his snores will. For 16 hours of listening to audible sedentary rolicking of air column passing through his nose hairs, I bet you that sound will traumatize your existence for at least the next few weeks you go to sleep.
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And I hate crossing time zones. They cause jet lags.
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Jeez.