Now, this is the part where I pretend to be listening

New blog

2009-01-30T18:06:00.003+08:00

More often than not, I'm a stubborn bastard but after being encouraged by Jules to set up a Tumblr account, I think I'm shifting my blog there as well. I guess it's basically Twitter with multimedia functions but the main draw for me is its relative obscurity. Shit, I'm going to be indie as fuck as one of the first 100 Singaporean Tumblr account holders. People like me are probably the kind who will spend money on ICQ accounts with six-digit account numbers.

Anyway, go on to http://www.nongnongdongfongbong.tumblr.com. Whether or not I'll update this blogspot page is still unknown, there are some things that tumblr does better than blogspot and vice versa. So, just check both sites often.

1968 - 2009

2009-01-22T19:46:00.002+08:00

First, a little backstory:

Black Americans Tommie Smith and John Carlos won 1st and 3rd place respectively for the 200m race in the '68 Summer Olympics held in Mexico. Standing on the rostrum, with their country's anthem playing, they raised their clenched fists up in the air, an action which is known as the Black Power salute. They were booed by the crowd and was condemned by the International Olympic Committee, because they were making a political statement at an (supposed to be) apolitical event. The very same event that had the home crowd performing the Third Reich Salute at their ruler, Hitler, in Berlin 30 years before.

This is the world-famous photograph that was splashed across newspapers around the world. Outrage, empowerment, inspiration and disgust were probably the different emotions felt by the public then.

More than 40 years later, the first black president of the United States of America had his inauguration ceremony with a turnout so huge, satellite photos of Washington DC had the entire stretch in front of the Capitol Building clotted with gigantic clouds of people eager to witness history in their lifetimes.

President Obama's inauguration speech, not as flowery as the one he made in Chicago during his acceptance, highlighted the great challenges, domestic and foreign that the country has to face in the months and years ahead of them. He assured the people that they will overcome, but only if they work towards it. Despite the grim outlook of the future, the people in Washington DC cheered, for they were experiencing the change and hope that Obama's entire election campaign was based on.

John Carlos and Tommie Smith?
They were watching.

40 years after their silent protest at the 1968 Olympics, Gold Medalist Tommie Smith hugs Bronze Medalist John Carlos, and their wives Delois Smith and Charlene Carlos after Barack Obama is officially sworn in as the President of the United States. Photo taken in the Smith room at the Sheraton Boston in Boston, MA. (Boston Globe/Stan Grossfeld)

My ____________ in 2008 (continued, because I'm milking this for all it's worth)

2008-12-24T22:59:00.005+08:00

My favourite concert in 2008

Broken Social Scene

Definitely described in better detail and memory in this post, but I can still remember them starting off the concert with 7/4 Shoreline and as soon as the first note of the intro hit, everyone in the audience knew it was going to be a great night.

Runner-up: Camera Obscura

I realise I have only gone to two concerts this year so having a runner-up is a little redundant but I just want to make it known that I go to indie concerts so any hot indie chick passing by this blog will offer to fellate me. Anyway, this was more of a sit-down kind of affair and understandably, it's the way they're meant to be enjoyed. Everything sounded beautiful even though the band kinda look like a bunch of secondary school teachers playing as a group for the school's annual talent time. For $38, I couldn't have asked for more.

My worst meal in 2008

Buffet at Dallas Chicken & Ribs

Fried Chicken? Love. The idea of free-flowing food? Love. Combine the two together? Tried it and not so love. For $12, you could get as much fries, onion rings, chicken burger and of course, fried chicken as you want. If the greed portion of my mind was even just a tiny bit smaller, I would have realised that I can never eat enough fried chicken to justify the $12 but obviously, rational thought isn't my strongest trait when hungry.

When I entered the restaurant, which is situated along Upper Cross Road, the two young waitresses were watching old Friends episodes on a black-and-white TV and nope, no "Hello, welcome"s from them, just gave us a fraction of a second of eye contact and back to fantasising about having witty, awesome friends who don't seem to get bored of each other after a thousand seasons.

Alright, I'm here for the food but THE FOOD SUCKED. The fried chicken had soggy skin and the batter was tasteless. Everything else was alright but really, how much fries can you swallow before feeling fat and depressed as fuck? To their credit, their fried chicken wrap was delicious but you could only get one of those for buffet as it's not part of the deal. Well, THAT SUCKS.

Go to KFC instead, the tastiness to price ratio is much, much higher.

My favourite meal in 2008

Shellfish at Ben Thanh market in Ho Chi Minh City

I love eating seafood, especially the kind that live(d) in shells so this stall was perfect, exactly what I wanted when planning the trip to Vietnam. If given the choice to take up Judaism (which prohibits the consumption of shellfishes), I'll pass it up even if it means passing mysterious money-generating abilities because I love eating shellfishes that much.

What added to the experience at that stall was a half-hour-long conversation with this expat from California who lives comfortably in Vietnam as an English tutor. Interestingly enough, he was in that very same country as a soldier during the war so he probably killed a few relatives of his goddamn gook students. It was just interesting listening to his stories but he kind of got creepy after a while when I realised that he could very well be paying for kiddy sex on the side as well. All white guys do that when visiting South-East Asia, don't they?

Runner-up: Oysters in Perth

Honestly, I've had better oysters in Singapore but you don't get a manicured field of emerald green grass, light spring breeze and perfect late morning sun here. Combine that with a great company and the knowledge that for the next few days, you won't have to deal with any work-related nonsense, the world just felt perfect for that hour.

My ____________ in 2008

2008-12-22T20:28:00.007+08:00

My favourite music in 2008

Caesars - Strawberry Weed

The low-fi recording techniques might be a little unnecessary but it's still a damn solid album. Sweden's social democracy may encourage the growth of white supremacy and black metal but if they keep churning out pop bands like these as well, it's not that bad.

