Photo Diary

Before I forget myself in the drudgery of work, here's some shots of my last 2 weeks of June:



1. Went to an art exhibition where I hardly understood anything that was there. -_-! Though I did think the wall decor stickers were cute... ( 8QSam museum )



2. Laid in a womb of polysthrene furniture and imagined my whole room being like this. ( Verner Panton exhibition at National Museum )



3. Put plastic bags on my feet to prevent spread of H1N1 + Hand Foot Mouth disease.



4. Drank a lot of lychee juice with girlfriends ( with maybe 2 obligatory drops of vodka )



5. Admired some flowers.

Its been a more relaxing holiday, that I have to admit. Managed to read more, blog more, and top at least one facebook game. (Heh) And still managed to go out to some places.

I only wish it could have been longer...... but that would have to go into the bin together with my wish for striking first prize in Toto and losing 10 kg in a month. -_-!!!!!

It sucks but....... we have to grow up eventually and accept the rest of real life.

Here I go then.

There is something very twisted at the heart of the society in which we live.

Firstly, over this June period, we have seen people panic and subsequently calm down over a virus that seemed worse than it actually was. But yet the preventive measures taken have left me scratching my head at times.

For one, temperature taking as a precaution. Why are we still insisting on checking for high fevers, when the WHO has said that a high fever is NOT a symptom of H1N1? What does it matter even if you check for it anyway? The person could be riddled with the virus, and yet have a normal body temperature. By the time he shows symptoms, you would have already let him loose to spread it around.

And this preparation of closedowns of classes, levels, and schools. Is the replication rate of the virus so strong that you have to come down to that? What if your students get infected with the ordinary flu instead? Are you going to do the same?

I suppose I'm piffed at the measures because they seem so typical of the kiasee mentality, to overreact at things. What I don't like about it is the atmosphere of delusional fear that it creates. To talk to some people, you'd think that we were all going to die of the virus if we didn't walk around wearing N95 masks 24/7. And that anyone who so much as coughs in public is a socially irresponsible misfit of the highest order. [Someone should be able to identify with this, heehee]

The kiasee mentality is an offshoot of the kiasu mentality. Which is why MOE has also called for e-learning classes to take place. Never mind that the affected children could be sick with flu, and all its associated symptoms. They cannot fall back in their work! Otherwise they will fail exam at end of year! So even if you are too sick to sit up, as long as your parent can make you hold a pencil or bring the laptop to you, you should still do whatever schoolwork you can! Then go back to school will know what teacher is saying. -_-!!!!!

Of course teacher must also prepare lesson and prepare extra lessons for these kids who may not come back. Otherwise if the kid fails his exam at P1/2/3/4/5/6 his whole future will be ruined, he will be reduced to either sweeping garbage/selling pirated Blu-rays/joining gangs because you didn't put in enough effort by giving him those extra 1 or 2 measly worksheets.

And all this is ok in our society. Because we are a nation where people are so weak a single virus can wipe out our entire population. Because we are so stupid that if we even miss out one day in school we will all because retards by the time we're 50, fully dependent on social security.

*Sigh* I know I'm on the point of really ranting and I don't make a lot of sense, but sometimes I grow so sick of all of this......

Yesterday In A Nutshell

1. Mango sale: Saw a slack top that I regretfully let go last time go on sale at 50% off! Needless to say, said slack top now part of my wardrobe... :p

2. Note to Clubbers: Nobody has Ladies Night on a Thursday, so any website that tells you so is woefully outdated. -_-!!!

3. Conversation with friends will outweigh any diluted drinks the bars serve you.

4. Slept at 1am only to be waken up by some groom horning and declaring his love for his bride..... from the carpark at 7am. -_-!!! Suddenly weddings don't seem so fun.....

5. Briefly considered yelling in Hokkien for him to pipe down for people who want to sleep, but decided against the karma.....

How the truth gets distorted

"How was your trip to Hongkong?"

"Great."

"What did you do?"

"Oh... some shopping, and Jules and I went for the jacuzzi in the hotel one time."

Brain hears: Jules and Yenn shared a jacuzzi.

"Is it?? What did you wear?"

"Swimming costume and he wore trunks lor."

Brain hears: Juls and Yenn shared a jacuzzi half naked!

"How long did you stay in the jacuzzi?"

"Not long. After a while Jules found it too hot and he had to get out, so we went back to our room."

Brain concludes: Juls and Yenn shared a jacuzzi half naked, then Juls got too hot under the collar, couldn't control himself and they quickly went back to their room!!!

"Waaah!!! You two so exciting ah???!!!"

"Huh?"

And that, ladies and gents, is how you distort the truth.

[special *request* by Yenn... or maybe I'm distorting the truth too... hahaha]

Funny thing about this holidays, it's been the most amount of time I've spent at home.

