Gays, Gyms, Googles, Gifs, and bloG

I know, I know, I broke the alliteration... and capitalizing the last letter doesn't count, I know...

Gays, Gyms
Concerning the last entry about Sex in the Gym:

From Gay Researcher's Blog:
It is true that gays often make out in the gyms, be it in NUS or Orchard Road or any other gyms with gays.

I believe the Orchard Road gym that was mentioned on radio refers to the California Fitness Centre at Orchard Building. [Khel: Yup, I knew that too. Way too obvious] From what I gather from my sources, the Starbucks and gym at Orchard Building are swamped with gays. Of course, there are unknowing guys who work out there.

Gay sex is everywhere. Not only in gyms, but toilets (Westin) [Westin toilet?? Really??] , gay saunas, etc. Promiscuity and sex seem to be on the top of gay traits. Of course, there are some who are celibate (as in they are gay but do not have sex), and some who practise monogamy.

Anyway, while I was doing research for a project, I came across an article that presented empirical evidence showing that both heterosexuals and homosexuals select mates in similar manners, i.e. physical appearance is important, must be similar in race and religion, and some other criteria. [Send me a copy of the results when you're done]

Recently, a topic surfaced on the gay forum: Is Mel Gibson's Passion homophobic? The gays who watched the film argue that Gibson intentionally portrayed Satan and the executioners as drag queens, with heavy eye make-up, etc. This perhaps stemmed from the fact that Gibson previously made homophobic comments. [Uhm, I tot Satan was a woman. Oh oh... and the executioners? They were Romans weren't they? That explains the skirt-like attire]

Googles
This one's from Krystal's blog:

Who is Kheldar?

And unfortunately, Khelath and Boredslacker aren't famous enough to be known by Google yet. Shame.

If you wanna try to see who you are, click this super long link.

Gifs
To Krystal: Try Photobucket, which has obviously worked for me so far. Go there, create an album, and then upload onto their server.

bloG
The following is in response to the Slayer's comment:

To Blog, or not to Blog?

Though something seems worthwhile in the head
To the world, it's better off dead
~Shooksword

Bad pun, I know, I know...

I may be the Bored Slacker, but still I'm not always that free. I go online about 3X a week, and I usually only blog if I have something a bit more worthwhile to blog about. Otherwise, everyday would go something like this:

Woke up. Ate prata at AMK. Shorts being sold at market, felt like buying. Came home and read. Then went online. Then played Minesweeper. Went for tuition. Scolded kid. So careless. Went home. Read somemore. Slept.

Do not worry if I don't blog or reply to emails, again same logic about having something worthwhile to write applies here. Do not worry that I am sick/raped/traumatised/dead. For the 1st one, I will heal. For the next 2, you can't help me much there, unless you wanna cast a hex on the person(s) responsible. For the last one...... Erm, nothing much you can do at all except pray?

Anyway, my point being that I'll usually blog if I feel something's worth blogging about, [what that is is subject to many interpretations] or if I get a flash of inspiration from someone [thanks to you, this has happened. :) ] or I have something on the mind that I want to broadcast to the world. Right now life's pretty quiet so there's nothing much to say, I guess. Not really keen on turning this into one of those inane blogs with the same entry day after day.

Woke up. Ate prata at AMK. Shorts being sold at market, felt like buying. Came home and read. Then went online. Then played Minesweeper. Went for tuition. Scolded kid. So careless. Went home. Read somemore. Slept.

It's such a turn-off to read something like that, where you know the author doesn't have anything better to say, but just vomits out the same words day after day for the sake of blogging, rather than anything else.

Woke up. Ate prata at AMK. Shorts being sold at market, felt like buying. Came home and read. Then went online. Then played Minesweeper. Went for tuition. Scolded kid. So careless. Went home. Read somemore. Slept.

And sometimes they try to gloss it over by changing the entries a bit, so it looks different, though the essence of it remains unchanged.

Wow! I woke up on time today! Then I went to eat prata at AMK, 2 kosong with teh ping. I saw some colourful shorts being sold at the market, felt like buying but still broke. Came home and read some of that book I'd been meaning to finish. Then went online, put a new entry on my blog. Then played Minesweeper, haven't managed to break my high score yet, sigh. After that I had to go for tuition. My kid was careless today so I scolded him. So careless. Then finally I got to go home, read a bit more and sleep

Emotions can be added in without much difficulty as well:

I woke up pissed today. Went for prata at AMK and the stupid *** gave me the soft ones. Cheapo shorts being sold at market, but what's the point? I'll just end up broke anyway. Came home and read this stupid book that was a total waste of my time. Then went online, and found out that I got a whole bunch of spam in my inbox from a bunch of no-good ***. I played some Minesweeper but I kept bombing and got so pissed off. Went for tuition and ended up yelling at the kid for being such a careless ***. Finally got to go home, chucked that stupid book, and slept. Hope tomorrow is better.