The Japanese Motors - Self-titled

The Japanese Motors are pretty much The Strokes if they were Californian surfer bums instead of rich privileged kids from New York, as they share the same jangly riffs and lazy drawling. I realised the brilliance of my favourite track "Regrets a Paradise" when I was taking a shit at work and the beauty of the song just kept escalating, reaching a climax during the solo which wasn't a blazingly fast one or anything. It just worked perfectly. Possibly the best shit I've taken.

Vampire Weekend - Self-titled

Speaking of rich privileged kids, here's this year's hate-or-love band. The hate seems to stem from the fact that these are Ivy League kids making music that they claimed were inspired by Afro-Pop. The way they just exploded into popularity probably didn't help soothe the critics' anger either. Maybe these critics have forgotten about the kind of people who actually listen to "Indie" music nowadays, a lot of them are cardigan-wearing rich kids who frequent thrift stores and buy "fairtrade" coffee. Combine this "What has MY music scene become?" angst with jealousy of a band that seems to have gotten its hype and attention rather quickly, it's not hard to see why they're vilely hated in some circles.

She & Him - Volume 1

Here's something harder to hate, not even your parents can find a reason to hate this, and I mean that in a good way, not "safe, sterile, boring" kind of way. The first track I heard from this album is "I Was Made For You" and was immediately drawn in by the Motown-esque bassline and back-up vocals. Wait, the band is a bunch of white folks doing black people music? Uh oh, maybe someone will find a way to hate this. The singer also happens to be that Zooey Deschanel woman so if you're into indie girls, listen to this because she does have a good voice, just not a good rack. But, I digress.

tits

The Guts - Let It Go

Despite having the non-ironically ugliest album art ever, this album is still being played regularly because it's still catchy as fuck after so many listens, especially "Heartbreaker". There's that distinct early rock-and-roll vibe which I've grown to love in recent months but fuck, what an ugly cover.

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My favourite music in 2008 (That weren't actually produced this year)

The Strokes

I've dedicated an entire entry to them before so I don't think I should write too much here but shit, I'm still discovering "new" great songs in their discography up till now.

The Jesus and the Mary Chain

Look at that. Despite that, there's a lot of great music in their entire discography. It's bands like these that made you wonder why distortion was once considered undesirable when electric guitars were first invented. Just remember, whenever someone who grew up in the 80's tries to tell you about how shitty teenagers dress nowadays, calmly ask them how alternative and hair metal bands dressed "back in their days". As he stammers around for an answer, slip your sunglasses on, light up your cigarette with a quiet smirk and walk into the sunset.

The Beatles

The Beatles are the kind of band that you will not like in the first 18 - 22 years of your life but somewhere in your young adulthood, sooner or later but definitely, you will chance upon an opportunity to actually listen to them instead of having them forced on you by your Dad telling you it's "real music, not like the crappy new bands". You listen to them, you like them and you try talking to your Dad about them but he'll then start blabbing off about other old bands that sound really boring and you'll pretend to listen to him while surfing the web. The Beatles, they're that kind of band.

Blondie

I used to just skim past their songs until I heard "X-Offender" from their first album, which was written in the late 70's. A month later, I noticed the bassline from "Atomic". Not too long ago, I heard "Dreaming" in Zack & Miri Make a Porno. It's just a little too bad Debbie Harry doesn't have the kind of shelf life like the songs she sang on.

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My biggest music-related heartbreak in 2008

Rosay leaving the Pipettes

It's not actually just her who left the band but the duck wearing glasses too, leaving just the man-looking one behind as the only original member of The Pipettes. But oh, why would I care about anything else? Won't you stay behind a bit and...dare I say, dance with me, pretty girl, tonight?

Don't worry, pretty baby. I'm Asian, it'll fit.

Manse! Manse!*

2008-12-05T21:41:00.003+08:00

National Geography's Inside Undercover in North Korea is neither the most comprehensive nor the most sensational documentary on the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (Or to most of the outside world, North Korea) but it serves as a good enough introduction to the country that's the equivalent of the weird family on the 3rd storey who never seemed to step out of their house other than the one time you saw the son rush for his short bus to special school with his light blue school pants worn tits-high. This is coming from someone who went through a phase of total fascination with how totalitarian societies work a couple of years ago so I have read more than a thousand pages on how the reclusive nation is like, so you probably won't find the documentary as shallow as I did if you weren't as nerdy.

However, it wasn't a waste of 45 minutes for me as the ending was something I'll remember for life. I'm not spoiling it for you but I'm assuming that you have total faith in my awesome taste in music, films and all things media so the video should already be loading on your computer.

Heart-breaking as the ending was, it's nothing compared to this other North Korean documentary that I watched which had the infamous hidden-cam shots of kids with hollow cheeks, sunken eye sockets and bones threatening to pierce through forearms picking up stray grains of rice from the muddy ground at a black market selling UN food aid. There were some other such scenes in that documentary that really poked at whatever that's left of my heart and if I remember correctly, I shed a few tears during my watching. I can't really remember but you know, I might have, or I might not and even if I have, it's not a big deal right? It's really not a big deal, if I've actually had done so.

If you like the Inside Undercover at North Korea, click around and you can find other documentaries on the country, including the one I talked about. Then maybe, you'll move onto borrowing related books from the library and then halfway through it, you shudder, realising that all governments around the world, including ours (especially ours), do the same thing to gain and maintain control over the people and then you'll eventually become a cynical, apathetic and selfish bastard who is wondering why he's even bothering to blog about it on the Internet.

* Manse: Translates to "Long live", as in "Long live our great leader, Kim Jong Ill". Probably derived from the Chinese's use of the phrase "万岁", which has the same meaning.

Okay, I found the link to the better documentary two days after posting the original entry. Watch it, it's worth your time.

Oh come on

2008-11-20T23:32:00.002+08:00

That's what I said when I saw this picture because, look at that, it's like the photographer took the effort to set it up nicely for my blackened heart go all soft again.

This fucking election

2008-11-05T20:32:00.002+08:00

There we have it, a new president of the United States of America and it will take some getting used to a man who can speak so eloquently and inspire confidence from behind the podium after 8 years of GWB. American backpackers and tourists no longer have to stick on that Canadian flag patch on their haversacks in Europe and Asia. Suddenly, punk bands no longer have an easy topic to write songs on.

