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I feel absolutely horrible
I actually feel kinda... sick. Can't type much. Pre-exam horror. 10 hours to go. Night.
Because I am here to entertain you
My right wrist is in pain. I don't know why. Too much vigorous wrist activity. I need ice. THE PAIN, THE PAIN. And no, it's not Isis's fault. No real update on my life today, although two NEW and EXCITING things happened to me today: (NEW AND EXCITING!) 1. I found out that "mores" is pronounced "MO-reyz" not "more" with an "s"! I've been pronouncing it wrong since... forever! (NEW AND EXCITING!) 2. I used CHOCOLATE MILK, not plain full-cream milk with my Oatmeal Squares today. I still have heart palpitations from the sheer excitement of it, and stains on my underwear from the diarrhea. (NEW BUT SO VERY SAD) 3. I misplaced my Longman dictionary. I'm left with the BBC dictionary now. I feel bereft. My life. Where's the song? Where the wacky zaniness? Where're the hot chicks? I grew up hoping to become The Fonz (before he literally jumped the shark), or hell, even Bud Bundy would have been fine. But fucking Urkel? *** A question to the lawyers: If this happened in Singapore, would the evidence provided by an unlawful break-in hold up in court? AND The End of the World Jiayi, or one of you Californians - I demand an answer! *** Goodnight folks. 31 hours to the first exam and counting.
It's not 1am yet
I've gotta take long, dreary train ride down to NIE tomorrow, since the lecturer's handing back my assignment. I really rather he didn't. I hate taking blows before the examinations (not that I like taking blows at any other time mind you), and even if I did well, it'd probably just give me a false sense of security. What worse: the crazy bugger wants to have a "tea party". Fuck, I'm the only guy from NTU amongst these bunch of future teachers. I don't know any of them, I just go to class and bugger off! I sense mawkiness, social discomfort, and disappointment - and that's just from the journey there. Plus, I might argue with the lecturer again. He hates my guts and I hate his. On the bright side, at least I can return Mary Tay's "The English Language in Singapore" to the bloody library. It must be like five hundred days overdue or something. Pathetic update I know, but I gotta sleep soon. Goodnight. PS. I will probably grab a CD on my way back. Hmm. Latest Travis or Flaming Lips? Choices, choices! PPS. A link for the Singaporeans among you. About turn on NEL by transport minister. I've been railing against SBS running the NEL for the last half year in my stories. I feel justified. Surprising amount of criticism by other MPs in the story too. I applaud Christopher Tan, he has been entirely critical of NEL in his stories since the beginning. Maybe now the SBS will reinstate my BLOODY DIRECT BUS!
Can you say "Robotech"?
I always thought the Japanese would come up with this idea first. ALSO: Attack of the cannibal babies PLUS!!! Funny as fuck if you're a geek like me Hey, I think Chomsky is cool. As a psycholinguist at least. (I still have his Propaganda Model floating around in the recesses of my mind.)
Saddam Beware
The stormtroopers are coming.
An incredibly long tale (i typed in one sitting, all grammatical mistakes are mine)
Both my parents were graduates from the now defunct Nanyang University. They graduated at a testing time. Singapore had been independent for over a decade, a city state undergoing the throes of adolescence. Nanyang University, founded in 1957, was the only Mandarin-medium university in Southeast Asia, and a nexus for higher learning among the Chinese people in the entire area, but the People Action Party government was determined to institute English as the language of education in Singapore. In 1975 English was made a parallel language of instruction in Nanyang University; in 1980, the year of my birth, Nanyang University, or Nantah as it was known, was forced to merge into the National University of Singapore. I am currently studying in Nanyang Technological University, previously known as the Nanyang Technological Institute - the school that was set up on the grave of old Chinese, leftist hotbed, Nantah. Even before the final blow was struck, graduates from Nantah had found it difficult to find jobs. The world had changed from 1957. Singapore was more international than ever, and the PAP government's policies in the mid-1960s of adopting English as the lingua franca had been fairly successful. Concurrently, it adopted Mandarin as the language of choice; the dialects were all but obliterated in the public sphere until recently. No matter what skills these graduates may have had, it was of little use when they couldn't speak the language at work. But I don't want to delve too deeply into this issue. As you can see, my parents when they had me, had been greatly impressed with the idea that English was instrumental in a successful future, and though the tide was beginning to change in the 1980s, with the economic liberalization of Deng Xiaoping in China and the backlash from key portions of society about the destabilizing effects of Westernization, they remained convinced that English, above all else, was the all-important language to master. I did not disagree. The bilingual policy in Singapore expressed Mandarin as a "Mother Tongue" for the Chinese, but the fact was Mandarin was a "Mother Tongue" for almost nobody. I greatly resented the fact that I was forced to study Mandarin, and I found the ideographic system of Chinese incredibly difficult to comprehend. I was ever the lazy child. English on the other hand, while not a truly phonetic language, was far easier to acquire. (I say no language where the "e" in a word may be pronounced as "ee" or "er" or "ey" or not pronounced at all can claim to be truly phonetic, you crazy Victorians.) That, and the fact that MTV was far sexier in English then. I went to the Chinese High, and to Hwachong Junior College, and despite the enforced culture of "traditional Chineseness" or popular perceptions, my circle of friends was pretty damned bad at Mandarin too, and English was the medium of communication. There was them, those guys who spoke Mandarin, and there was us, the whitewashed bastards who listened to Radiohead, Manic Street Preachers or Rage against the Machine. Those of us with taste, anyway. I had no problem with it. Fuck Mandarin, was has Mandarin got to do with me? Or the dialects? Around 1996, my paternal grandmother passed away. She was one of the relics, someone who had migrated from China. She spoke no Mandarin, she spoke no English. And I spoke no Hainanese. When she died she called my name, but I was not there - my O'Levels were round the corner and I was at home studying. During her wake, I was filled with remorse, and I regretted that I had not taken the time to muster Hainanese, my dialect, my mother tongue. But it was not my fault - as a child, I am told, I was proficient in Hainanese. But my mom forced me to not use the language, preferring Mandarin or English. My proficiency wilted away, and with it, my heritage. So it continued. My General Paper results were far better than anybody's in my class in Hwachong, and I was consistently top during high school anyway. Australian English Test? Higher Distinction, top two percent in Singapore, no problems. I had passed Higher Chinese with a credible B4 during secondary school, and I declined to take it during junior college. I hated studying Mandarin. In order to pass tests I would copy, cheat, lie. No problems. It was during National Service or mandatory military service, that I was exposed to a far larger segment of society. Not too large, they were still educated people who could speak English, but the lingua franca had shifted. English was used officially, but conversations were carried out in Mandarin or Hokkien. I loved it. If I have romantic notions about the superiority of heartlanders – the proletariat so to speak - as compared to the English-speaking middle class I think it was due in part to this exposure. Fuck those who would jettison