Ah Long Bukit Beruntung. Lepak Giler Siak!

Sugarbabes

Literally so - there must be saccharine stuff on one of my classes' noticeboard if you look at the header below.

And no, I did not photoshop-ed the pic. The words really exist - a strong indicator that maybe some people do find noticeboards sensually appetizing. Freaky.

Changi Cash

Mak came back from work and showed me these.

Whoa. I didn't know our airport had their own currency.

And they look really nice, cut to the exact shape of a typical bill. Turns out you can buy stuffs from selected retailers using these cash.

Question : Can we buy a budget airline ticket with it? Mak has CH$95 so far.

Haha. Don't bet your money on it.

Tongue-twisted

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One particular joke I remembered :

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A school's vice-principal, who always mispronounces his 'l' as 'r' and vice-versa, was making an announcement during the morning's flag-raising ceremony to the whole school about the voting process of the Student Council later in the day.

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He said, "This is to remind the school that this afternoon we will be holding our erections".

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Haha!

The iMan.

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My Enlightened Colleague has a Tablet PC.

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A what?

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You know, those thingy that you can write on it like an expensive Magna Doodle.

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It was really cool, and he was demonstrating to me some of it's magical powers.

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For starters, he had all his notes, powerpoints and learning stuffs onboard. It was clearly indexed in a super-organised way, and by the swish of his wand ( stylus-pen actually), Mr Harry Potek stylishly conjured those data on the screen like Tom Cruise conjured up virtual info on glass screens in Minority Report.

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And he can write and scribble on them, make funny matchstick men drawings with a big red nose, and at the stroke of a a button, if he doesn't likes them, the graffiti disappears(tada!).

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And the whole damn thing's so small and light, it looked like a really cool thing to be showing it off on a packed MRT train, nevermind even the unintelligible gibberish you seemingly write (tada!). The act of caressing the LCD screen is pure ecstacy.

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And it can go wireless, has full network capabilities and, get this, act as a remote control to switch on the aircon at home from a distance ( tada, tada, tada!!!).

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Plus, it's white. ( OK.YOUBOUGHTME.ILOVEIT.IWANTONENOW).

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The best thing yet : he scans important mistakes made by students and highlight them by scribbling the correct answers in, eliminating all the hassles experienced by prehistoric teachers all these years.

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Wow.

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Clearly, he is light years ahead in his teaching methodology.

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God, I am a dinosaur - a miserable, decaying doofus-saurus.

Moronius Imbecilus

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I remember this incident very well. During our Prelims exam in Sec Four, one of the questions in our Bio paper asked for the prolonged effect of having sugar in the urine.

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My friend Sazli suddenly had a blank ; he couldn't recall the term 'diabetes mellitus' as the minutes went ticking by. Out of sheer desperation, he wrote 'kencing manis' - the malay equivalent - when time was up.

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Our Bio teacher, Mrs Ng, was quite a character, as we found out later.

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When we got back our scripts, Sazli found some marking scribbles in red which sardonistically reads the following :

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"Bukan kencing manis - KENCING MASAM lah". ( Literally translated : Not Sweet Urine, but Sour Urine lah).

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Boy, did we have a good laugh - at the expense of Sazli, of course.

They don't make 'em like they used to.

Cartoons, that is.

I am not the least amused by the present state of today's cartoons. I mean, how can a yellow sponge with a bad dress sense be a role model at all? And discerning children nowadays are even telling their parents that Barney is gay, and that the Teletubbies are spawn demons of Satan in cute colours.

When I was a kid, cartoons form a part of our simple lives - literally, and not a point to contest at all.

We didn't have to argue that Big Bird was a homo, and that Mr Snuffle-upagus was his imaginary partner. We'll religiously get ready at 3 pm in front of the telly everyday to watch our daily dose of cartoons, and accept what we see as brain-sapping entertainment, nothing more.

We thought Electric Company was really funny, and if I'm not mistaken, a young Morgan Freeman was always acting the bumbling goof holding the cue cards in many hilarious scenes.

My favourites were MASK, Transformers, Visionaries and the Care Bears. Serious. They were so good you know - they have this morality thread and a touch of civility - at the end of each episode, the characters share tips with you important things like how to save the earth by recycling and so on, being polite to elders and so on and how to dump dead bodies from being detected and so on.

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I'm kidding about the dead body part.