I've been reading, facebooking, and er, playing a lot of online games. -_-!!! which is why for today I have to banish myself to the use of my I-touch so that I don't end up hooked to the games again.

It's something like what I read in a book: you gotta have a job or at least something to keep you getting out of bed every morning, so that you don't become a total slob and spend your entire morning trying to beat your friend's bejewelled scores. -_-!!

The challenge, of course, is finding something worthwhile doing with your time. And then trying to hang on to that something worthwhile when you have to go back to the real world and face all the crap again.

Sigh... At very least lemme try to finish my library books before I go back....

Most Strikingly Obvious Instructions for Eating

My apologies firstly for the disastrous formatting on the Time articles I posted up... I didn't realise they were going to make a mess of the tables on my blog like that... next time will be better....

Anyway, as part of my June Holiday Photo Diary, here is something I saw while out for lunch with Yenn:

MOF hands out little slips of paper together with their food, with instructions on how to maximise your enjoyment while eating them presumably. Now if it was some exotic food like fugu, maybe I can understand the need for explanations, but for salad??

Their unagi salad, and the following are the instructions for eating:

Huh????

What will they put for tempura then? "Dip in sauce and insert in mouth"?

How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live

Powered by    * Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.       Most fascinating is the way Twitter can be used to update real news events in real time. So it isn't just to update people about what you're eating for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper after all...... :p             Click the following to access the sent link:       How Twitter Will Change the Way We Live*               *This article can also be accessed if you copy and paste the entire address below into your web browser. http://www.time.com/time/business/article/0,8599,1902604,00.html

The Internet's Short Attention Span

Powered by    * Please note, the sender's email address has not been verified.       Interesting.... Because the more I surf on the Internet the more I find my attention span shortening. Anybody else think the same too?             Click the following to access the sent link:       The Internet's Short Attention Span*               *This article can also be accessed if you copy and paste the entire address below into your web browser. http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1903951,00.html

Photo Diary

If you've been seeing the strange headlines with no text or pix attached... I've been trying to email/MMS photos from my phone, but suddenly nothing works... :( So here they are:

After one shopping trip with my mother, here are the winning finalists.... ( one of them is my gym bag by the way ) She finally chose the pink one, the one that I was originally eyeing for myself...... -_-!!!

I love Cold Rock. That's the only text I can think of for this picture. :)

After one night of shopping with my moth

The first flash mob I've seen being organized in Singapore... even though it's organized by a business, and not exactly that spontaneous, still worth checking out, no?

http://ping.fm/vCCZI

I got presents! Very happy :)

Salmon Skin Exfoliation Rubs

It's orange, it's fresh, it's a favourite food of mine......


Yes, it's a SALMON SUSHI. [ok, it's a plush toy]

I swear I wasn't about to buy this, but Yenn insisted it was 'damn cute' and a total waste if I didn't buy it, so instead she bought it for me, insisting that I will put it on at least one of my bags when I go out with her.

Er, cannot imagine this on some bags lor....



And then I realised that it was handsized, it had a good grip.......

It's perfect for rubbing on Yenn's bare skin. In order to highly irritate her.

rubarubarubarub!!!!

After a few rubs, the response was "GET AWAY FROM ME YOU PERVERT!!!"

Now coming at all facial salons near you.... the Salmon Skin Exfoliation Treatment!

The more I grow the more I question.

The more I question, the more I realize how much others don't know.

And more worriedly, how much they don't care.

The more I realize they don't know or care, the more I try to go against them. The more different I try to be.

The more different I try to be, the more crap I get from others.

The more crap I get the more miserable I get.

The more miserable I get, the more resigned I get.

How like that? Sigh...

Maybe the last line should be instead:

"the more miserable I get, the more determined I am that I should not remain this way forever and the more I take steps to ensure my future happiness."

Yea, that sounds better.

In reference to below post:

After I ended my fuming, I took a shower to cool down and decided that, as undesirable as it was, the most proper thing I could do was to go to work after all.

After all it wasn't a last minute notification, since the mail was sent out a week ago. And if I didn't read it then it was my fault that I only heard about it on the day itself.

So I went anyway, listened to people talk about something that I didn't use in work, I understood half about everything that they were talking about. And when I asked why I was put down for this, the answer was basically 'just in case in the future' -_-!!!!

Apparently when I was young, someone forgot to warn me that maturity could result in miserable wastes of your time.

Right now am most disgustedly sianz....

I did not check my email for about a week or so and apparently my name got put down for something and I didn't know.

Today, that it's supposed to take place, I receive a call from a colleague that I've been put down on it.... and I'm supposed to appear at work about an hour from now...