their culture away. Fuck me. By the time I left National Service my viewpoints had changed a lot. Certainly it had shifted radically to the left. Before National Service I was probably a "conservative libertarian" in American terms. In Singaporean terms I would be a "liberal". (This is an argumentative point, but I don't want to discuss it. Just take it for now.) When I entered Communication Studies in Nanyang Technological University with an eye on journalism, I was practically a communitarian. Very odd for someone who loves Friedrich Nietzsche I know. I still can't reconcile with it. But I think it is a good thing. It keeps me from holding strong convictions - they are the most dangerous things. Convictions are blinders on the blind. But I digress. These changes, this internal conflict, wreaked havoc on my sense of identity. I was twenty, and I found that my life was not real. I was living someone else's life, speaking someone else's language, thinking someone else's thoughts. English was not mine, Chinese was not mine. I was studying in an institution built on the sweat and blood of the migrant Chinese community all across the South China Sea, but there was nothing Chinese about it - save an old, ignored Chinese Heritage Center, that my mom loves to point out whenever we drive past. She enjoys those drives. But the ghosts are gone now, the spirit of functionalism has driven them out, forever. There's this drive to rename Nanyang Technological University, to reinstall Nanyang University. Some think it will help restore this thing called the "Nantah Spirit". There is nothing in this grey stone that a change in name may resurrect. The king is dead, let him stay dead - not raise an obscene caricature in his hallowed name. I am studying in this university, filled with old ghosts and dead communists, its body separated from its soul. A Mandarin school with an English heart. So was I. So I am. Am I Chinese? Am I Singaporean? A Chinese-Singaporean? Prefix-word-suffix, that's all we are. A body with an MTV soul. Allasdair McIntyre said it best, I think, when he said "we all approach our own circumstances as bearers of a particular social identity." He goes on to say "I inherit from the past of my family, my city, my tribe, my nation, a variety of debts, inheritances, rightful expectations and obligations. These constitute my starting of life, my moral starting point. This is in part what gives my life its own moral particularities." Nietzsche would rail against that, but let us quieten that part of my soul, and proceed. Who can I be if I am not my mother's son, or my grandmother's grand son? What am I without history, and by that I mean a collective history, the history that is mine by virtue of my birth? Do I have no obligation to the state, do I have no obligation to my discarded heritage? Do I live for me, and me alone? Or is everything merely based on Rousseauian contracts - do me no harm and I will do you none? I do think I had an obligation to know Hainanese if only so that I could have spoken to my late grandmother. It is too late now. Hainanese is beyond me anyway, that fragment is gone. So I stand here, my identity in splinters, my morality defunct. I blame the State in part. It stole my heritage, it stole my Chinese-ness, and it repackaged it to serve its own ends. It made culture dirty; it peed in the pond. It made me a prefixed being. It makes me sick. ... and I got tired of typing. Goodnight.
Don't harsh my mellow
It's 3.02am and it's time for yet another installment of the "yes, but I can't sleep" series of posts that I'm sure all five of you (four of whom are figments of my imagination) have been anxiously waiting for. If you're done with the breath bating from the anticipation I will proceed. (ObQuery: How come no one ever waits with unbated breath?) The problem with being a night owl is that at this hour, when all is silent save for the sound of occasional grunts from the young couple next door, the barking of a crazed dog further down the road, soppy love songs from the radio, screeches of cars and the tippity-tappity noise of my fingers punching the keyboard, one tends to get pensive - probably from all that goddamned noise. It is now when a man tends to be at his lowest. And I'm already lower than most. When I get pensive, I get the urge to write (type?); to express the angst, anxiety and the desolation of solitude that piles up when one is cooped in a room, forced to read and read. This urge is akin to that of a man with explosive diarrhea; like the poor man who has lost control of his bowels, it's great relief to let go, but the results aren't usually pretty, and nobody wants to look at it. I think it's true for most people. Writers are generally at their best when they're not consumed by emotional darkness, unless they happen to be Emily Dickinson or Sylvia Plath, though if you can tolerate reading the Bell Jar you're a better man than I am. People who think they write well when they're depressed out of their minds is the reason why poetry gets so much stick from us mortals. In fact, at these hours, I get so weirded out that I watch odd Japanese talkshows and write about being too fucked up to write well. Madness! -- Also, I have added a new link to the sidebar to your right (unless you are reading this upside down). If you're an amateur linguistics buff like I am, you will have hours and hours of fun perusing the site.
Dick happened to be his dad's name.
L. Y. Ho: Remind me never to name a daughter "Heidi".
Because it's been a while since I posted a Nietzsche quote
Laughter.--- Laughter means: being schadenfroh, but with a good conscience. It's been too long since I scanned a Calvin and Hobbes comic, too.
Midgets on the march
Every once in a while, the Sunday Times comes up with a theme for no explicable reason. This time, they reached deep into their rabbit hat of random thoughts, and decided to cover the issue of LENGTH. Apparently length is a big issue when it comes to women. By length I of course meant the length of the whole man lying down. Ha ha? Hmm. Sorry. Anyway, I was forced to write this because height, or the lack of it, is possibly the primary cause of all the neuroses that currently afflict me. That, and the fact that those few who know me expect me to write this. You see, I'm short. If I were Scandinavian, I'd be a midget. Luckily, I'm Chinese, and among Chinese, length doesn't matter so much. Ha. I wish. The story proves otherwise. Based on a relatively old study, the story claims that taller people get paid better, get more sex, have more children and lead all around more whizbang super-duper lives, while shorter people are "more likely to be poor, obese, smokers and prone to heart disease". In fact, according to the study, if you're Chinese AND short, you are less likely to be a star centre for the Los Angeles Lakers, much less churn out bad rap singles. There is no plus side! That's not all! There is also this thing called the Napoleon Complex. That is, the unusual desire among midgets to march on to Moscow with massive armies. I jest. Ha ha! No, the Napoleon Complex "makes one feel inferior and over-exaggerate achievements". Too damn true. The Napoleon Complex is completely real. You can't imagine the number of times I've woken up screaming ""Liberte, egalite, fraternite! We have come to free you, you dirty Russian bastards!" You see, short people are compelled to make up for their perceived inferiority with aggressive behaviour. I tell you, if you have been forced to look up people's nostrils for as long as I have, you'll feel aggressive too. Plus, a nose closer to ground is a nose closer to feet. Unpleasant. And when your head is at armpit height for some people, standing on the bus or train can be a severely testing experience. So be nice to short people. We lead horrible, self-loathing lives - science has proved it! Because if you aren't, we will get down AND BITE YOUR ANKLES OFF! VIVA LA FRANCE! Oh, and here's another Sunday Times link. It was written by whom I consider a reasonably good friend. So, click it, or something.