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The first three choices are all 'boys' cartoons - lots of gadgets, guns and goondus. But Care Bears? (Nah, I'm not the least bit effeminate). I just like it when they heaved their chests forward and shoot magical rainbows from their breasts. Very the macho.
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MASK was an epic. I can still remember the rockin' theme song. (MASK! It's the mighty power that can save the day...oh oh oh). All the episodes feature normal characters doing their stuff in the beginning, and before you know it, their vehicles and houses all suddenly convert into some sort of armoured tanks or flying toilets or missile silos and whatever, cos Miles Mayhem et al ie.the bad guys were coming to attack them. Impressive, dude. Mr Matt Trakker, can I have my flat to be zapped into a missile launching site, please, please?

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And so were the toys. My first one (among the few of them) was this impressive bike-turned-helicopter called Condor.

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Nowadays, the modern version would most likely be an impressive bike-turned-rubber contraceptive called Condom.

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I had to drag Nenek to Parkway Parade on the pretext of following her to a relative's place in Marine Parade earlier on, and then I acted like an obstinate mule to successfully part some Singapore dollars from her wallet for Brad Turner and his dorky-looking uniform (above).

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Haha. The power of an ass.

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Even Transformers rock those days (transFORM!!!!!). And Transformers The Movie was damn cool.

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I am really impressed with Ultra Magnus for resisting electrical deaths many times over, even when he sure looks like he's going to become a bread toaster in one of the scenes.

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And the last one - Visionaries - was a very short cartoon, I think, in terms of the numbers of episodes. All I can remember is that the heroes can morph into animals when they summoned that magical thingy on their chests. And they have this funny looking staffs they're holding onto all the time like some protesters protesting against bad protesters.

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Very cool - I think one of them became a gorilla or orang-utan or baboon or something.

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Heck, this sure beats Kong any time. Or possibly Ah Meng at the zoo.

O-kay. At least I'm honest about it.

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A friend asked me to go play golf for the weekend.

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I was like, huh? If I can play golf, Fandi Ahmad is gay.

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It's an impossible sport. I see golf as men in Nike outfits swinging their balls everywhere on nice carpet grass in the hope that one of them lands into a hole.

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It also didn't help that I've never played the game before.

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If Nick Faldo sees me in action, he'll probably change his name to Nick Fal-Duh. The way I hold my iron, he might probably have wished I was his balls.

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When I was a kid, Dad used to bring us to watch people play golf at Changi. It was there that I learnt some new words, and I tried to decipher them according to my great intellect.

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I thought that the word 'birdie' was used when the golfer got a chance to hit a little, yellow bird ( something like Woodstock ) to end his game on a high. (Commentator - Wow! That was a birdie if you ask me!). I still don't know whether the bird must roll into the hole or fly off in disgust after kena whack.

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I thought the word 'handicap' meant that there's a special place for golfers with bandages, bruises, triages, wheelchairs, crutches and other assorted injuries to play. If they can still hit the ball with gusto with all the handyplasts around them, I am convinced I must be paralysed to play.

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I thought a 'bogey' - a slang for a malay word - meant a golfer who kena whack by an unknown projectile and lost his two front teeth. So when I heard 'bogey!' being shouted on the green and the golfers come back to the hut for a break, I am always on the lookout for a guy with bad teeth formation.

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And I thought 'tee' was a cup of teh-O before the golfers hit the green.

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Pathetic. At least I got the 'hole-in-one' correct. It means that you put all your clubs in it and let a person carry it around for you.

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Correct, right?

Make Your Own Lightsaber.

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This is so cool.

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You can now make a very realistic looking lightsaber by using a couple of basic plumbing equipments. I am gonna try it out really soon, if I can get the parts - and the time.

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I still remember that one time when I was out with a group of friends (mixed group - guys, girls and gays) walking around Orchard and we came to the now-defunct Tower Records Building ( Pacific Plaza ) to browse through mags at Tower Books. Anyway, they were selling lotsa of Star Wars stuffs, and those Trilogy movie posters were really cheap, so I got like a couple of them and have the staff rolled them into a tube.

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Anyway, when we parted during the evening, this particular girl-friend and me were heading in the same direction so we headed to take the MRT while the others somehow disappeared into thin air - suddenly ( Isn't is so...convenient?).

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We were waiting for the train to arrive, so just for fun I started swinging the tube like a lightsaber and making that whirling lightsaber sound.Her reaction was not what I hoped for. She stared at me incredulously, like I was crazy or something, and then quickly snatched the tube away from me in order to avoid further malu-ation. And then she called me a dork, among many other things.

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Sigh. Women.

Keep It Real, Keep It Neat, Keep It Right

Make the most of yourself, for that is all there is of you.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

He's right.