You can even be philosophical at times.

How is it I woke up today? Could the purpose of the day be to partake of the crispy prata at AMK? But then, why not at Bishan? What are the underlying psychological implications of me going to AMK for prata? Such a worthy question... Upon sighting apparel for sale at the market, I could feel my materialistic impulses coming to life. Or could it be the passionate red of the shorts called out to me, symbolic of my need to break out of the mould and show my true colours? The question disturbed me, so I came home and pondered over it. To relax my mind, as many of the experts do, I will read and play Minesweeper. Perchance in this state of half-relaxed concentration, the answer will come to me. It is unfortunate that I have to fulfil my educational responsibilities to my students. I hope I will be able to ponder it further tonight when I am done.

To save time, just be minimalistic. Try being poetic.

As I Woke
Ate prata at AMK.
Shorts are sold,
so must buy.
Read.
Online.
Find the bombs, do not ignite.
Went for tuition.
Scolded careless kid.
Why? Why? Why?
Went home.
Read somemore.
Slept.
My day.


Try haiku if you want to be shorter:

Woke up, ate prata.
Shorts, book, online, Minesweeper
Careless child, home, sleep


Or just tell people the plain naked truth:

Sian ah today. Same as yesterday lor. See tomorrow how.

2 articles today, the obviously slightly raunchy one below, *grin* and a more sober one about being your own boss further down. Read what you want.

Sex in the... Gym?

Am listening to Perfect 10, morning show right now, and the topic of the day appears to be the raunchy stuff that goes on in gyms. You know, the kind of thing that everybody knows happens, and is whispered furtively from person to person. "I donno whether true or not, but my friend tell me that..."

So Daniel Ong and Sheikh Haikel right now are taking in calls from the public about all the *cough* sweaty stuff that goes on in gyms. The way you hear it, gyms are like a hotspot for gay sex nowadays. All the callers keep talking about the gays that hang out in the gyms and who check each other out and have sex in the toilets. This girl even called up about walking in a pair of lesbians making out in the sweat room. [sweat room. Hm.] This guy with a bit more balls [bad pun] called up, admitted he was gay, and that he agreed with it, and said it was because gays were visual and with the sight of all those sweaty bodies... *wipes sweat off brow* He even mentioned an "Orchard Road gym" and how many gyms are there along Orchard? ;)

The other consensus also seems to be that gays are a whole lot freer with the lovin' and are more open to anyone who catches their fancy at the time. I see you, I like you, let's make for the toilet. Yipes. Someone did comment to me that this was a failing of the gay community, that because they don't have to worry about pregnancies, unlike the rest of us straight folk, they don't mind spreadin' the love if they feel the need. [I'm putting in effort to not mention the F-word here. Give me kudos for that at least]

Sensationalism at its best, folks. The guys had to put a disclaimer at the end that "Gyms are for working out, and not everybody who goes there is there to pick up guys, and is gay" It was getting semi-pornographic at the end actually. Ok lah, not so bad, but definitely getting hot there. ;)

Have to admit though, that if what I heard is true, then there isn't much to dispute on the gay sex part. Does the Gay Researcher have anything to comment on this? [oh, you know who you are you... hahaha]

On to other more innocent stuff....

To Be Your Own Boss

One strange effect of my biz education is that I'm more hesitant about jumping into biz. Funny huh? I donno whether I'm supposed to graduate with all these grand delusions about being 'my own boss' and having my own office with my own namecards or something, but I certainly don't have those.

I wonder about the rest of my cohort. Do they all have urges to start their own businesses? Be their own bosses? Have a horde of employees to lord over and boss and bitch over? Work, slaves, work...

Sounds like a revenge complex. As I have suffered at the hands of my bitch-boss, so you shall suffer at my hands.

Anyway I comment on this, because being part of a biz cohort, naturally I have offers to go into biz or to help someone with their biz. Maybe they think that as an NUS Business School graduate I'm supposed to be more 'qualified' or have access to secret knowledge that only the holiest of holiest academics hold. Nyuk. Joking lah.

I think it's more to the fact that people like to be bosses. Who'd want someone lording over them, wielding whips and dangling your salary cheque just safely out of your reach? The main point is that we don't like to be vulnerable. We don't want to feel that someone has such a large amount of power over us. By God and nature, we are made to have free will, and naturally we resent any attempts to remove that freedom from us.