Because it's funny and I'm an asshole
It's 4.41am, and I can't sleep, so I'm trawling the blogosphere looking for stuff to read. There is one particular blog I once read and want to re-read. So I check out Blogwise, and look under "Singapore". I'm looking at the list right now, and I see this link for boogietalk. It is described as "A self masturbatory blog that tells it like it is". Self-masturbatory is one of those pointless, "almost-not-a-redundancy" redundancies. Sure, you can argue that mutually-masturbatory is an acceptable term, but come on. Unless ms. boogietalk is being literal about the "self-masturbatory" bit, the "self" prefix is unnecessary! I mean, does this sound right to you: "I am going home to self-masturbate." Another one I spotted: Meet A Tosser. I guessed she was from RGS the moment I saw the words Prokokiev, Schubert's D960 piano sonata, vim, progenitors (repeatedly!), homophones and hypersomnia. OK, she states it in, like, the second entry on the page but I would have guessed! I would! It's actually quite an enjoyable blog, really, because you can fairly smell the anger and conceited self-righteousness pouring out from the screen. Mixed with a healthy dose of self-loathing and depression. Kinda like how I was before I became stupid. Anyway, I only listed the previous site because I thought it's impossible for a woman to be a tosser, but apparently a tosser doesn't have to be someone who tosses, and hey, etymology ain't my strong suit anyway. Plus, after reading it, I like it precisely because I can't stand the person who wrote it. Plus, at the rate boombastic words turn up in that blog I can stop subscribing to A Word A Day if I keep up. As mentioned in the first paragraph, I was on the lookout for a specific blog. About half a year ago I came across this angry blog that, like me, had a huge language rant. Now, the difference is that I have no trouble with common Singlish usage at all (in fact I fscking love it) - my beef is with the so-called English elite. She wrote this lengthy tract about how horrible the English of the average Singaporean is, and how his speech and writing breaks this rule of English or that rule of English. Of course, in that particular tract, she ignored punctuation and capitalization completely, most likely for stylistic purposes. So I wrote her and pointed out that if she is allowed to take liberties with the traditional rules of English for the sake of aesthetics, the average Singaporean is allowed to ignore them as well. I was actually quite polite. She never wrote back. A pity, I was looking forward to a scathing reply. Sadly, I was unable to unearth the URL. (I didn't want to include the links to the blogs, but I thought if I were going to be snarky I might as well give these people some exposure. I mean, they might get 2 hits off this blog, on a good day.)
Education is like Kung Fu
There is this scene in Louis Cha's "Yi Tian Tu Long Ji" (Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre), where the hero Zhang Wuji has to master Taiji Swordplay from his teacher Zhang Sanfeng when the Sect is threatened by vicious outsiders. He is shown a variety of strokes from Zhang Sanfeng, and Zhang Sanfeng asks, at the end of the session: "Have you remembered everything?" "I have remembered everything," says Zhang Wuji. Zhang Sanfeng admonishes him. He asks again. "Do you remember it totally, Wuji?" Zhang Wuji replies. "I've already forgotten some." Zhang Sanfeng says, "Fine, go on and think it over again." Wuji lowers his head, deep in thought. After a while, Zhang Sanfeng pipes up again. "What about now?" the old master asks. "I've forgotten most of it," Wuji replies. Zhang Sanfeng smiles, and proceeds to show Wuji the swordplay one more time, only this this time the strokes are completely different. He repeats his question, and Wuji replies that he has only three moves unforgotten. Zhang Sanfeng nods, and returns to his seat. Circling the room, Wuji remains in deep thought, until suddenly he cries out that he has forgotten everything, everything! Zhang Sanfeng says: "Not bad, not bad, you have done well, forgetting all of it so quickly. Now you can use this skill against this enemy." ******************************* Learning is about not knowing. The more you learn, the more you know you don't know. Education should free, not constrict. There are no only's, only maybe's. There are no grand rules, like there are no strokes to memorize; there are only grand concepts, and these concepts may well be wrong. And let no one tell you otherwise. That's the thought for the day, folks! Brought to you by the number 3 and letters F, C and K, as well as the fact that I seem to remember F3CK all about what I've been reading all day about relative clauses! I have forgotten everything, everything!
Bah
Right now, I really regret taking a Modern World History module and not another language module, because I am so fscking sick of reading thousands of pages worth of arguments about the Russian history, Cold War realpolitik, the Israel question and blah blah blah. The worst thing is, I get 4 or 5 versions of the same event every time. Liberal viewpoints, revisionist viewpoints, libertarian viewpoints, Marxist viewpoints, anarchist viewpoints... bah. I'm thinking of answering questions like so: Q: To what extent did the April Theses affect the result of the October Revolution? A: Depends on who you ask, you silly man. It's not really wrong, is it? I kid. I like being challenged! Even if it results in a C- grade. :/ In other news, Soong Mei Ling passed away. Good, I say.
Hard lessons in school
"By the time the afternoon lessons began, there was no hiding what they had done." Stiff discipline for boys' Viagra prank I hope the person who made the dare feels the prick of his conscience. The school should be firm, not soft, when dealing with this bulging problem. Spare the rod, spoil the child. I hope these kids realise how thick they were. We need to erect a good precedent now so that... Ok, I'll stop now.
Happy Deepavali
What is Deepavali? In other news, nothing happened today. Updates at nine.
Another language rant
It's 5.24am, I know, but I couldn't sleep. There was this story in the Life section of The Straits Times yesterday that had the headline "They are maid like you and I". Remember, I'm only anal about language here because this newspaper has a section, every Monday (I think), that purports to teach "good" English, and can reasonably be considered the flagship paper of the English-speaking elite in Singapore. (Like Lee Kuan Yew, I can be part of that "elite" and still despise the people in it.) As you may have guessed, this story is about maids, but that's not the point. The question is whether the headline, a pretty big headline at that, grammatical? If we replace "maid" with "made", the sentence is "They are made like you and I." That's definitely wrong. Like here acts, eh, like a preposition. Pronouns after a preposition take the objective case. It should have been "They are made like you and me." The word like stands for "resemble". But then, we could say that "maid" here shouldn't stand for "made". My professor suggested that the headline could be deciphered as "They are people, like you and I (are people)". Like acts as a conjunction then. "You and I" would be the subject for the clause, and hence take the subjective case. But I disagree. If we replace "you and I" with "we", we get "They are people like we". That sounds crap. You would say "They are people like we are". We don't truncate the be-verb, usually. You are more likely to say "They are people like us". Of course that dude is a linguist with a Ph.D. while I am merely some dork that blogs on the Internet, so if I'm wrong, hey - who's perfect? Also, I would like to say that I've NO qualifications in the English language - ok I'm hoping to get a minor in it - I'm just amazed that this kind of basic error can escape the editors. Especially when it's often the editors writing the headlines. Wifflewiffle: Only a language Nazi to the language Nazis.
Yet another random thought
Isn't it annoying when there's this song you really enjoy on the radio, that plays all the time, but you never manage to catch the name of the song, or the name of the singer? And after the song fades from radio playlists, you never hear about it again?