The recent article in the weekend newspaper proved intriguing, alright. Although it does lead to a certain tangent in some aspects, I am very sure that being a blogger and being a teacher are two different things altogether.

Period.

I love blogging. I love to compile my anecdotes on daily musings, chronic feelings and whatnots on the web.

I love teaching. Teaching is my first passion, and seeing the smiley ( yet perpetually tired ) faces of my students gave me the momentum to carry on this daunting task.

Daunting indeed. Many people, including my own friends, believe that the scope of teaching is too great and too wide, an expanse of workload greater than the Sahara itself.

And it is a thankless job, sometimes.

Maybe that's why some of them resorted to publishing their Annals of Angst on cyberspace. Too bad, I say.

Bad vibes get passed across very fast in this voiceless arena of the Web, and amplified even bigger than what it started out to be.

Oscar Wilde once said that "it is because Humanity has never known where it was going that it has been able to find its way".

How very profound.How right he was.

Until we know what we really want, instead of trying to make amends of things we find completely useless in our lives, we won't know how to deal with the many things that Life wants us to deal with.

So I thrived on this mantra yet again : keep it real, keep in neat, keep it right.

So, to answer that question : Should we, the educators, blog?

I don't know the answer. Or maybe I won't want to know.

But my passion as a person is real, my sorrows are real, my pain and triumphs are real - things that do not require a white tape to be translated if I choose to arranged it in words, or prose, or even into a lyrics of a song - because that alone defines the human in me.

So the blog remains a mere testimony of humdrums and conundrums of my existence. But my passion for inspiring young minds is another. There is no need to confuse the grey areas, because to me, there isn't any. :)

Ralph Waldo is right again. Always make the most in whatever you do - and that is the best thing you can do for yourself.
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Precisely. Which is why I'm gonna try hard and make my students love Bio.

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And maybe, just maybe - my Blog too. :)

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Hmm... wonder who's the Bio teacher these guys were referring to?
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:)

The Unbearable Lightness of A Five Cent Coin

Would You pick up a five cent coin if you found one?

Saw this on the bus floor on the way to school.

First instinct : Should I Take It?

I dunno. Would you? (Think about it).

Mak has always told me it's a very filial thing to do. Sometimes these coins are blessed with rezeki, or good comings.

Also, it's always a good thing to be thrifty and humble with money, even with the smallest denominations.

Although there wouldn't be a great use for five cents nowadays, it's always that prevailing sense of euphoria that I have actually made good of listening to Mak's advices all these years.

So, I was about to grab it from the floor - when I was spontaneously overcame by a spiritual alarm that suddenly rang ‘STOP!’

What if the coin was hexed, ie. a curse put on it? That when I touched it, or worse still, keep it, my fingers will suddenly become rotten and drop off before the day ends?

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I've seen enough Japanese horror films that capitalise well on the stigma of finding things and calling them your own - and they'll come calling you their own.

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Yikes. Sca-ry.
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What if an actual spirit actually resides in the coin? What if a group of curious mammals, ie. students actually played ‘Spirit Of The Coin’ only to toss the unholy disc after use in a bus, to be picked up by an unsuspecting country bumpkin?

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Yikes.
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What if an ah pek, who after using a pair of 5 cent coins as an ingenious clip to pull out his nose hairs during mundane bus trips, suddenly found his mucus got stuck on the spheres - and decided to abandon them? Suey, what.

What if I get infected by the ah pek's mucus?

Worse, what if the ah pek's mucus contain HFMD?

What if the ah pek's mucus originates from a corner of Geylang, right after he wiped his hands off a sink in one of those godforbidden red-light districts after a sojourn with a maiden from the Underworld?

What if the maiden from the Underworld has HIV?

Urgh.

What if she had randomly been tested positive for STDs, AND was implicated in a murder investigation at the same time - that she actually use this particular five cent coin to slash a cheekopek ah pek who was trying to get fresh with her, leaving a potential blood/DNA trail on the coin? In return, she might have passed the murder weapon to the nose-digging ah pek on the pretext of changing money and after the quick nose-hair surgery on the bus, the ah pek was suddenly repelled by his own mucus and decided to chuck it away?

And the damn thing's staring at me now. Waiting to be picked up.

Should I?

Five cents.

Oh what the heck.
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I felt really good after picking up the coin.

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Even though I had to come up with another 85 cents to take another bus back to my destination because I missed three bus stops procrastinating about it.

Duh.