Don't get me wrong, the world is not going to automatically become a better place overnight because there is a lot of work to be done, and that's just within the American border itself. I've been saying this as a joke for a while now, that all you need to know about this election is that: Obama is black, McCain is old, Biden is just there and Palin's a woman. However, this will lead you to think that I'm apathetic but in fact, I've been following the race quite closely purely because of its entertainment value.

Wah wah wee wah this is McCain's daughter, Meghan.

I wanted to post Bristol Palin as well but she's pregnant and I'm not sick, guys.

That busker

2008-11-03T23:03:00.003+08:00

You have definitely seen this guy before, in his brightly-coloured short-sleeved shirts playing the guitar in underground passages. Of all the places I could've met him in, he walked into me putting on my Halloween costume in a toilet in the City Hall area. Please note that I'm a believer of the "No talking in the toilet" unspoken rule but unfortunately, he started the conversation first.

For the sake of brevity, the following is not the exact word-for-word transcript because I'm sure he was pretty fucking drunk then.

Busker: Halloween ah? Are you Chinese?
Me: Yes, I am. Why?
Busker: Must know your roots, Halloween is a Western festival, y'know?
Me: Ahh yes I realise that, but this only comes once a year and I just want to have fun.
Busker: What are your roots? Your dialect group?
Me: Hakka and Hokkien.
Busker: *Thinks for a while* Ahh I don't know anyone who's that combination but I'm Eurasian, with roots going back to Portugal and Spain.
Me: Wow. I give a shit.
Busker: Your religion?
Me: I'm an atheist.
Busker: I'm Roman Catholic myself and -

Until this point, I've been very patronising; punctuating my sentences with smiles and paying attention to what he says. However, I had to steer the conversation away from religion as it's too volatile of a subject for most people.

Me: Come on Sir, there's no need to talk about religions in -
Busker: Don't tell me there's no need to talk - it's important and why are you so sensitive about it? YOU'RE JUST LIKE THE MUSLIMS.

Iron Man could have eaten an entire iron plate of beans and iron nails, shat it out on an iron sheet while spraying his iron jizz all over it and still be less ironic than the busker. Like I said earlier, religion is too volatile of a subject for most people so please, don't start a conversation on it if you can't talk about it in an intelligent manner.

And to think that I thought that since he's a busking musician in his 50's, he would have seen the world enough to dispense some wisdom to me but well, I have since learned that wisdom does not necessarily come with age.

Happy Deepavali

2008-10-27T12:54:00.002+08:00

Because today's Deepavali, I feel I should re-post this beauty of a photo:

Me: Excuse me, may I take a photo of your family with my friends? It's for a school project on the people who come to Vivocity.
Mom: *Giggles* Okay, why not?
Elder daughter: Can you send the photo to my email?
Me: Sure, after I'm done with the project.

I never sent the email.

Perth City Part 2

2008-10-08T22:19:00.002+08:00

I'm going to be very, very, very honest with you: Nando's was a huge piece of motivation for my 2008 trip to Australia. Huge piece of barbecued, marinated motivation slathered with hot sauce. I love it so much, it's just too bad I couldn't afford it with my pocket money when the franchise had an outlet in Marina Square in the 90's. Moreover, I was a fat kid so it's probably for the better that I didn't manage to form an addiction to Nando's.

The last time I mentioned Nando's on this blog was a year ago, remember me eating the seagull? The most convenient outlet was in the City, in this basement food court filled with office folks having their lunch and no surprise, we had to wait a while before we got a table. But shit, the wait only served to make my erection harder for some peri-peri sauce.

Wouldja lookit that, jaaeeysus christ mate, wot an absolute beaut. Not disappointed at all, the only regret I have is just having one meal at Nando's during my trip. Yes, I had salad as a side dish, maybe I'm starting to soften up a little but it had the freshest cherry tomatoes I've ever tasted in my entire life. The ones that NTUC sells in boxes might as well be dried because the ones at Nando's just fucking explodes in your mouth and they were sweet, not sour.

This is what Jules ordered and while the wrap was still pretty good, it was nowhere as enjoyable as cleaning a slab of chicken off the bones, I think it's a primal satisfaction kind of thing.

Apparently, one of the main reasons why Nando's didn't manage to take off in Singapore 10 years ago was because no one was expecting to pay more than $6 for a fast food meal and don't forget, that wasn't too long after the '97 regional economic fuckfest so that might have played a part in the franchise's failure here. Someone should just give it a go again, market and position it not too unlike Carl's Jr. but with slower expansion. If Carl's Jr. can have packed houses every mealtime, I don't see why Nando's can't do it this time around.

Maybe it's my desire to be able to have a plate of extra-hot chicken with a side of peri-peri fries 45 minutes away from my doorstep but god, I'd kill for some Nando's now. Shit, if only I have the money to bring the franchise over here. Feel free to paypal me cash, thanks.

Perth City Part 1

2008-10-01T22:08:00.003+08:00

Just to give you an idea of how adventurous of a traveler I am, I spent three out of my six days in Perth in the city area. In my defense, there are many interesting people, shops and hot chicks in the city. None of which I've managed to capture on the camera because I'm neither a photographer nor creepy.

Fat white guy, Nigerian guy, Asian guy and workers slacking off in the background. This, is Perth.

The main reason why I'm wanting to study in Melbourne is because of how international it is, and while Perth isn't exactly a perfect example of a metropolis, there was still a good selection of food from all around the world. I asked around on a forum about cheap ethnic restaurants, preferably opened by immigrants, and I got a couple of recommendations in the city area from this University of Western Australia student.

Ahh mista samulai you sell much cheap food yes? According to the guy, this place's prices can't be beat but "the girls behind the counter don't speak much English". Hey, I'm there to eat and not to find a future wife so it works.

Well it does look pretty cheap and there are lots of Asians eating there (not pictured in the photograph), which is a good sign. Check out the generic grey plastic chairs, classy. Seriously though, that didn't dissuade me because some of my favourite meals were had in places with peeling paint on the walls and cockroaches scampering across the greasy untiled floor.