Mom's back, bring on the goodies
My mom was in Shanghai the past week on business, and she got back around 3 hours ago. I think she flew to Suzhou as well, but I'm not really sure. Anyway, she's back, and I should be a happy camper. China = Counterfeit Goods, baby. She bought two Nike long-sleeved shirts, a watch, a bunch of pens, socks (socks, always socks, but I never ask why) and food. She also bought a bottle of Bailey's from the duty-free shop at Changi, which is good, because I had finished the last bottle in the house. Of course, the shirts are oversized, the design of the watch screams counterfeit, the pens are too heavy for my liking, and socks are, well, socks. The food is some variety of dried tou fu. I hate tou fu. But I love her anyway.
Why I love the French
Judge masturbates while lawyer pleads her case, police say You know, have you ever watched those parliament meetings in Singapore? Where the Speaker is sitting behind that high chair, staring quietly as some white-shirt is giving a 30 minute speech about some insignificant part of the budget? Or have you noticed how certain Ministers' eyes seem to glaze over when Irene Ng comes to the stand?
Thought for the Day
Don't you hate it when you're preparing to get off somebody's car, and your favourite song comes on the radio?
Have you ever wondered what your furniture are doing when you're not home?
Furniture At Play I should be studyin' and not watchin' this crap.
It's 9am and I should be in school
I can't motivate myself to go though. It's the last lecture for the semester, and I wanted to borrow study notes from a friend so that I won't flunk. Too late now. Very very very bad. At least I've finished all the assignments I have got. Nothing really interesting to report. My days are dominated by Gunbound, Suikoden III and studying. Not much of the third, though. I haven't been watching TV much, because, in case you haven't heard, the remote control died on me and I can't be arsed to replace it. It made me understand several very fundamental things about watching TV, though. 1. Switching channels is more fun than watching a channel itself 2. Channel surfing is the new (old?) rock'n'roll 3. The remote control, the absolute ease of changing a channel, has made a single channel impossible to watch continuously because the programmers do not expect anybody to do so 4. There is a lot of crap on the Discovery Channel. Yes, my television is still tuned to that. Oh, and for some reason my DVD player auto pauses after every song on a CD. Does anybody know what setting causes that? It's pissing me off.
Exam Timetable
01-NOV-2003 0930-1130 CS301 HALL C-Block S4, Basement 3, South Spine 253 05-NOV-2003 1330-1430 CS312 HALL 10-Function Room, Hall of Residence 10 101 06-NOV-2003 1330-1430 CS311 HALL 10-Function Room, Hall of Residence 10 2 07-NOV-2003 0930-1200 CAE101 NIE5-B1-08 11-NOV-2003 0930-1200 CAH330 NIE5-B1-08 For my own reference. Too lazy to print it out.
It's 4.54 am, and it's raining like hell.
My head hurts, my butt aches, my fingers twitch and my eyes burn. But I'm only half-way through a report on cinema management in Singapore due Tuesday and I still need to clean up a draft for a BMX feature due Monday. Which happens to be today, strangely enough. In addition to feeling like shit I am practically in panic. I called my interviewee's office 7 times over 6 hours yesterday until the secretary was practically sick of hearing my voice, and I still couldn't get the guy. No interview, barely a report, 10 more pages to fill, 2 hours to daybreak, 12 days to the exams and 1000s of pages left unread. At times like this, amid the pitter patter of raindrops off a plastic roof above a makeshift balcony outside my door, I feel utterly and completely alone. And my remote is still broken.
Language rant number three
I spotted this sentence on my head & shoulders bottle of shampoo while showering: "With regular use keeps scalp healthy and prevents dandruff flakes." Let's ignore the fact that the sentence is horribly mangled and concentrate on this phrase "prevents dandruff flakes." Dandruff flakes. What a horrible, horrible redundancy. The word "flakes" is not necessary. If you have flakes off your scalp... you have DANDRUFF! This shampoo simply prevents DANDRUFF! It's like saying a pill cures fever heat or that someone is drying the floor with a rag cloth.
Bubba Hotep
Movie. Geriatric Elvis and JFK battle an evil Egyptian mummy in an old folks home. Bruce Campbell stars. Need I say more? Click for the trailer.
Profession of Perceptions (by Mike Kelley, columnist, Austin (Texas) American-Statesman, 1988)
From time to time people ask, "What is it all about, this newspaper business?" I sat down the answer to that, as best as I knew how, a few years ago and offer it again now. The young man was thinking of taking up journalism. "I should like to journal," he said. "Offhand," I said,"I would advise against it. BUt what sort of journaling do you have in mind?" "Well," he said, "I would like to make my contribution to our republican democracy by delving into the thoughts and actions of our elected leaders, by divining their sentiments on a variety of the great issues and reporting those concerns as to infomm the very whiz-bang out of the electorate." "In other words, you are already throwing in with the political elite," I said. "You intend to be a craven conduit for the political power structure." "Pity no," he said. "I would encourage the dissemination of divergent points of view, no matter how scorned might be their purveyors." "So you are willing to give forum to any radical, lunatic fringe group that comes along; you are prepared to betray your great trust and allow yourself to be a virtual publicity factory for any loon who would publicly laminate a gopher to get attention." "You don't understand at all. I want to tell the world the plight of the powerless. I want to be the voice of those who are not heard." "Pandering to the minorities and homeless, then, is it? A constant whining and carping about people who could improve themselves if only they would get an honest job and pull themselves up as countless millions before them have done. You want the hard-working, taxpaying citizens to bankrupt themselves to support a bunch of deadbeats. Just another bleeding heart liberal." "Well, of course not," he said with some exasperation. "I have the greatest admiration and respect for people who have succeeded financially. I would lend an eager ear to their opinions, for they have demonstrated their soundness, industry and prudence." "A shameless haack mouthpiece for the business establishment. A puppet for the three-piece-suited money barons who bend the necks of the working man to their lucre-stained yoke." "I'm no one's pawn," he protested. "I'm a thinking, perceptive, analytical fellow who simply wishes to employ those attributes to educate my fellow citizens as to the meaning of events." "A petty propagandist and nothing more. Cringing behind your veil of purported objectivity, you yearn to impose your own warped prejudices on a defenseless readership. Slant the news to line up with your squalid bias, you pitiable tract writer." "Fairness and objectivity are my very hallmarks," he sputtered. "I swear that my reports would be rigorous in exactitude and literal in every way." "Then you aspire to be nothing more than a loudspeaker," I said, "repeating precisely the platitudes and self-serving pronouncements of whomsoever might dally with you to indulge his whims. A spineless mindless siphon sucking up every passing word and spewing it out with no form, no context, no meaning." "I want only to be a humble messenger," he said. "A messenger: A messenger of wars and rumors of wars, a messenger of daily tidings so sordid and base, so disheartening and dispiriting, so threatening, tumultous and unsettling that your fellows will come to doubt there is any hope at all left for themselves or for the world." "Enough!" he cried. "You have won. I shall never come within a continent's breadth of the wretched practice. But tell me this: How can you ply so sorry a trade?" "Why," I explained, "It is the only endeavor I know in which you may enjoy such a rich variety of perceptions while remaining droningly consistent." Wiffle's note: This piece summarizes the issues faced by journalism beautifully. It is one of my favourite articles, ever, and I thought it was a pity that it was not online in some form. So I took out my notes and typed it up. Hopefully I'm not infringing on any copyrights.