Madcap Quirks across The Causeway

Along the way back from Mersing (for the jetskiing getaway) yesterday, some anecdotal anecdotes... gouge out your eyes OR click pics to enlarge. Heheh.

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Anecdote No. 1

Fact

Maggi Mee (curry) is dirt-cheap in JB. At RM2.19 ( or S$0.96475771 ) per pack of five, it is every Mat's and Minah's fav instant noodle - so poplar that the shelves are left with...uhh..just the shelves. All habis.

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These Mat Johors are really brutal when it comes to detecting super-cheap Maggi at the malls. They leave no noodle unturned.

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Anecdote No. 2

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Fact

There were Dunkin' Donuts in Singapore once, a long long time ago. Most memorable was the Far East Plaza branch, just beside the current KFC on the ground floor.

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Question : Why were they mysteriously wiped out here, only to surface in JB malls?

Answer : It could be that DD proved to be such a major obstacle in combating the fitness programme in schools here, so maybe the Ministry decided to stop their sugar invasion and start to adopt TUFF ( Take Undercover From Flour ) Clubs in schools in a subtle approach to wean young children from these Deadly Doughnuts.

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By the way, they are also dirt-cheap. A dozen goes by about S$10. Sure beats our regular sugar-coated only doughnuts here at any confectionary.These doughnuts are really Power Doughnuts. I LOVE Strawberry Creme!

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Anecdote No. 3

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Fact

Singapore Sling is not only found in Singapore ( Mersing Sling? ). Check out the cheesy descriptions for Slippery Nipple and Harvey Wallbanger on the cocktail menu above.

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And Fred must be a very contented man. Indeed.

Riding with My Bro : An Evaluation
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Brother Nawar just got his motor licence. Nice. And he got a bike immediately after. Nice nice. He asked me along to tumpang him and evaluate his riding skills.
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Oklah. I can give him 10 minutes of my life. Sheesh. Better not be the LAST 10 minutes of my life, man.
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Hmm.
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White seats. Dad joked that if he berak halfway while riding, sure the seats kena stained.

Haha.

Ok, let's go.

Out of the carpark now. Engine stuttered a bit just now, and taking off was a lil' jerky, but not bad - so far.

( Note : Pics are taken by a professional pillion rider - yours truly - while moving at 70 km/h. This stunt is dangerous and should not be attempted by any moron at any time and any place - period ).

Ok. Turning at high speed now. Easy. Easy.

Well done. I'm still on the bike.

Approaching major junction now. Careful bro. Not too near the vehicles please as we filter through them - ooh! - watch out for the bus...

Phew. I suddenly loved my kneecaps.

Ok, carry on, bro.

Er... is that a cement truck? Can we decelerate now? It's looking really big suddenly...
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(blackout)

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(recovering from blackout) Er...did we go underneath it just now?
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************

Riding Evaluation

Safety 100%

Handling 87%

Road-worthiness 90%

Acts of Probable Death-Causing Stupidity 0%

Conduct 90%

Observing Road Signs 100%

Observing Speed Limit 100%

Braking very-very close to Zebra crossing to take a closer look at chiobu 100%

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Conclusion

Overall it was a very smooth ride. Nawar was very patient and showed considerable courtesy for other road users (eg. honking at moronic taxi driver for overtaking him and showing THE finger) and also for pedestrians ( allowing the college girls to take their time to sashay across the zebra crossing and speeding off immediately when makciks want to cross).

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One thing remains though.

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I had this very quirky feeling that I was in a computer game when riding pillion on his bike. Like some weird DOOM-first-person shooter on wheels. My view was perpetually fronted by the tip of his helmet-back, like the photos above.

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Quirky - until I realised why I was right after all.

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(Check out the logo).

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No wonder lah. Duh.

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Ride safe bro!

A 3-Minute Management Course

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Hmm...Might be a better module than SMU's. Special thanks to FrankV for this!

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Lesson One:

An eagle was sitting on a tree resting, doing nothing. A small rabbit saw the eagle and asked him, "Can I also sit like you and do nothing?"

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The eagle answered: "Sure, why not." So, the rabbit sat on the ground below the eagle and rested.

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All of a sudden, a fox appeared, jumped on the rabbit and ate it.

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Management Lesson:

To be sitting and doing nothing, you must be sitting very, very high up.

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Lesson Two:

A turkey was chatting with a bull. "I would love to be able to get to the top of that tree," sighed the turkey, "but I haven't got the energy."

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"Well, why don't you nibble on some of my droppings?" replied the bull. "They're packed with nutrients."