There were tons of notes pasted on the cork board, mostly regarding accommodation, jobs and "five dorra rove you rong time". Alright, I'm not really sure about the last one but judging by engrossed the three guys look, it's not that unlikely.

Not too long after placing my order at the counter (which had a water cooler beside it for free water, I like), the waitress brought the food over and said something like "Sorrytokeepyouwaitinghere'syourcurrybeefkatsuriceenjoyyourmeal". They may not speak much English but whatever they know, they say it with efficiency.

If you have eaten Japanese curry before, this isn't any different from what you've eaten. If you haven't, Japanese curry is more of a sweet stew than anything, with just enough chili and spices to be qualified as curry. Being average is nothing wrong in this case because I love Japanese curry even though it wouldn't have hurt them to give me a little more rice.

I always order fried tofu at my pseudo-Japanese restaurants, I'm not sure why. However, this was pretty bad because the skin of the tofu wasn't light and crisp. Also, the sauce lacked the savoury sharpness that would have added so much to the dish. I've had better at Sakae Sushi, which is what I use as benchmark for how low Japanese food can go. After this fried tofu and my one attempt at chanwanmushi, I might have to reconsider this method of judging.

The meal cost me around seven Australian dollars, which translates to around nine dollars here, which in turn translates to "Way too fucking much for a normal lunch" but I was on holiday, so I didn't feel the pinch as much. I can see why the restaurant was recommended though, it is cheap compared to the average price of a meal over there, and the food's solid. But shit, that was some crap tofu.

Sun, Fun and a Naked Man (Part 2)

2008-09-28T22:38:00.002+08:00

"Oh when is Arthur going to update his post? It says 'Naked Man' in the title but it didn't appear in Part 1 neenie neenie polish polish sway sway trot trot." There's your naked man, you fags. He came arrived at the beach halfway through our stay, looking normal enough for a new-age, soy-guzzling, yoga-practising person. He then took all his worldly burdens (clothes) off and started doing these stretches in his briefs.

There were the standard stretches, like keeping your knees straight while trying to reach for your toes, and then there are the more unorthodox ones, like imitating a rotor with your waist as the pivot while bending down and sticking your index finger out. Must be something about combining the raw, unspoilt energy of the sun and the humble, reliable sensibilities of the earth and then summoning Captain Vegan from the sky or something.

Seriously though, I'm not hating, at least he looks pretty non-malnourished for a new-age guy, and any person in his 30's who still has such control over his flexibility deserves respect for his dedication to maintaining his control over his flexibility. Yes.

Determined to live up to the Asian-in-Australia stereotype, I had to copy and outdo the white man.

This is me attempting to draw energy from each of the six heavenly gates, one located in every 60 degrees in the horizon. Therefore, I had to rotate myself after thrusting my hips at each heavenly gate and I was only done after going a full circle. Tiring on the body, yes, but the purifying effect on one's mind is greater than any physical toil you can take.

I have no idea what this is.

It's one of those things you don't remember doing because you'd rather not think about it, like your girlfriend's si

More shots of the girls playing around on the beach:

Taken on a point-and-shoot, niggas

The shot was a lot more awkward before they got ready.

This is Jules and Min gang-humping Janice. Don't ever change, girls.

Either "Friends in deep discussion about life" or "'Shit, Min's drowning but I don't really want to get my clothes wet.' 'Hey don't look at me, the water's cold.'"

Fashion

2008-09-19T20:39:00.003+08:00

I saw this picture on this fashion forum (yes, wanna fight about it?) and it's just too good not to post here:

FASHION

Kinda reminds me of Ranon + the creepy clerk who roams the corridor outside my office.

Sun, Fun and a Naked Man (Part 1)

2008-09-16T21:58:00.003+08:00

On a friend's recommendation and my intense craving for raw oysters, a bunch of us went over this seafood wholesaler in the Fremantle area. Like a Carl's Jr. meal, a dozen oysters is an oddly regular craving that I get once every fortnight. If this goes on, I will end up a fat bastard with a perpetual erection by the age of 45, which honestly isn't too bad of a deal.

First of all, let me introduce you to Min, Jules' friend of 10 years or something and they happen to be studying in the same school and living in the same dorm village now. She also poses the same for every single photo, please watch out for it later, and the following picture should give you a pretty good summary of how she's like:

The only way to react to her hyperactivity.

Of course, we got what I've been wanting for weeks:

Compared to the $12 per dozen deal at the nearby restaurants, this was a good bargain and they didn't even charge us for the four lemons that we grabbed from the store. Just thinking about the money we saved made me stroke my elongated. high-bridged Semitic nose in glee.

Other nonsense in the store:

I will try raw octopus one day.

Cold, dead stares from the fishes almost made me want to go veg-HAHA please, survival of the fittest, bitch.

$20 for a crayfish is pretty insane, but not to the people who snatched the other crayfishes up, apparently.

After paying for three dozen oysters, I declared myself the guardian of the sweet, slimy and fishy-smelling bastards.

You might not be able to tell from this picture, but I was really happy.

With the sun was high up in the sky and the sea breeze coming in from the Indian Ocean, we'd be crazy not to just plop ourselves down on the grass for our meal. Which we did, because we are sane, rational human beings.

Beautiful.

Even more beautiful.

This was towards the end of the meal and even it would be funnier to say that I was looking at the girl above but in fact, I was trying not to look at the empty tray because I was still hungry as shit then. Also, that's Janice to my left. She's awesome because I'm quite sure I ate some of the oysters from her share.

See what I told you about Min posing the same for every single photograph? By the way, the guy in black is Wilford, a Forensics Science student. That's right, dead-people-and-body-tags Forensics Science. Made friends with him quickly, despite my preference for warm, still-breathing girls.

Perth...again

2008-09-11T20:26:00.002+08:00

Almost exactly a year after my previous trip there, I decided to spend two months' worth of allowance on air tickets to down under again. You might have noticed the lack of posts here for the last couple of weeks and that's simply because nothing noteworthy was happening in my life. So I spent $750, which won't matter much in the long run anyway, and flew down to Perth to make something happen in my life.