Nihilism in a nutshell
A few thousand years ago, a man called Prince Siddharta Gautama contemplated on the meaning of life. Under the banyan tree, he realized that the universe was an illusion, and that the only way to escape from the cycle of birth, aging, disease and death was to deny oneself. Since then, this cult of asceticism has taken itself to extremes, with a few undergoing the process of self-mummification. It is a sort of suicide spanning years, as the monk must live on a diet designed to expel all fat from the body. When he's ready, he is lowered into tomb surrounded by candles, and sealed, effectively drying himself out. He meditates, he chants, until he can chant no more. Three years later, his now preserved body is taken out, and worshipped as one who has achieved Nirvana. I had the impulse to deny myself last night. I was watching television, and a particularly macabre show was on. I lifted the remote control to switch channels - and nothing. I tried changing the battery cells. Nothing. I tried to will the remote control back to life. Still nothing. The horror, the horror. What is the meaning of life without my remote control? The answer: Nothing. So I was forced to watch a Discovery Channel program about mummies that made themselves, because hey, I'm not gonna shift my ass for ESPN.
Thought for the Day
Sometimes I get tired of writing about myself. Words do music no justice.
I think they got me.
Damn.
Just a mini book review
Man am I productive today or what? Anyway, a few entries ago I said that I bought several books. Cat's Cradle, Prozac Diary and A Quantum Murder. I've yet to read a Quantum Murder, so I've no comment on it. (I hope it doesn't end up like Sophie's World, which lies half-read on my bookshelf. I thought it was completely overrated. But then I was already reasonably acquainted with the philosophies mentioned in the book, and the "mystery" didn't grip me.) Cat's Cradle is a Kurt Vonnegut book, and it's the second Vonnegut novel I've bought. I really, really enjoyed Slaughterhouse Five, and for a while I tried to emulate the writing style, but I failed miserably. Vonnegut is Vonnegut. It's an immensely funny book, and the whole idea about ice-nine - I'm trying to keep this review spoiler free so I won't give away too many details - seems a little forced, and little explanation is given for it, but it works well enough as a plot device. I can't stand sci-fi that degenerates into mere technobabble. No technobabble in Cat's Cradle. It is very funny, in that dry Vonnegut way. I truly enjoy Vonnegut. Why? Extremely short chapters, very simple but effective writing, and understated humour all come together to really pack a punch. It is a parable, I think, about the dangers of uncontrolled science. It also examines religion, and human nature. The message is universal, and all great novels should be universal. Now, Prozac Diary is a very different kind of book. It's not a novel, it's a memoir revolving around the author's usage of Prozac, wonderdrug. The theme is fascinating, and lots of people like the book, but for me, I struggled to get through it. The story itself was good enough to keep me going, but I found the writing style intolerable. Rarely a page goes by without some use of extended metaphor or indulgent poeticism. Maybe I'm just a simple man, but I don't like having to weave through excessive layers of lyricism (and there is a lot of lyricism in this book) just to decode a message. I'm not saying that it's a bad book. There were a few passages where the text really flowed. Pure poetic beauty it was. There wasn't enough of those, though. Metaphors should illuminate, not obfuscate. Maybe it's just not my kind of book.
A quote I came by today that made me picture things I never want to picture
So this guy is talking about delivering babies on this webboard, and he says this: I've scrubbed in on about 10 Cesareans and 15-20 NSVDs. I prefer C-sections - they're much tidier, and no one poops. I hate it when they poop. :X :X :X *** I can see how the stress and muscle contractions involved in pushing a baby out could make a woman lose control of her bowels. Now I'm wondering if my mom shat on the doctor while trying to deliver me. How come people always tell me childbirth is beautiful, that the man should be beside the wife, etc and nobody ever mentions the shitting? And... what if the woman ate something bad the night before and has explosive diarrhea? (crosses midwifery out from list of future career choices)
Two very interesting sites
I try not to link other blogs whenever possible, but I came across two that I found very fascinating. This is not so much a blog as a reproduction of Samuel Pepys diary, and the annotations supplied by people who visit the site are very helpful. In some ways the Internet is better than a book! The next one is Tard Blog, a blog about the life of a special education teacher. It's quite fascinating.
Yet another language rant (Record use of the word "fuck")
I can't stand pretentious bastards when it comes to English. I'm talking about the people who write to the Straits Times and complain about the level of the English language in Singapore. Worst of all are those who put in examples correcting sentence structure - even when there was really nothing wrong with the example in the first place, especially when they use some archaic form that nobody uses anymore, not even the English - hell not even the "Indian" Indians, some of whom seem to have forgotten that Queen Victoria is dead. I mean, so what if I use stative verbs in the progressive form, or use Chinese language structure for my English in daily usage? So-fucking-what? I'm breaking several rules of the language in this rant alone, but you understand me just fine don't ya? Those English-Nazis who correct stuff that doesn't NEED to be corrected drive me bonkers. I mean, if I say that I'm hitting someone with an "open fist", feel free to punch me, because fuckme, if my fist is open... it's not a fucking fist! But tell me that I shouldn't say "If I was a woman" and I will punch YOU. (I know that I should use "were" after a bloody conditional. I just don't fucking want to. You know why? Because in this case THE ENGLISH RULE MAKES NO SENSE. And sometimes, I might use "were", just to confuse you.) And don't get me started on those who insist that street names be pronounced in the British way. Like on our MRTS: cle MAN tee. Arrr feck you, I think it's CLE men ti! People - most of our street names were originally in dialect, Tamil (or Hindi), Mandarin or Malay. Why the FUCK are we supposed to pronounce it the British way? Which brings me to another rant: Why do some local newscasters attempt to pronounce French or German words in the original pronunciation, while using British stress on Chinese or Malay words? Especially when... YOU ARE CHINESE! You know the correct pronunciation! If you're going to say that it's an English channel, then fine, be consistent across the board. Or how about those people who SOMEHOW magically acquire a Cockney or British accent after just two weeks overseas? I mean huh? WTF! Fucking slangers. Fuck all of you. You know what I really enjoy? Correcting some of these assholes on correct English. I don't give a flying fuck about pronunciation, in the main, but I just LOOOOVE pointing out redundancies when I talk to one of these people. And you know, their speech and writing tend be full of redundancy. I'm thinking (<-- Look, I progressivized a stative verb! SO WHAT?) their language is bloated because they're so full of themselves. I'm saying, Singlish is fine. Let the foreigners mock it as Engrish - I don't give a crap. Most of them don't anyway, our English in the main is completely understandable. It's Businesesse that I detest. I'm talking about insane bloat, the adding of meaningless words (particularly adjectives) to make a paragraph seem more important than it is. The insertion of words like "hitherto" - who uses this nowadays, other than lawyers? You know what I'm talking about. Legalese. It's incomprehensible. Noobs may be impressed but most people just think you're being self-important retards when you use boombastic (<-- a Singlish word meaning "important sounding, pretentious") words. More syllables doesn't a better word make. I love Singlish. It's the most efficient English sociolect in the world. I mean look: A: "How arr?" B: "Can lor. You how?" vs A: "How have you been?" B: "I'm fine. How about you?" Now, this doesn't mean all englishes are the same. Eg. I detest SMS speak. Spell properly, damnit. Leaving out all capitalization, punctuation and vowels doesn't make it cool or effective. There's a reason why Singlish is understandable. It acquires the characteristics of the native speaker's tongue (in this case Hokkien, Chinese and Malay). The structure is not English structure, but it is sound. But SMS-style emails give me the runs. You know why we have this kind of shite in Singapore? There's a reason why I called Singlish a sociolect. It is a language used by a certain social class. The emphasis on the supposed correctness of their English denotes a certain amount of middle-classness. English-speakers in Singapore, and I'm talking about people who only speak English, well except the British, Canadians and Americans, tend to act like complete DICKHEADS when they're talking to people whose mastery of English is subpar. And I even include myself in this sample. Am I stereotyping? Hell yeah. So what? I'm telling ya: loosen your goddamn buttcheeks about Singlish, it's the most Singaporean thing we've got! (I'm doing a project on this atm. I might post some of those articles online, soon.)