I'm farking pissed because I want to stay as goddamned far from my workplace now as I possibly can, and now I have an obligation to go back and I don't know if I should honour that because it could be partly my goddamnned fault that I didn't see this before, but mostly

I'M JUST PISSED OFF AT THE IDEA THAT I HAVE TO GO BACK TO WORK WHEN I ALREADY THOUGHT I DIDN'T HAVE TO. WHAT'S THE GODAMNED LIFE-OR-DEATH IMPORTANT THING THAT REQUIRES MY PRESENCE???????? JUST TO LISTEN TO SOMEBODY TALK ABOUT SOMETHING THAT DOESN'T DIRECTLY AFFECT MY WORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Its supposed to start in an hour and I still dunno if I should turn up............. oh blardyfarkinghell...................

Jeremy Monteiro and the Tang Quartet was not so aptly named, since in last night's concert, there was less tang than I thought.

There was jazz and plenty of good jazz. Quet thought the saxophonist was great and I thought the trumpet was superb, and we both agreed that the 4 stringed instruments were sadly 'extra'

This was quite disappointing in that aspect. The Tang Quartet are a brilliant quartet of stringed instruments in their own right. For this concert, most of the music seemed to have been handled by the jazz musicians rather than them. They seemed to be relegated to the role of light musical accompaniment, drowned out at times by the heavier sounds of the saxophone and trumpet.

All in all, a good concert, but with some better arrangements, could have been better.

( funnily I expected to enjoy this one more, since I wasn't familiar with FF music and this concert had 2 of my favourite artistes. Oh well, just goes to show... )

I went for a performance as part of the Singapore Arts Festival, Ruhe ( silence ) at the National Museum. It sounded interesting because it seemed to be presenting the point of history from ex-German officers during WW2.

Honestly, it wasn't really what I was expecting. I was expecting something like a play, or mini play cum dialogue. Turned out to be a bit more art-farty than I thought :p

We were ushered into a room at the National Museum, where chairs were laid in a circular pattern all facing the center of the room. As the last few stragglers came in, lo and behold, several men in the audience stood up and stood on their chairs.

yes, stood on their chairs.

Then they started singing. And I looked around for the CD player, because my god, mon dieu, watashi no kami, I never believed that 10 men could sing in such perfect, sublime harmony. It was like the most perfect angels' choir had come down from heaven.

After a while, a woman's voice crept up on the mens' and the men gradually sat down to reveal a female member of the audience. She started talking about her involvement in a German hospital during WW2, how she saw Hitler, and her admiration for the pride and courage of the amputees that came to her hospital.

The singing then resumed and later on another man stood up to defend his role in the SS during WW2. To him, it was simply something you had to do at the time for man and country. Making life all the more surreal when he came back to the real world only to feel like he was living a fake life. And having all that he was fighting for decried and put down by the Allied forces.

The 2 dialogues were interesting because they present a side of history hardly ever heard by the victorious side: That of the losing party. We have heard in countless history lessons how our grandparents suffered at the hands of the Japanese soldiers, how the Jews died in the Holocaust etc etc but we don't often hear what happens to the side that lost.

And it is a performance like this that makes it interesting. Because when you hear the dialogues ( Adapted from real interviews with ex-SS officers ) you realise that apart from the megalomanical Hitler, most of those that were fighting under the banner of the swastika were simply ordinary folk who felt that they were doing the right thing for their country, and that many of what they felt were similar to what soldiers in England or anywhere else could have been feeling too.

After all, regardless of whoever died, or regardless of how human we all are, it is the victors who become war heroes, and the losers who become war criminals.

Distant Worlds: Final Fantasy concert

It started with music to stir you into battle... Music that quickened your heart and made you sit up on your seat in attention.

Then it became music sweetly calming, full of peace, calm and fields of flowers.

After that was music of a forgotten city, attacked by giants and trolls and left for dead, till one grownup survivor brought its people back.

It was music of love, comradeship, honour, battle lust and of the hope that comes happily ever after.

One of the better orchestra concerts I've been to. Now to get my hands on a cd... ;p

Yenn and I met for dinner before the concert at the esplanade.

"what did you order?"

*points to soup*

"Hey, you ordered the same soup I did. What sandwich did you get?"

"bacon and cheese"

"I got that too!"

*pause*

"what tea is that?"

"peach"

"me too!"

*pregnant pause*

"we may be hanging out too often together."

"agreed. What colour underwear are you wearing?"

And for the record that last line wasn't mine!!

Flashback to the Past

One day, I saw a notification on Flickr that I had no Pro account, and that only the first 200 photos of my account would be shown.

Because of that, I thought maybe I should delete some of the photos from the account, reasons being 1) I already had copies of those photos on my hard drives and 2) I wanted to free up space for other stuff.

So I had to go into the account and discover what were the photos that I should delete. Only to find a whole trove of goody oldies.

For example, who would have thought this illustration, from back in 2005, would strike such a chord now? ( Although for polarly opposite reasons than when I first did it )



People never change either. 4 years on, I still irritate her and she still takes revenge for it.