The entries last year were arranged chronologically but I think I will do it thematically this time and what better subject to start off with than "Girls"?

***********

My salary amounts to roughly a cab ride, two bowls of noodles and one bottle of coke in Australia so I had to stay in Jules' dorm room for the duration of my trip. As a result, I got to experience a little bit of dorm life before I actually start my own University studies. To girls, the prospect of living in a dorm probably leads to a train of thought which goes something like "Cooking, washing, growing up, cleaning, new friendships" while for guys, "Girls, chicks, la chicas, women, food, girls" is usually the standard train of thought. A sexy, flesh-coloured train of thought.

Unfortunately, the Australian girls that I met there were quite...how shall I put it...I'm sure they're nice girls. However, there's this American exchange student living in my friends' flat and she's really...how shall I put it...in fact, I'll put it in any way possible. She probably lived in a similar climate back home hence her choice of casual attire includes a nicely-fitted t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Other than being exposed to dorm life, I was also exposed to her legs which were sculpted by sexy, sweaty gym time and tanned with the very essence of sex.

Through my conversations with Alex and Rob (Australian and American, respectively), it appears that she hasn't been a very good flatmate because of her lack of commitment to the chores around the house. Apparently, there were a couple of instances of her just walking away in the middle of Rob's response to her greeting of "How are you?" In his words, "She doesn't even bother to hide the fact that she doesn't care".

After talking to them for a while, I went on to do the dishes as it was just after dinner and the girl's American friend walked in. I'm pretty sure I just stood there with my jaw dropped for a minute because she was, if not more, as hot as American girl #1. As she walked past, I looked over to Alex and he gave me this grin with his thumbs up. Exactly what I thought: grin and a thumbs up.

So I continued washing my dishes and cursing my luck for doing such an unglamorous thing during that crucial "first impressions" moment, and it's not helping much that Asian men aren't exactly internationally reputed for being sexy (Thank William Hung, guys). And what do you know, another friend of the exchange student walks in, again, American and hot as shit. I just blurted out, "Are you fucking kidding me?" to Alex, who just did the same grinning face again.

While the three girls were talking in the hallway, Alex walked over to the kitchen area while looking at them and...right into the corner of a wall. Keep in mind that he has been living in that flat for more than half a year but it seems that hormones can severely fuck with your sense of navigation.

No, I do not have photos as that would be even beyond this level of creepiness that I'm exhibiting right now. Whatever it is, God bless American indeed.

***********

At the local beach, in the Fremantle area, we were just having fun, jumping around and taking silly photographs.

Yay whoopee jump around. Carry each other on your backs real fun yes.

Wait a minute, that looks...worthy of an investigation. Zoom and enhance.

Very nice.

Wah wah wee wah, I like very much. The hot girl and the other one then walked to the far end of the beach and proceeded to splash around in the water a little before running back and forth to their towel and I only had a point-and-shoot digicam with me then. I wanted to cry.

$85 + $38 = Not too fucking bad

2008-08-12T20:48:00.003+08:00

Because I'm the coolest and most indie person in the world, I receive spam from Mosaic telling me about upcoming concerts but most of the time, it's a jazz band that I don't care about. I'm sure they are very talented performers and masters of entertaining a live audience but they're just not my cup of MTV-and-Napster-fueled cup of tea.

So imagine my surprise when they sent me a mail about the Scottish darling of the indie music scene Camera Obscura playing in Singapore and I will only have to pay $38. Sweet as fuck. Look at how gloomy they (except for Specky McBurns there) look, they have to be from the UK. Not sure about the sun though, maybe they shot the photo somewhere else, in Spain or something. This is their most well-known song, Lloyd I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken.

While looking through Sistic for details, I found out that another band that I listen to, Ash, will be coming to Singapore as well. I first heard of them on MTV when I was younger and only recently, I decided to re-listen to all their songs again and yeah, they're still good.

This must be a pretty recent photo because I remember them looking much younger and less...sullen. They used to have a female guitarist (Charlotte Hatterly) but she left a few years ago and still, Sistic claims that this (the pic above) is "the original lineup". Nitpick nitpick nitpick. They had a few hits back in the day but this is my favourite.

Neither of these bands are my absolute favourites, the kind I'd kill to watch live (Still waiting for Against Me!) but two good bands in one month? Sounds pretty good to me.

Mat Thambi Ah bu neh neh Minah Cheena Ah Tiongs

2008-08-12T00:03:00.002+08:00

This is something I happened to be thinking about this morning when I just woke up. It's a funny timing to even be thinking, I know, but it was probably influenced by the article about Malays being Singapore's least favourite child in The Sunday Times. The content itself wasn't ground-breaking as it's something we all know about but the fact that it got through the SPH editors (SPH, SINGAPORE PRESS HOLDINGS, STATE-OWNED MEDIA) was pretty surprising, to say the least.

Not trying to go all seventeen-year-old anti-government angst on you but I'm sure everyone knows about Singapore's press freedom (not a lot). Even though I'm sure the original draft was ten times longer, it still ended up as a memorable read.

Ching Chong Chinaman

Memorable to the extent that I thought about a related topic when I woke up this morning. How many of you, be honest, think that there are personality traits that apply to an entire race? Like, you know, smelly Indians and lazy Malays?

If you still think that way, have you honestly thought about it before? Have you gone, "Oh, that wasn't a fair sample size of that particular race. It would be an unfair generalisation if I think that they're all cheap bastards." Can't blame you if you haven't because it's so much less of a headache to be able to group them under one category than having to deal with the idea that they're individuals as much as yourself.

Allahu Ackbar

Couple this with how confirmation bias works, you might even start to see how being racist is not the racist's fault. For example, if you hear about how Jews are cheap, money-loving bastards, you will start seeing this trait in every single thing the Jews around you do. While ignoring the fact that your own parents do it as well.