Just a rant
I was reading the Chronicle and there was this piece where I spotted something that rattled my very soul. The writer used the phrase "more optimal". How is this possible? How can ANYTHING be more optimal? If you're optimal, that's that! You can be less than optimal, but you can't be more optimal, most optimal, less optimal, very optimal, somewhat optimal or quite optimal. If you can make something MORE optimal... then it's not optimal in the first place! Optimal != Efficient That's why you can have a phrase like optimal efficiency. OMG what has George Carlin done to me? Oh and I called condoms "flimsy pieces of plastic" instead of "flimsy pieces of rubber". I hate making dumb mistakes like that, and I hate reading the paper and saying DOH HOW COME I DIDN'T CATCH THAT?! I mean, how would I know? It's not like I've had the chance to use one. Do I look like somebody who's ever had sex with real people? I blame the people reading this blog, who didn't warn me after reading the draft. :/ I'm joking man, I love all three of you. (This kinda stuff keeps me awake at night too.) (EDIT: Err, apparently the version I uploaded didn't have that phrase. I've wronged you dear reader(s). )
It's been slow
Well, my life is ALWAYS slow. But if you (and sadly, this you is probably in the singular) have wondered why I've been a bit slow with the updates, the reason is this: Gunbound That and the fact that I've been pretending to be studying for the past few days, but what I've really been doing is playing Gunbound with the sound muted. Mediocre results here I come. Also, I need to write about sex more often (check previous entry regarding the Chronicle write-up), girls have been coming up and saying "I just read your article man, it was really funny!" (I guess things read better in print, huh? Or these gals don't read the funny blogs, or the Onion, or Dave Barry.) The problem is though, how do you answer when women say that? "Yeah," says I. "I really bring the funneh don't I, yo mutha?" -- evil cross between a white man's version of ebonics and engrish. plus, too arrogant Smile bashfully? -- this is way uncool Shrug? -- cop out "What you're really saying, is that you desire my penis" + wink wryly + crotch chop -- too Freudian + possibility that they do not actually desire my penis Yes, before you ask, things like this keep me awake at night.
I want those legos
Toys toys toys When boys grow up, they're supposed to stop playing make believe with their action figures. That's not true. When boys grow up, they take pictures of the action figures and stick 'em on the 'net. Yeah. I kinda miss all my old toys. /sniff
Yummmmy.
There's this table, with a hole in the middle. It stands in the hole, with head peeking above the hole, its feet on a hot plate. Above the hole is a steel plate mounted above its head. Around the table are hungry diners. The hot plate beneath its feet is slowly heated, so it starts jumping. As it jumps, its head knocks against the steel plate, but it can't stop, because its feet is burning. So it keeps jumping and jumping until its skull cracks open or its unconscious, whichever comes first. The steel plate is removed, the scalp is removed, and everyone digs in. We're such crazy barbarians we Chinese, I thought. Apparently it's not true. Feel hungry yet?
Blog Your Homework, Blog Your Drafts
Really dull and horrible lead, this one. But I was on a tight deadline - mainly because I didn't get around to writing it till the last minute. The changing face of the Speak Mandarin Campaign by Ho L.Y. Since the early 1990s, the Speak Mandarin Campaign has evolved from using mainly socio-cultural arguments to more utilitarian ones in order to persuade Singaporeans to take up Chinese. In this year’s campaign, launched Sept. 22, the focus has also shifted from merely encouraging the use of the spoken Mandarin to improving its quality, including writing. Campaign officials hope to cut down on the peppering of English into Mandarin sentences. One reason is the growing economic strength of China, and the understanding that while many Singaporean Chinese now are able to speak Mandarin, it may not be good enough to do business in China. This is indicated by the changing target group, from older blue-collar dialect users to younger English-speakers. The reason is that the Speak Mandarin Campaign, launched in 1979, has largely succeeded in its original aim of replacing the dialects with Mandarin, uniting the Chinese with a common Chinese language. For some, the simplification of the language environment among Chinese Singaporeans had immediate benefits Professor Ng Chin Keong, director of the Chinese Heritage Centre, talked about the days when he had to speak Hokkien merely to buy vegetables at the market. As a Hakka, it created many problems. But that was not all. “When I visited my wife’s grandmother,” the 63-year-old man said. “I couldn’t speak her language.” The confused language structure among Chinese then created anomalies like a “Hokkien platoon” in the Singapore Armed Forces back in the 60s and 70s. All commands had to be in Hokkien as no one could speak anything else. Times have changed, and the campaign has changed with it. With 87 percent of the Chinese population literate in Mandarin, the campaign shifted its focus to preventing Mandarin from losing ground among the English-speaking Chinese, a trend that has been developing since the early 1990s. This change is reflected by this year’s theme: “Use it. Don’t lose it.” The emphasis is now on retaining the effective literacy of Mandarin, brought about by various administrative and educational policies, such as the implementation of Special Assistance Plan schools, or elite schools with a strongly Chinese ambience. Dr Lee Boon Yang, minister for information, communications and the arts, at the official launch of the Speak Mandarin Campaign, said: “It would be a pity to spend years in school studying Mandarin only to lose it through lack of practice.” He also spoke of the Chinese language as an asset, since competence in Mandarin can be an advantage when doing business in China. While most agreed that the standard of Mandarin needed to be brushed up, not everyone agreed with the emphasis on Mandarin as an economic resource. Businessman Ho Hwei Loke, 53, said: “It’s not all about financial considerations. People won’t be inspired to learn Mandarin because a lot of them are already living well. It means nothing to those people. Plus, this argument is not exclusive to Chinese. The essence of it should be cultural; we must learn Chinese because it is our roots.” Hau Jong Lin, a 49-year-old manager, said that economic arguments do not work from a free market viewpoint. She said, “If learning Mandarin is going to be economically valuable, people will try to learn Mandarin anyway. There is no need for the government to waste resources in this campaign. “Maybe the Speak Mandarin Campaign has run its course.” Her point was underlined by the growing numbers of staff sent to learn Mandarin by big corporations, resulting in a surge in demand for Mandarin classes, with numbers tripling from 100 in 2001 to 300 this year. Ng disagreed with this analysis. He compared