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The turkey pecked at a lump of dung, and found it actually gave him enough strength to reach the lowest branch of the tree.

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The next day, after eating some more dung, he reached the second branch.Finally after a fourth night, the turkey was proudly perched at the top of the tree. He was promptly spotted by a farmer, who shot him out of the tree.

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Management Lesson:

Bullsh*t might get you to the top, but it won't keep you there.

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Lesson Three:

A little bird was flying south for the winter. It was so cold, the bird froze and fell to the ground into a large field.

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While he was lying there, a cow came by and dropped some dung on him. As the frozen bird lay there in the pile of cow dung, he began to realize how warm he was. The dung was actually thawing him out! He laid there all warm and happy, and soon began to sing for joy.

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A passing cat heard the bird singing and came to investigate. Following the sound, the cat discovered the bird under the pile of cow dung, and promptly dug him out and ate him.

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Management Lesson:

(1) Not everyone who sh*ts on you is your enemy.

(2) Not everyone who gets you out of sh*t is your friend..

(3) And when you're in deep sh*t, it's best to keep your mouth shut!

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This ends the three minute management course.

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Haha!

So, by using this thing, we can become Magneto ah?

Cousin Shaikhul came over to promote his product - some magnetic therapy stuff that supposedly makes your blood vessels wider and nicer-looking and your blood flowing faster - thereby also making you stronger and invincible and 'somemore can control metals' around you.

Like Magneto, huh?

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I mean, we all have heard of this magnetic bracelets and other things that somehow induce you to become superhealthy the next morning, but I was intrigued, so I listened.

Apparently, the whole thing's a nanotechnology product - a sleeping seven-layered blanket that "emphasizes the five essential philosophies of Healthy Body, Healthy Mind, Healthy Family, Healthy Society and Healthy Finances".

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Healthy Finances?
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Wah, you mean if I sleep using this thing overnight, my bank account triples overnight also ah?

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...

Brother Zul had a short demonstration of its' potency.

He complained of muscle aches on his right arm, so Shaikhul wrap his limbs up. After 15 minutes, Zul said the ache had dissipated and he felt uncannily light on the limbs.

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Duh. I should have asked him to demonstrate attracting the metals around him.

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That'll be uncanny.

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Shaikhul mentions that there are several types to choose : the pillow cases, the single bed-size and the king-size blanket to drape over the mattresses.

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I asked him the cost of each.

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"Oh, the pair of pillow blankets cost $350 and the king-size blanket is $2200".

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$2200?

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Phew. That's an expensive blanket, man.

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"Yeah, but consider it like this", he argued. "If the 20 year warranty is anything to go by, that means you'll only be paying for like, 3 cents a day for the perfect sleep you've been searching for the next 20 years of your life".

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You mean : for the next 20 'insomniac' years - jeez. Two grand for a blanket.

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Shudder.

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In all seriousness, I asked him this - and I don't think he finds it very funny:

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"So - if I take it, can I pay you three cents a day for the next twenty years?"

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I took that as a NO and left the hall quickly. Better not stir the X-man in him.

The Dissection of an SIA First-Class Toiletries Bag

Eh. A quirky gift from my tuition kid for a birthday present. Turns out his dad's a steward on SIA. That is so cool. (Child : So, dad, what do you do? Dad: Oh, I'm an airborne ranger - and my primary weapons are forks, spoons, plastic knifes and assorted bullet-like projectiles called kachang putehs.... ).

Anyway, most of us ( or is it? ) don't have the luxury of flying first class all the time and get to savour the differences in service and quality between them and the rest ( Business & Economy ).

So let me show you what SIA First Class have to offer. C'mon, let's open up this thing!

See, who says blogs are not educational?

Ok. Let's remove the plastic cover first. There.

Hmm. Classy bag. Like velvet to the touch. You can also feel the 'BULGARI' embossed deeply into the fabric. Nice Nice.

Ok. Let's pull the zip ( which, by the way, has a nice metallic BULGARI logo on it ).

Whoa. Check out the intestines - oops - insides.

Ok. All the organs are in place. Now let's remove them all from the bag. Nurse, pass me the scalpel please.

Snip, snip.

Slash, slash.

There. Done it.

All the contents are placed side by side now. Let's examine them in detail, shall we?

Whoa.

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From left : A nice marine-blue Eu de Toilette, moisturiser, a plastic razor ( looks cheap - Sheng Siong? ), lip balm, an instructions manual on using the toiletries ( huh? It goes : Uncap lip balm and placed on lips. Duh. ) and an eyemask.