Some made me feel regretful. I don't know when I'll ever be able to churn out something as nice as this again: ( Or whether I'll ever have the leisure to do this in real life )



Other than these, I also found a whole bunch of thought-lost photos from Graduation 2003 (!!!) that made me realise that, however fat I thought myself back then, I was actually thinner. InThan in the present now anyway -__-!!!!!! And like my weight, other subtler differences could be found if you looked closely enough. I was thinner, just like some of the others, [although the graduation gown did a wonderful job of hiding those figures] Faces looked fresher, even with the lack of makeup. No eyebags, worry lines, and a totally fresher expression in the eyes, without the effects of lasik.

I'm not sure if I should ever show these photos to future generations.

A more poignant were the even older Redang Part 1 photos I found, where all of us looked thinner, younger, fresher, and totally unaware of all the upcoming crap that was awaiting us in the so-called real world. The photos, which back then seemed so new and fresh, now took on a slightly dated feeling of being old, already beginning to take on a sepia tint although they were clearly in full colour. The colours had already faded a little, and bled a little into each other, so that the outlines were not as clear as before. Looking on them, you start to think, did it really look like that? Does my memory fail me?

Maybe these I should keep as a warning to future generations. ( "Don't think you'll never grow old. Look at Mummy and Aunty back then......" )

I only had slight regrets in the end when I was deleting the photos from the account. Of course, the important ones had already been saved in my hard drive, so no worries on that part. But as the pictures disappeared one by one from the profile page, it seemed to draw a comparison with our memories of our youth.

It was as if with each delete, I was cementing a fact that these were times and attitudes that I would never be able to revert back to. That they were gone, lost, somewhere in my past. Even though I would be able to view them again from time to time, that was the only contact I would ever have with a past that was irretrievably behind me.

Suddenly I feel too old for my shoes...... I want to go back to this.......

Bloglines - Laptop pillow

Bloglines user boredslacker (boredslacker@gmail.com) has sent this item to you, with the following personal message:

Either for sleepy workaholics, or for those weboholics who can't get enough of Facebook/Twitter... :p

---

Boing Boing

Laptop pillow By David Pescovitz Over at Boing Boing Gadgets, Lisa Katayama beckons me to this "laptop pillow for sleepy workaholics."

Let's see if I can post the events of the week without going into too much detail..

Did overtime on 2 days without finishing my regular work.

Prepped for a presentation to the boss which could have gone far better.. but he still cleared me so not complaining too much...

Have had a meeting dumped on me which clashes with a show that I bought tickets for in March. -_-!! and then dismissed by the boss before I can even try suggesting an alternate arrangement...

( would it kill you to try it? Or to even listen to me fully first?)

Been told that I have to inject more personality into my work? Although for this last part I really can't care anymore...

Plus the usual multitude of chaos from the underlings, today resulting in blood and stitches...

This year has been a total downhill slide following the stock market. I'm not entirely sure what is causing me to lapse into these depressive moods but I have to wonder how much job-related crap I can still take, or if I have to, how to get a better shovel to throw all the crap back.

But I think... I most probably want to switch company by this year. I just see no future for me right now, or rather, a future that I would look forward to.

Maybe it should be a crime...

 Massachusetts wants to imprison people for 10 years if they take a nude photo of their over-60 spouse, even with spouse's consent 

Then again, maybe it should be a criminal offence if your grandparents take nude photos if each other. Especially if they post them somewhere on the Internet... 

Sent from my iPod

Nuking a handphone in a microwave

 Microwaving a cellphone is surprisingly cool 

Now what if it had been an iPhone in that microwave? Hmmm...

Sent from my iPod

Here's a pic of e new Phone... Hoping he

Here's a pic of e new Phone... Hoping he works better than e previous one... Still tryin to get used to e operating system though...

Yes, I finally got myself a new phone... It's a Sony E 905 in gold...

I don't often change phones but the nokia was just giving me more trouble than it was worth. How dost thou irritate me? Lemme list the ways:

1. Hanging while I am doing something innocently, say sliding it open. Perchance my slides were too rough for it. A phone has to be slid like a hockey puck across ice.

2. Refusing to read my memory card. One day, the phone had an argument with the memory card when I was not looking. Since then they've refused to speak to each other. Never mind that I cannot save anything in the card since then.

3. Throwing diva fits on me and asking for strange numbers to message centres when previously none was necessary to send messages.

And to add oil onto fire, when I went to the m1 shop, I realized that it doesn't even gave a tradein value.... -_-!!! presumably I'd even have to pay m1 to take it away from me...

To a point, enough us enough. I wouldn't have minded using the phone for 2 years, but with these kind of problems coming in just after the one year warranty ( how convenient ) I think not worth it la...

Let's hope the new phone lasts longer now! If not, iPhone still looks tempting... :p

3.