Nong dong fong bong bong

Also, remember how much the environment shapes you. It's not going to help Rizal's case much if he grows up in a rough neighbourhood hanging out with older boys whose idea of fun consists of playing football in the void deck (This is fun, don't hate). Because of his friends drop out after secondary school for a job or to pursue non-academic interests, it's more likely than not that Rizal will be influenced in thinking that studies aren't really that important.

Love invadin' other countries, dude. Also, my life pans out exactly like how they do on the OC.

How everything started in the first place, with Malay guys deciding that they needn't study, I can't give a firm answer now because very simply, I am unable to pinpoint the reasons. Maybe I can think of it tomorrow morning but meanwhile, I hope you have thought about what I just wrote before. Even if you haven't done so before, do give it a thought.

Hard Candy (A.K.A. "Don't worry, she was legal when she filmed it")

2008-08-06T22:47:00.003+08:00

I'm talking about the 2005 movie, not Madonna's latest album which shares the same name. It's kind of odd, actually, since Madonna's been looking neither solid nor delicious nowadays.

The real genius of this film lies in its ability to make me know how it feels like to be a pedophile. For me, Hard Candy was nice to look at but hard to really get into. Other than looking pretty, I couldn't find any incentive to concentrate on the second half of the film because Hayley (Ellen "Yes, she really was legal" Page) just seemed too unbelievable as a character. When she's not panting suggestively, everything that comes out of her mouth is witty or smart, or both. I know it's just a film and not a piece of reality (Thank God, because pedophilia is evil and bad and God will hate you) but it gets really irritating because no one talks like that.

Yeah, she's a little demented and crazy, hence she must some kind of sexy self-righteous sexy child genius who's sexy allowed to speak that way but from what I've read, her character in Juno behaves the same way as well. I'll reserve my comments until I finally watch it so I can come out here and talk about how Ellen Page plays the same character in every film with a smarmy glint in my eye.

Another fault I found with the film is the stylishness of it. The director, David Slade, has done lots of music videos and it shows here; the quick cuts, the shakicam and I'm pretty sure you can play any generic alternative rock song over some of the scenes and it'll match up pretty nicely. That combined with the references to indie music ("GOLDFRAPP GOLDFRAPP FAP FAP FAP") made me feel slightly uncomfortable, like when you're hanging out with some people you just met. They wear t-shirts with random words silkscreened ("Goose.") and they go all American accents and name-dropping. It's a feeling like "That's fake as shit. What the fuck?"

Maybe I'm being a little harsh here because not every minute of the film plays out like a shiny and loud music video but one thing I really liked about the film is the colours and composition.

See, I told you the film looks good. And tight. That was unnecessary, I know.

Yes, pretty shots, pretty colours, pretty compositions until this one scene.

I fucking hate her. When the message "No animals were harmed in the making of this film" came up in the credits, it was actually in reference to the film crew making sure that Sandra Oh had her daily meals of hay and a minimum of four hours of galloping time. What the fuck, America? Is she part of some kind of genius ploy to get your entire continent to hate Asians?

To end this post..."if you somehow need a reason to clear your cache and history......you should, the police won't have the time to listen to your protests.

Old friends

2008-08-02T02:18:00.003+08:00

I met up with a bunch of childhood playmates from 1996 - 1999 for supper just now and it's apparent that we don't have much in common anymore. It's always a little sad when this happens; guys you used to spend so many idle afternoons with are just casual acquaintances now and we probably won't recognise each other on the streets.

However, there were still laughs to be had, especially when we started talking about we were like in primary school. Apparently, this happened when we were playing void deck football and my friend got a ball kicked full-forced into his stomach by another friend.

Victim: Groan groan (Genuine pain by the way)

Perpetrator: Shit, I'm so sorry, how bad does it hurt?"

Victim: Groan groan I told you not to kick the ball so hard. (Seriously in pain, I have to emphasise this)

Perpetrator: Hey I kicked the ball from pretty far away, alright?

Me: (Runs into the argument) PRECISELY, THAT'S WHY IT HURTS BLABLA SOME FLAWED PHYSICS THEORY BLABLA FUCKING HELL THE FURTHER IT IS THE MORE IT HURTS.

It's nice to see that I was a dick even before puberty. Shows that assholes are born, not moulded.

Ghost World (2001)

2008-07-30T22:06:00.003+08:00

This is one of my favourite films that I've watched in the last few years. Granted, I don't watch movies very often and I even see it as a chore because I'd have to sit still for an hour and a half. That being said, I'm glad I sat down for Ghost World.

The film is mainly about growing up and the challenges that come along with it, such as finding a job and a place to live in. An equally prominent but more interesting theme is that of non-conformity. Enid (Thora "Why do you look so shit now?" Birch) and Becky (Scarlett "Future Ex-Girlfriend" Johansson) are outcasts in their High School because they hate the jocks and despise the nerds, so they're the sarcastic, deadpan and witty assholes which is the most unrealistic part of the film.

Seriously? Do you know any bitter, cynical and witty teenager outcasts this hot?

I hope you weren't expecting a serious review of the film because I had a serious crush on Thora Birch in this film because she's a fair-skinned, chubby girl with the big old titties and that's what I like. Even with a forehead that a ram would hesitate to run into, she was incredibly cute, in the quirky indie girl kind of way.

Scarlett Johansson was alright in the film, as she wasn't meant to do much anyway as her personality gets more and more subdued into the film as her need to be "normal" clashes with her "cool non-conformist" desires. It was interesting though, to see how well she fits into the "cute but slightly weird girl" role because of how dorky her voice actually is. It's like a teenage boy's, slightly deep and ready to break anytime. And it's not like she's a traditionally hot woman anyway, so the role really worked well for her.

But come on, those be some nice titties. Low boy-like voice be damned.

And of course, Steve Buscemi,

The only man with the ability to make any movie better just by being ugly. Sorry to break the flow of titty images but he's really one of the highlights of the film that are not indie tits.

Ghost World is a genuinely funny film with many laugh-out-loud moments and with minor characters such as the obnoxiously-cheerful girl, the town's resident hick, the very familiar art teacher and the brain-dead video store cashier, it's quite hard not to enjoy this film.