O-kay. Uncapping lip balm. Note to Manual : I-AM-NOT-AN-IDIOT.

Hmm. Not bad. Kinda tasted (?) like Body Shop's.

What next, Mr Manual?

Oh. The perfume. Ok.

Nice. Smells like Dettol.

Eye mask looks enthralling. So, where do I put it, Mr Manual? On my knees?

Note the moronic instructions - first line :"Never heat the mask by boiling". Duh. And immediately after you are expected to put it on your eyes? Whoa. That's a creative way to go blind or achieve secondary facial burns. Duh.

Hmm... something about the wrapper... strikes me as something really familiar...

I KNOW! It's the same thing they wrap Ramli burgers in!!! Muahahahahahahaha!

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Imagine hor : you buy a Ramli Burger in JB and they wrap it in Bulgari. Haha! A Gastronomic Blunder! Street Dining at its Most Subtle Classiness!

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Ok. Lessons over folks. Next time I'll try to dissect the actual Ramli Burger and see why they're a thousand times better than our burgers here.

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Until then, here's to Bulgari welcoming you onboard SIA - First Class. And probably 'Bull-curry' on budget airline Tiger Airways.

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Who knows. Sheesh.

For Nis, because You Ask For It.

What were you doing ten years ago?
Oh crap. Don't remind me Nis. I was proudly serving my nation in the famous batik green we have all come to lurrrrve..."this is my rifle, this is my gun...". However, exactly ten years ago this date, I was mercilessly carried to a pole by ten guys and forced to make love with the damn thing - birthday boy's celebration - army-style.

Oh don't remind me again, Nis. Haha.

Five Songs Which You Know All The Lyrics Right Off Your Head Now
Untitled - Simple Plan
Theme Song from Hi-Five ( 1-2-3-4-Hi-Five! ). Serious.
Far Away - Nickelback
Misty Roses - Astrud Gilberto
Puteri Gunung Warisan - some dikir song

Five Things You Would Do If You Were A Millionaire ( I'm assuming the minimum - only one million dollars )

Maybe I'll keep half of it for savings and the other half :

1. I'll get ALL the Panerais there is in this world.
2. I'll take leave for 6 months and travel around the world with my friend.
3. I'll get the BMW 5-series - white, of course.
4. I'll give some to the needy.
5. I'll probably negotiate with Indonesia to let me name one of their THOUSANDS of small, unnamed islands, and one day hopefully, I'll sneaked in and live there on my own island paradise. You guys are free to come, of course. But bring your own toothbrush.

And oh ya, if there's loose change, I'm gonna invite all my friends over for a 29-course dinner at some fancy 9-star hotel for a mega-fun-reunion. Wow. That'll be the most happening yet.


Five Bad Habits
1. Heading straight to the Computer after waking up.
2. Heading straight to the Computer after meals and leaving the plates exposed to microorganisms to enjoy the scavenging.
3. Forgetting to charge my handphone, thinking it will last forever on a 10-minute charge.Duh.
4. Forgetting to charge my Ipod, thinking it will last forever on a 10-minute charge. Duh.
And
5. Using the same 'ol socks for years. (Yikes!)


Five Things You Like Doing
1. Looking at Panerai-s and their wearers - and see whether they can carry the style or not. Some of them are better off with the $10 Power Ranger watch.
2. Meeting up with Friends.
3. Getting lost somewhere in the car - and discovering new places you never thought existed. Like Boulders.
4. Playing with small human beings eg. children.
5. Actually enjoying this game at home : It's called 'wherearemycarkeysgoddammit'.


Five Things You Will Never Wear,Buy or Get New Again
1. Sony Clie - spartan technology
2. That shirt from Thomson Plaza - looks nice but the fabric - wah lau eh - like karang guni sack, man!
3. Another pizza from Pasar Malams. The Greatest Diarrhoea was recorded that night.
4. A new remote control for the TV meant for PS2. Cheat my money - can only tune to Indonesian channels - great for you if you're deaf - cos there's no sound.

5. A broken-zipper pants. Trust me. The Humiliation is Great.


Five Favourite Toys or Things
1. Panerai-s.

2. My Star Wars Vehicles and spaceships! All 200 of 'em!

3. My personal library, with full categorisation completed last week. I'm damn organised, ok?

4. My Merida bike.

5. The Memories I like to dwell on.


5 people I want to do this
1. XiaXue ( and see whether she can omit any expletives at all from her post )
2. George Bush ( haha! Let's see his fav things : Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan etc.. sheesh )

3. Gerard Danker ( not related to Jean Danker, btw ).

4. This girl I called 'Lizard' during JC times. She's a lawyer now, ok? Don't pray pray ah.

5. Naf The Man.

Today in History

1903 - King James VI of Scotland becomes King James I of England.