To counter this, thus, we have the option of going into biz. I'm a boss. The power lies within my hands. Best still, the power over other lies within my hands. Yes, as much as we like to be free, we like the feeling of power and superiority over others too.

Is this the right approach to biz at all? Face it, even as a boss, there're gonna be people with power over you, who've more money and who can squash you within their grip like a hamster in your hand. [bad allusion to what Tenderheart and I were talking about last night.] There'll be clients you have to humiliatingly kowtow to, there'll be customers infuriating in their incessant and impossible demands. There'll be suppliers who couldn't care less if your biz will collapse if they don't deliver that batch of T-shirts by the agreed time. [another bad allusion to the T-shirt stunt]

So maybe doing business isn't about power at all. After all, there're still people with power over you, just that they're a different batch of people.

What else then is the point of doing biz? Opportunity? Money?

Is it considered a good biz practice to grab at every single opportunity that comes your way, regardless of whether you can handle it, or whether your biz is suited to it, or whether you know the market at all? [Tenderheart: Remember A?] I have a relative who blindly grabbed at opportunities presented before him, without considering the risks involved. Needless to say, he's not exactly rich lah. [my dad pointedly told me never to attempt to ask him to invest in any schemes I have, lest we face the prospect of him pounding at our door asking for his returns.]

It's even worse biz practice to work purely for the money involved. Biz literature is full of case studies of companies who only cared about the bottom line, without caring about the effect on customers, employees and overall company reputation. This doesn't just happen to small Lim-Ah-Hoe-Pte-Ltds. British Airways back in the 90s wanted to cut costs, and did so by firing off a great bulk of their experienced staff and hiring cheaper inexperienced staff, hoping to train them in the long term. [at least, i hope that's what they intended] Of course they screwed up bigtime, pissing off a lotta customers to fly to other airlines.

Enron is a prime example of a company that wanted to see profits so badly, they ventured into areas that deviated from their core biz, and in the end, had to resort to unethical practices in order to avoid their asses being sued off. Of course, we all know now that didn't work.

What other reason is there now to go into biz? I'm gonna say something that might go against the grain of what everybody thinks biz should be about. I say, go into it for the love of what you do.

Sure, sounds like more of Khel's fancy-shmancy dreaming. Wake up to real life. You can't survive on love alone to do biz.

No you can't, but you'll certainly have a lot more ommph to go through with it. Love ain't enough for you to survive in biz, but I say it's a large deciding factor in whether you'll stick to it, and succeed in the end. Every large biz started with a vision. Someone had a dream, and pushed that dream through, until they made good. Don't believe me? Try Anita Roddick, of Body Shop, one of the most successful social entrepreneurs around. Take a look and see why NKF has more money than any other local charity.

So my advice to all budding entrepreneurs: Forget the money. Forget the prestige. Forget the power. Find something you love, you have a passion for. Everything else falls into place after that.

To people joining the workforce: Don't fall into that i-need-a-job-now mentality. You can find a job, you can be good at it, but is it worth being miserable for the rest of your life? Don't just jump at the first job offer that comes your way, and don't bother about people who think you're picky or fussy. [tell them to read my blog for the entry about Unemployed Graduate Woes. You have to scroll down to the bottom.] Find out what you truly love to do. Then only will you be able to succeed in the end.

And the real reward of all this? Looking at all those people that doubted you in the beginning, slogging at their lousy jobs, complaining about their bosses and wanting to quit but the economy's so bad and i need the money for the downpayment for the car and the maid and the blah blah blah..... And being able to laugh in their face outright.

The domestic mode continues today, as I manage to clear out [most of] the mess in my room, which had reached a critical Level 3. [Level 3 meaning that there was 3 layers of mess over all the surfaces in my room] Finally today I manage to see my floor again, without having the view obstructed by books, bags, papers and hair. [i shed a lot]

I still can't access Yahoo Mail or Geocities on my laptop, so I won't be able to upload photos for a while.

Horoscope today tells me to face it, that I have the tendency to go into hiding whenever problems loom too large for my liking. As unflattering as it is, I have to hang my head and admit truth in that. Better learn to tackle that bull by the horn.

Other than that, the other interesting thing today happened as follows:

Nurses can't heal themselves?

Everytime I write something in this blog, it's about me. This time I switch the topic to my brother.

Early Sunday morning, as I'm reading the news, Bro comes down and I notice that he's limping rather noticeably as he does so. I frown.