There's also a little love story in there somewhere so you can feel all fuzzy and warm after watching it even though the ending is kind of depressing. There's also a couple of Jew jokes thrown in, so, what's there not to like?

Disaboom: Because the normals on Facebook are jerks :(

2008-07-24T21:39:00.007+08:00

I saw this beauty of a banner ad while surfing the web yesterday. What initially surprised me was the fact that this is for Disaboom, which a friend told me about almost seven months ago. Of course, I signed up as a member but didn't progress past that because I have no idea what to put in my profile as they require you to state your disability. I imagine not having a disability would get you ousted from the site faster than a leper would get sent to a distant island in Victorian times.

Upon careful inspection of the banner (reading), the last line "People living with a disability exhibit strong brand loyalty" utterly confounds me. The first three points would have been strong enough for advertisers to hawk their disawares and diservices on the site but no, they just had to type that in. And even if the statement was based on real observation, maybe that's because there's only so many number of brands for crutches, wheelchairs and straitjackets?

Since I already have an account on Disaboom, I disacided to take a look at how the community has grown. Surely the site has matured beyond a digital version of a few freaks living on an island?

Oh hell yeah, this is the Internet we all know and love so much. Note the 3 thumbs up below the image.

First, his username is wheels1960, which implies that he's at a youthful and go-getting age of 48. Secondly, he's leaving "flirty" comments at the not-hot-but-I'm-sure-she's-nice wheel-bound lady who looks to be around half his age.

Is that you, Phyllis? I'm also shocked at the lack of "I like it"s for her.

I'm just straight up ballin' and wheelin', walkies. Also, the red highlighted text should show you how much of a niche community this is.

I then decided to browse through this group called, I shit you not, "wheelchairposse", and this is one of the group's moderators.

Whatever God taketh, he giveth. Indeed.

Wheelchair-bound and uses selective colouring in Photoshop. Sucks for her to have two disabilities.

"lilcripplegirl" here looks like your standard spunky but handicapped girl who ~~runs~~ goes around the room introducing herself to everyone on the first day of school. But she looks like a bag of fun though, what with the tattoos and self-deprecating username and all.

While Frank Gaylord here just looks like a bag.

Feel free to join the site and take a look around, as there are genuinely interesting articles and pos-ah, I can't go on. I didn't even read anything on it. Remember, I'm able to laugh at them because I don't believe in judgement by a greater being. So, if you believe in smiting and being dipped in lakes of boiling sulphur, you should probably not do it.

the fucking title

2008-07-22T23:16:00.002+08:00

The day actually started out fine, I was actually thinking about what to blog about this morning, something about the humanisation of brands (not joking) but towards the end (5.30p.m.), a pile of nonsense crops up and the day wasn't so fine anymore.

First came a PDF file that required editing during the last 30 minutes of the workday when I could have been told about it hours earlier. And then, the simple task of uploading a couple of JPEGs onto an FTP server which would have taken three minutes to do, if not for the fact that The Organisation employs NSF web servers as well. I am not paid $420 to unnecessarily stay back for an hour past my supposed going-home time.

After I've finished the nonsense, I saw my bus leaving just as I was walking towards it so I had to wait an entire interval for the next one. And only to almost lose my balance when the driver decided to jerk the bus forward before actually driving off. I did not wait 15 minutes for a bus to do the wobbly legs dance.

Of course, that dance routine got the attention of a few other passengers who, no doubt, would have laughed at me if not for the fact that I looked like I would have headbutted them without hesitation if they did. Then, the bus stopped behind a line of traffic, which in turn was stopped by a train. A motherfucking train, I can't make this shit up. Choo choo motherfucking train choo choo. And it wasn't even a full-length train with passenger, chicken crates and superhero-on-top-of-it carriages kind of deal, it was just the front carriage driving around on the tracks. I did not try my best to look composed in front of four strangers who saw me nearly stumbling over, just to get stopped by one train carriage on a joyride.

Got off at my stop and trudged up the overhead bridge and in front of me, a guy wearing a pair of evisu's, nike's and a t-shirt with a bald eagle on its back with very americana-ish flourishes and text which looked like an Ed Hardy's reject, which is saying a lot about its hideousness. The nike's were green and yellow and puke or something, I can't remember, and untied. Motherfucker couldn't care enough to tie his shoelaces but cared enough to buy a pair of evisu's that had a million pockets on it and on each of them, the gawdy-as-fuck solid-coloured stitching. I'm not kidding, this shit is real.

Motherfucker looked like a pukepile in Charlie's faggot Chocolate Factory.

That felt good, that felt therapeutic. Normal, non-Tourette-inspired posting to resume next post.

Critical Mass

2008-07-13T23:40:00.004+08:00

I just returned this book to the library, one week late, because while Philip Ball writes clearly, you can only do so much to simplify a book talking about how structure of society, flow of human traffic from a room on fire and urban sprawl are correlated with the state transition of liquid at a certain temperature. That certain temperature is also called the critical point, which is shown in the brilliant graph I've drawn below.

Warning: It is very brilliant, I almost forgot how to label the axes.

This graph was applied to road congestion, where y = average speed of cars on the road and x = number of cars on the road. I forgot why the cars traveled slower when there were little or no other vehicles on the road, it has been almost a month since I read that part. But anyway, Ball wrote about how the speeds of the cars slow down dramatically after the red dot (critical point) because everyone begins to get more careful as the number of cars around them increases. This has a exponential effect as car #3 behind car #2 slows down even more, car #4 slows down even more and dadadada.

Now let's try to apply the graph

to indie music. Let x = number of fans and y = level of coolness according to the Internet. Fits well, doesn't it? We'll name this band "For The Venti Poetry" and as you can see, it starts off with some amount of coolness even without any fans and it only increases as time goes on. The coolness multiplies exponentially as various music blogs, Pitchfork, AbsolutePunk and many forums start spreading its name around. However, the critical point occurs when a local radio station starts playing it and from thereon, it's a swift decline in coolness. There's a mistake though, just imagine the graph retracts back to the origin point because as the "fans" will latch onto the trendier kids' dislike of the band and the band becomes totally uncool, even moreso than when it had zero fans.