1989 - An oil tanker, the Exxon Valdez, runs aground in Alaska, resulting in a massive oil spill.

24 March is also World Tuberculosis Day.

1991 - In liberated Kuwait, banks reopen.

1991 - Wrestlemania VII in Los Angeles, Hulk Hogan pins Sergeant Slaughter for championship.

1992 - First Belgian in the space, Dirk Frimout on Atlantis Space Shuttle STS-45 (Atlantis 11) launches into space.

1992 - Sudanese Boeing 707 crashes on mountain Hymettos at Athens; 5-6 die

1996 - U.S. astronaut Shannon Lucid safely transfers to the Russian space station Mir from the U.S. space shuttle Atlantis for a planned five-month stay.

1997 - 69th Academy Awards: "The English Patient", Tom Cruise & Frances McDormand win

1997 - Australian parliament overturns world's first & only euthanasia law

2006 - my birthday.

How happy is the blameless vestal's lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd. - Alexander Pope
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A sort of existential love story in reverse...Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind is a white-hot starburst of extravagant emotionalism...The movie will make you laugh and it'll make you cry. It teases a smile from your lips with the tender moments you're so familiar with and then sneaks up to quietly break your heart with the sad moments you know so well.

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The movie's really the antithesis of the typical Hollywood fluffy romantic fare. I loved every minute of its refreshing originality! The film has passion and flare and brilliant wit, framed by an intelligent script that deals in absurdity while managing to maintain an intimate realism. These characters feel starkly real, and they're very flawed. You root for them. I wanted them so badly to stop their nonsense and give it another chance. I guess in my subconscious, I identified with them. So different, yet fated.

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The bulk of the film takes place during the process of erasing all memories of Clementine, inside Joel's mind. The most recent memories are first to go and we watch as they slowly disappear into nothingness. Those recent memories are bitter as we witness the arguments and the boredom of their relationship. But as the time rewinds, the memories get better. We travel backwards and watch Joel and Clem during their best moments, loving life and loving each other. We see how they are actually meant for each other. As this happens, Joel desperately regrets his decision. He wants the inevitable erasure to stop, but he is completely powerless. Soon she will be gone and he won't even remember that he forgot her.

When the two soulmates are running away from the memory eraser guys, they know their time's gonna be up.

Clementine: This is it Joel. It's going to be gone soon.

Joel: I know.

Clementine: What do we do?

Joel: Enjoy it.

Sometimes you just wish you could completely push someone out of your mind to avoid the pain but when I put myself in Joel's shoes, i find that like him, I would rather keep the memories. It's ironic sometimes, don't you find that for many things, its through looking back on what you lost that you come to really value what you had?

Joel & Clem still ended up together in the movie's end. But real life often ain't reel life.... I really wonder: can two people be in love but cannot be together?

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How'd you know when it's time to give up?

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Where do you draw the line between what you'll stand for and what you won't?

I dunno... I may never know. But to quote the Bard; "Better to have loved and lost than to never have loved at all".

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Right?

(The nano is playing Far Away by Nickelback. How appropriate. I love my Ipod).

New Fruit Unveiled

Thursday, 23 March 2006, Singapore

A group of students have successfully mutated a breed of fruit that is a cross between a mandarin orange and a cucumber in their science lab earlier this morning.

The press were informed that the fruit, although looking very innocent and bright, was very susceptible to people who have thin lips because of the thorny cucumber whorls that might slashed one's oral orifice to bleed profusely and die of excessive shock to eating weird-looking fruits.

It is recommended that future eaters of this genetically-variant fruit undergo Botox in order to preserve their lips.

Only one specimen was produced so far, and placed in the Staff Room for fellow teachers to taste, but no one showed much interest in risking their lives in a meaningless fashion to die at the hands of a fruit, which by the way, has been inspirationally named 'Fruit X' by the supervising biology teacher himself.

The Minister of Health was personally informed of this breakthrough and will immediately promote the students involved to Research Fellows of the Critical Research And Phylogenetic ( CRAP ) centre at Woodbridge Hospital.

He also encouraged more students to take proactive research in their Biology lessons but subtly added that new fruit specimens in the future should avoid looking like a hand grenade. - additional reporting by Yew Tok Kok.