the Speak Mandarin Campaign to the policies carried out in the early years of independence towards effectively making English the language of choice. “If the government had not acted, by closing down Chinese schools and Nanyang University, by making English the language of choice, we would not be where we are today. Even if English would have been taken up (thanks to the market), it would have taken too long.” The main source of controversy, as it had been since the dawn of the Speak Mandarin Campaign, is the idea that Chinese need to speak Chinese. Undergraduate Lee Choon Hou, 23, agreed with the government's stand. He said, “Learning Chinese should be something Chinese should do. It should be something internal – something within us to learn our culture.” There is however the strand of thought that the dialects were just as effective communicating Chinese values and tradition, and that equating Mandarin to “Chineseness” was merely ideological artifice. For people like Today journalist Tor Ching Li, the argument that Mandarin had a special place as a “mother tongue” held no water. In her article on Aug 26 she put it bluntly that “Contrary to what the Ministry of Education prescribes, ‘Higher Chinese’ is not my ‘Mother Tongue.’” Ng also pointed out that people’s “mother tongue” is something that is constantly changing. The cultural argument, strongly used in the 1980s, that Mandarin use was necessary for the Chinese to understand their heritage and culture, smacked of cultural imperialism. This was threatening to the English-speaking Chinese, of which a socio-economic gulf with the primarily Chinese-speakers still exists today. For the minorities, particularly the Malay Muslims, the push towards an increased awareness of “Chineseness” was seen as an effort to increase the dominance of the Chinese, as indicated by a letter to the Straits Times dated March 10 by Ismail Kassim. The desire to avoid controversy may account for the campaign taking on a more economic slant over the years. But make no mistake, the linking of language and ethnicity is still a key component of this year’s campaign, as seen from a quote by Professor Wee Chow Hou, chairman of the Promote Mandarin council, to Channel News Asia in September. He said, “It would be a tremendous shame if you as a Chinese yourself, you can’t even speak or master the Chinese language.” While Ng agreed that “culture and language cannot be separated,” he said that knowing the language is not always necessary to be part of a culture. In fact, he said that understanding the culture behind the language was necessary to master the language, not the other way round. “For a joke, even if I understand every word that is spoken, I may not get it, because I don’t have the cultural background.” He said that even for the pure English-speaking families, not speaking Mandarin does not mean that they have lost their Chineseness. He pointed that in many ways, the Peranakans, descendents of early Chinese settlers who speak Malay instead of Mandarin, are more Chinese than the Chinese-speaking Chinese themselves, in that they retain many of the old customs and traditions. However, undergraduate Lee, who considers himself a “Singlish” speaker, disagreed, saying that it is impossible to understand the meaning of classic Chinese literature - so vital for the understanding of Chinese culture - without a good grasp of the Chinese language. The relatively benign appearance of the Speak Mandarin Campaign belies very fundamental implications about the nature of ethnicity, language and even economics in Singapore, and it raises many questions about the nature of intra-Chinese relationships. Therefore, what is the changing face of the Speak Mandarin Campaign if it is not the reflection of the changing face of Singaporean Chinese?
He came.
Arnold Schwarzenegger Every day we move closer to the reality depicted in Demolition Man.
Hey Kaixiang!
I know you read this blog occasionally, so here's a link for ya: The A Game of Thrones Boardgame and a review: A review. A Song of Ice and Fire is my favourite fantasy series - ever. If I buy this game you think I'll have players for it? I'll take on you and your girlfriend and two other guys! I'll take LANNISTER!
Would you shake this man's hand?
Real record breaker, this I was a close second!
The amazing mystery of Britney's breasts
Unlock the mystery! This may be old, but it's gold. Those breasts have a life of its own! (Don't worry, it's not porn.)
What's up Duffy?
This ain't right. I though Pepe le Pew was the sick one in Loony Toons. I was wrong.
You know what's the problem with blogging?
First off, let's put it this way: if you have a public blog, you want people to read it. That's why it's public. If you don't want anybody to read it, and you just HAVE to use the computer as a diary, well, you can always save it as a MS Word file. No problems. The thing is, what readers want are often quite different from what bloggers desire. I think there are three major types of blogger: 1. There's the guys who are political and have real opinions on social issues. These are the guys writing commentary, and acting as journalists in their own right. Not bad. No real problems looking for readers, no real conflict. The readers are looking for political commentary, the blogger is intent on giving it. 2. There are these people who enjoy writing, and particularly enjoy writing about themselves. Some of them write well. If they write well, there's no clash between the blogger and the, eh, bloggee. The reader gets entertained, the writer gets read. To this kind of blogger, it's the writing that matters. 3. Then there's the blogger who's only blogging because he has no one else to turn to. He wants to scream but he doesn't really want his friends to hear that shrill cry. You know what? His friends (if any) really don't want to either. Neither does anyone else. The result is a blog filled with whining and self-pity. Because nobody reads his blog, this blogger gets even more depressed, and eventually abandons the project and/or commits seppuku. Or worse: he takes up a musical instrument, such as the bagpipe. The thing is, I believe the majority of of bloggers are 3, while the majority of readers are looking for 1 or 2. I probably fall into 3 myself, though I'm sure there's an element of 2 for most bloggers. You can't imagine the number of times I've fired up Blogger, typed in a long tirade about how horribly shit my life is, only to delete the whole thing and insert some random Nietzsche quote that reflects what I'm thinking at that time. Unlike me, Nietzsche is eloquent even when he's pissed. Also, this basic Blogger template is getting to me. After the exams I'm going to try to create a better looking template, probably with lots of flashing colours and rotating spheres and an annoying, looping midi that can't be turned off. And lots and lots of pop-ups because I'm swapping to Geocities.. And an "Under Construction" sign. And for some reason it will crash the Opera browser. Should be lovely. Watch out for it. It should look something like my friend James' old website.
How come I'm the guy jerking myself off at night and these guys have girlfriends?