"Hey, did you sprain your ankle again?"

"Yup."

"Didn't you just sprain that ankle last week?"

"Yup"

As you can see, he's at that stage of adolescence where it is deemed unnecessary to volunteer any excess information to senior family members unless directly asked. Mother comes down and kicks up the typical motherly fuss.

"You sprained your ankle again!!" Statement, not question.

"Yup"

"Did you put anything on it? Ice? Medicated oil?"

"Nope" Hey, a different answer finally.

"How did you sprain your ankle?" Mother asks the question on my mind.

"Walking"

???? What the heck?? The last time he had sprained the ankle was playing basketball and at least that had a modicum of coolness to it. Walking???

Father joins in the act with his own brand of fatherly love.

"Oh, my poor, poor son! Sprained your ankle again? Can you walk?"

"......"

So of all the family, Mother is the only one with enough sympathy in her to make him lie down while she spreads generous amounts of medicated oil on the ankle, and then wrapping it in a blanket to keep in the heat. Funny since I thought the typical prescription for a sprained ankle was a bucket of ice, but hey, it's bro's ankle...

The even funnier thing is that Bro is a nurse in training. The first time he sprained his ankle, he didn't even put ice on it, just went to bed and of course the next morning, he's limping. You'd think a guy who understood all the cheemo-body-parts-terms in CSI would know enough to be able to treat a sprained ankle, but apparently that was missing, either from his education or from his common sense.

Our family has a peculiar way of showing sympathy in the event of injury, especially when we feel you could have avoided it if not for stupidity and carelessness:

Me. As we walk out of the flat: "Let's walk to Ang Mo Kio for dinner!" Ang Mo Kio is a 1km walk away from my house.

Instead we take the car, to a coffeeshop that's five or less minutes walk from my house. :p

Father in the car, outside coffeshop: "I better let you off here at the coffeeshop for the sake of my poor, poor son who cannot walk!"

After dinner, we decide to drive to a friend of father's who runs a foot reflexology shop in IMM.

Father to Me: "You wanna go along?"

Me: "What do I go there for? Just to hear him scream?"

Father: "Something like that."

Me: "Ok!"

Father. On the journey there: "Drive all the way to the shop because of my poor, poor son. Nurse also don't know how to help himself!" hereby condemning the level of nursing education at NYP because of the [idiocy] of his son.

Father at IMM: "I better park on the 2nd level [same level as the shop] for the sake of my poor, poor son who cannot walk!"

Notice how Father likes to put the emphasis on poor. Kudos to Brother, who manages to maintain a stoic silence throughout the evening. Something we probably picked up along the way while living with our father.

But Brother does get his own back in the end though. While he gets a foot massage, father decides to get a body massage. Halfway throughout the massage, a heartrending yowl is heard throughout the shop. Apparently, in an effort to dissipate negative energy in the body, the masseur put her knuckle to the middle of Father's chest and then pressed her entire body weight onto that one spot. Yeow. So the one whose screams bring down the shop in the end turns out to be that of my dad's. :)

And what do I get out of the whole thing? A trip to this incredible $2 shop at IMM called Daiso, which got me 2 Jap books [normal phrases, no curses and insults] and a new waist pouch [i know, another bag, but I couldn't resist, for $2. :p] for $2 each. Mwahahahahaha... You could say I got the best out of the entire evening, especially towards the end:

Me, lifting one foot in the direction of my bro's sprained one: "Hey, let's test to see if your ankle is fully healed"

Bro, dodging awkwardly: "I don't think so."

is anyone having this problem besides me? I can't seem to access any of the bigname sites like Yahoo for my mail and Geocities, Tripod and Angelfire. I would think that I have a virus, except that I can access other websites just fine. [otherwise how would I be putting up this blog entry right?] dammit this sux... i had a new website all done and ready to upload and then it turns out I can't even access the stupid Geocities page. What the ......

Anyway, life has sorta plateaued for me right now. The bad thing is that my brains seem to be turning to fluff and mush. I'm perpetually walking around in some kinda semi-dream state, one foot in reality and the other in dreams. The worse of it is that I'm mixing up all kinds of appointments because of it. "Am I free on Sun? Sure, sure... I'm free" and then 10 minutes later, "Oh dammit...." I realise I have an appointment already. Awgh........ I want my BRAINS back... and my memory.... whatever little I had of it at first....

But what I want most of all now is to be able to access the damn bloody Yahoo page!!! I want to check mail! I want to upload HTML!!! Awgh!!! How could they do this to me??? *revelling in self-pity*