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Seriously, a pair of students got creative with their hands during Bio practical today. I was merely entertaining the genius in them. :)

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On another note, I saw a fellow colleague in full meticulous attention to what he was doing - something very, very critical that demands great focus, precision, utmost concentration and dexterity.

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That's right. Refilling marker inks.

Frisurfelsen retro Brehmes!*

This coming World Cup is not exactly earning a lot of reviews and anticipation. Nor does the expectation increases to magnanimous highs - especially when England's strikeforce employs Peter Crouch to spearhead the goals.

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Peter who?

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Yeah, you're right. England really desperate ah.

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I think Mr Crouch should spearhead high jump competitions instead. The bamboo pole's centre of gravity is way too high.

My favourite was Germany. Yup. The magnificient West Germans, before the Berlin wall tumbles to become Berlin Maul. I mentioned 'was'. Germany these days are pathetic.

During secondary school days, we sometimes played soccer after lessons ( actually about 365 times a year ), and we had nicknames based on the 1990 World Cup-winning German team.

Mine was Thomas Haessler aka The German version of Luke Skywalker.

Yup. I was so into him I distorted all the data on Champion Manager 2 and changed all his attributes. And I even made him ten years younger. And Dortmund went to to win ( pulverise, even) every match in the Bundesliga with an average score of 21-0.

Haha. Virtual-ly invincible ( pun intended ).

Seriously, I remembered everyone on the squad. From Ilgner in goal to Klinsmann and Voeller at the top of the formation.

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Hail the Germano tribesmen!

From left (standing) : Thomas Berthold, Bodo Iigner, Klaus Augenthaler, Guido Buchwald, Rudi Voeller, Stefan Reuter.
From left (squatting) : Thomas Haessler (woohoo!), Uwe Bein, Jurgen Klinsmann, Andreas Brehme, Lothar Matthaeus ( captain courageous ).

Not in pic : Andreas Moeller, Pierre Littbarski, Karl-Heinz Riedle, Olaf Thon, Mathias Sammer and myself.

They played really good football, and spit really well too. Until Rudi Voeller kena sent-off for that. Really memorable stuff - everyone who follows football sure can remember this incident. Especially so for the recipient of the flying phlegm ( who was Holland's Frank Rikjaard - and he too kena sent-off because he started the whole fracas ).

Hmmph. Voeller (above) covered by another person's amylase. Euuuugh.

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Actually, a particular quirky reason why suddenly I worship the Germans and their style of play is also partly due to their... jerseys.

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Or rather the designs.

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I like white. Or the simplicity of white embedded with other colours. And I really, really like the three coloured strokes across the front of their jerseys ( above pic ).

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So, after that 1990 World Cup spectacle, I made a personal hunt to collect ALL Germany soccer jerseys - original, replica or otherwise. The occasional pasar malams were not spared of my holy quest.

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I have nearly most of them now, I guess.

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Passion has no end, some people say. Not true. My wallet's content is ending soon. And so is my patience with the current Germany team.

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If they continue with this lousy run, I'm going to support the Aunties' Qiqong Association near my place very soon.

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Until then, here's to the best soccer line-up I've seen so far - besides Brazil, of course.

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Günstlinge Matthaeuss - ich begrüsse thee!**


*Brehme's retro hairstyle rocks!
**Matthaeus' minions - I salute thee!

Goggle Box Recap

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No wonder that Rosalyn from yesternight's A Light Affair looked a tad familiar. She was in that McDonald's Beef / Chicken Fantastic ad on TV as well. Aiya.

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Her expression was pure comic, man. When describing the guy with the skewed eyebrows and constipated look, she actually demonstrated her own version, except that her furrowed eyebrows were plucked too thin and she end up looking like a miserable clown with bad makeup and in need of a CPF top-up from the gahmen.

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Haha! Pure comic moment. What a caricature!

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In a short moment in Police and Thief two nights ago, the ah beng umpire initiated the sumo match by blaring "Akiraaa KUROSAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!".

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Haha! Pure comic moment. Banzai! That's no sumo nuptials!

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In Makan Places - Lost and Found two nights ago, Gurmit purposely kicked Michelle towards the end of the show - and she stumbled out of camera view.

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Haha! Pure comic moment. What brutality!

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To cap off the night, the last advertisement that flashed across the screen before I switched it off went along these lines :

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"Zap zap tummy zap zap tummy zap zap butt zap zap butt zap zap whatever zap zap whatever".

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Haha! Pure comic moment. Not.

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My laughing cells degenerated immediately and I was smiling no more. Damn that uZap. Spoil my celluloid highs, man.

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Zap u ah.