Since nothing happened at all, and I'm too scared to open up any of my assignments, here's something I would like to discuss with all of you. I received a copy of the results of the NTU Sex Survey that's due to be published in the Chronicle... soonish, and I was looking at the results. Remember these are undergrads being polled here, not your average run-of-the-mill idiot. Oh no. Apparently we're a better kind of idiot. Apparently, one in ten NTU students never use contraception during premarital sex. Why? Because THEY NEVER THOUGHT ABOUT IT. Yes that was one of the major answers! What the fuck does that mean? How can you have never have thought about a thing like that? Are you one of those people who think that abortion is a contraceptive method? Why is it that these people, whose DNA should be ruthlessly removed from the gene pool (use gloves, you don't want to touch that stuff), are the ones actively making babies? Another reason: They don't like the feel of contraception. Uh huh. You want to feel flesh don't cha? Well, Miss Hand is always there for you. She's been my best friend for years. I reckon men who make their girlfriends undergo abortions more than twice a year should be given mandatory vasectomies, or made to listen to the Spice Girls' "Two Become One" until they swear they will "put it on" the next time they get rrrrandy. My ass is still twitchin' just thinking about it.
It's Saturday night and I'm hunched over my keyboard
This is a shitty Saturday. I could not go for my usual Saturday footie because I had to interview this professor, who rambled on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on like a person who discovered how to copy and paste the words "on and". But he was nice enough. I went with my mom to Takashimaya, where we ate chicken rice at the Mandarin Hotel. $17 chicken rice. There is no combination of chicken or rice that should cost that much. But she wanted to try, and I didn't have to pay, so I went along. It was pretty good, and I enjoyed it, but unless some long lost childless billionaire uncle bequeaths his wealth on my penniless ass I'm never paying that kind of money for chicken rice. Went to check out the bunch of freestylers like I mentioned below in the afternoon. It rained shortly after, so I didn't see much. Singapore's standard at BMX freestyle is shite anyway. That's what they said. And now I'm hunched over my keyboard typing about my day. My brother is out with some rather hot chick. Bastard.
This is my day, tell me yours.
I can be lucky sometimes. I was off to interview these guys who are trying to promote BMX Freestyle in Singapore, since I'm trying to do a feature on it. I think I got a bit carried away, because I used up all my tape. One and a half hours for a 800 word piece, lol. And I'm headed down tomorrow to talk to the top 3 freestylers in Singapore. They're trying to get a Finnish pro to come down to train them, so we won't get humiliated at the Asian X-Games like we always do. Oh, and this is for the powers that be: If you want Singapore to be successful at these kinds of sports (and I'm guessing you guys do, since you guys keep INVITING PEOPLE TO TAKE PART IN COMPETITIONS), either 1. create an area where these guys can do their stuff and practice, or 2. get off their backs when they're not bothering anybody, even if they do it at an area where bike stunts are not allowed (in Singapore that's practically everywhere). Anyway, I was walking back when I came across this book sale. Paperbacks for one dollar each! Pretty good condition too! Got myself Prozac Diary by Lauren Slater, A Quantum Murder by Peter F. Hamilton, Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut and Brain Droppings by one of my favourite comedians ever, George Carlin. I need a new bookshelf. Anyway, here's a short take from Brain Droppings: "Someone said to me, 'Make yourself a sandwich.' Well, if could make myself a sandwich, I wouldn't make myself a sandwich. I'd make myself a horny, 18-year-old billionaire." AND "THINGS YOU NEVER HEAR: Please stop sucking my dick or I'll call the police."
Here's an update, for no other reason than to keep my one post per day count going
It's one of those days where I just feel blue, and having to write a few thousand words for some stupid General Elective doesn't help. It only means one thing: time to look at some naked women. That always cheers me up. Oh, and here's yet another relatively random Nietzsche quote for you: Origin of the comic.— If one considers that man was for many hundreds of thousands of years an animal in the highest degree accessible to fear and that everything sudden and unexpected bade him prepare to fight and perhaps to die that even later on, indeed, in social relationships all security depended on the expected and traditional in opinion and action then one cannot be surprised if whenever something sudden and unexpected in word and deed happens without occasioning danger or injury man becomes wanton, passes over into the opposite of fear: the anxious, crouching creature springs up, greatly expands—man laughs. This transition from momentary anxiety to short-lived exuberance is called the comic. In the phenomenon of the tragic, on the other hand, man passes swiftly from great, enduring wantonness and great fear and anguish; since, however, great, enduring wantonness and high spirits is much rarer among mortals than occasions for fear, there is much more of the comic than the tragic in the world; we laugh much more often than we are profoundly shaken.
The most dangerous animal in the house
Better pictures of my pets than pictures of myself, I reckon. 
Note the razor-sharp beak and deadly claws on that thing! It's a beast!
Headline: I doubt this viewpoint will get past the chief editor and she’d be right, but hey, OR Mo Sex Mo Problems
(This is a draft.) You see, babies are the problem. Let me put it this way: All the people I know do not want to have a baby before marriage. Man, I’m not even sure I want to have a baby after marriage! The equation is simple. If babies born out of wedlock is a problem, and a possible result of sex is the creation of one of those ugly, wet, pink critters, then premarital sex is clearly problematic. This is tragic, because people like sex. Sex makes men happy. The market is proof of that. If you don’t believe me, take a quick glance down one of the seedier Geylang Lorongs. Business is usually relatively brisk despite the impact of the recent Sars epidemic. Sadly, Sars is but only one disease that threatens the more amorous amongst us. It also includes AIDS, gonorrhea, chlymandia, syphilis, human papillomavirus, granuloma inguinale and a host of others. I mean, if the name of a disease is completely unpronounceable it has got to be nasty. Plus, is the pleasure of a moment worth a lifetime of screaming “Oh, how it burns!” when you pee? Sure, there’s this thing called the condom, and various sorts of pills, jellies and gadgets dreamed up by fevered scientists, aimed at preventing sperm from infiltrating ovaries, and microorganisms from latching unto our vulnerable, yet precious, genitalia. But you would be foolhardy to place too much faith on these . A 2001 report from the National Institutes of Health said that consistent condom usage reduced HIV/AIDS transmission by about 85 percent. 14 out of every 100 typical couples using condoms become pregnant, according to the American Food and Drug Administration. These numbers hardly inspire security. After all, of the two possibilities above, one of them gives you pain, suffering and horror until your death, while AIDS will eventually kill you. As Clint Eastwood once said: “You feelin’ lucky, punk?” However, despite all of its flaws, the condom is probably the greatest invention for men since the remote control. It is the last line of defense, the Alamo of the sex revolution. It is a tool that must be used wisely. Use the condom for family planning, within a marriage, where the occasional cock-up is still manageable. But a condom is not miracle wrap. The only real way to be certain is decidedly low-tech. Abstinence until marriage is the only way to be safe from the ravages of nappy changing, testicular infection and - most terrifying of all - the wrath of the girl’s father. Abstinence is not perfect, for temptation is everywhere. Men in the late teens and in the heady twenties tend to get aroused at the snap of a finger. I don’t know about women but I’m sure they feel pretty randy at times. Resisting temptation is always unpleasant. Unfortunately, the best form of oral contraception is the word “No.” Sometimes, when temptation gets out of control, and the urge too strong to ignore, close your eyes, and think of the babies. Or just visualize Roseanne Barr naked. That usually works. (510 words) (by Ho L.Y. for the Chronicle) (PS. I apologize about the miracle wrap thing.)
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