Alright, let's try applying this graph to "How much faith you have in this theory", where x = Amount of faith and y = Time spent thinking about it. Holy shit, mind blown.

That was a little too sarcastic, even form me but if you see the book on the library shelf, grab it if you have the time to spare because there are some genuinely interesting parts, which do not include the first few chapters which was PURELY Physics and Chemistry. That really did well to remind me that it has been almost half a decade since I last touched these sciences and I ran away from Junior College because of Physics.

However, it can be quite useful in attracting girls to you because as during the time when the book was in my possession, I had a girlfriend. You can't find such logic in any liberal social-scientific book, my friend.

Alright, here's something less pseudo-academic to end the post on:

I was eating lunch on the same table as Jules' mom when she asked me, out of the blue:

Mrs. Jules' Mom: What do you see in Jules?

Me: Wow. Nothing.

- No laughter -

Me: It's her personality, you don't find girls like that anywhere.

Mrs. Jules' Mom: Mmm, yes, that's right. (She said a lot of stuff here about how her daughter is a unique snowflake)

Me: (Totally listening) Yes, I mean, look at it this way, the three things most guys go for are: Looks, figure and personality. I managed to get looks and personality because honestly, how are you going to find someone who has all three?

Mrs. Jules' Mom: (Obviously very pleased) Yes, that's right. She takes after me a lot. Except that when I was young, I was slim.

Me: ...Wait, so you're trying to say -

Mrs. Jules' Mom: Yah la, perfect la.

Good stuff.

Get Smart (2008)

2008-07-03T22:24:00.002+08:00

If I'm old enough to have watched the original series in the 60's, I would be sitting at the coffee shop downstairs flirting with the 40-year-old beer maid while talking about Malaysian politics while my friend talks about the state of football nowadays because we can't hear each other. The beer maid comes over and offers me another bottle of stout but I decline, so she bends over to show me her cleavage. Her wrinkly, veiny cleavage. Being the horny old man I am, cleavage's cleavage but I cry deep inside at being unable to feel anything down there. Hah hah old people jokes.

Anyway, Get Smart (2008) is a great summer comedy, but an average film at best. The main reason I watched this was because Steve Carell is in it, and The Rock is too. Steve Carell and The Rock. I should be able to get about 5 minutes' worth of laughs from just this pairing alone, right? Well, yes, but there were quite a number of humour scenes which fell flat on their over-written faces as well.

It's like the director wanted the film to be the funny anti-cool-spy-movies movie but decided against it halfway because that might be out of reach for the summer blockbuster audience so there was a healthy dose of Hollywood cliches stuffed into the film's ass, and the result is a very average viewing experience for me.

To the film's credit, there were a couple of genuinely funny moments, such as Carell eavesdropping while peeing and him celebrating his newly-attained Agent status. I'm not sure if this was in the original series but the short cutaway scenes were pretty hilarious as well, even though they reminded me too much of Family Guy's trademark "Remember the last time..." scenes.

What irritated me was the "edgy" political commentary, including unnecessary jabs at George W. Bush. Come on, that guy's not going to be the president for much longer, you won't earn rebel points from the alternative crowd for the not-at-all-subtle jokes. What's (un?)ironic is Himey's (Bad guy) line about Hollywood celebrities' sharp and witty political commentary, so maybe they know that the film has too many of these jabs and they're acknowledging it? Whatever it is, I could have done with those jokes.

Borat's producer, Bayatov, has a supporting role in the film as Himey's bumbling sidesick and there was a reference to his infamous naked wrestling scene in the Borat Movie but luckily, it was kept very short. (The scene, not him) And then, there's also Masi Oka of "FRYING MAN" fame whose character could have as easily been played by anyone else. Speaking of expendable, Anne Hathaway's contribution to this film can be summarised by this picture below:

Replace her with a girl grabbed off the road outside the studio while showing a static image of tits everytime her character appears, and I couldn't have cared less. But hey, cleavage's cleavage.

So, go ahead and watch it but I wouldn't spend more than $8 on it if I were you. My ticket cost $6 by the way, thanks to some discount you get for watching a weekday afternoon movie while paying by NETS. However, if you're a Steve Carell fan, try to catch it, as best as possible. Like in the case of Dan in Real Life, he singlehandedly adds a star or two to the film's ratings.

Also, the action scenes suck. I'm too lazy to put this in the middle of the review and write a paragraph about it but yeah, the action scenes kind of suck.

How I almost got beaten up by a group of girls (Part 2)

2008-06-24T21:07:00.002+08:00

Okay, maybe the previous entry was a little too long. If you've actually read through the entire thing, I appreciate it and promise to punctuate long entries with graphs and pictures of tits in the future.

Okay, maybe that was too soon but why are you complaining? I, for one, do not mind looking at pre-crack-and-weight-loss-fueled-decline Lindsay Lohan's tits.

After things got calmer with me and girls deciding that I wasn't an evil women-pushing bastard and that they weren't completely insane bitches, I went back in and they stayed outside. After a much happier hour in the club, I went out to look for Jules and found her talking to some of the girls from the group. Angry Girl was talking to her and when I approached, she went away to talk to someone else. The mood was noticeable less hostile so I inquired around a little and found out that one of the anti-me girls knows Priya and she was pretty friendly without the whole me-bumrushing-her-friend thing bothering us. We actually managed to talk a bit and then I fou - Oh what? More pictures of tits?

Yeah, I figured this entry was getting too dry with text.

Anyway, here comes the good part. I found out from Jules afterwards that she chatted with Angry Girl for some time before I came out from the club. Some choice (paraphrased) excerpts from their conversation:

Angry Girl: You know, I'm strangely attracted to you.
Jules: ...Okay.

Angry Girl: There was this bastard in the club just now...(blablabalbab you already know what happened).
Jules: The one in the grey shirt?
Angry Girl: Yes.
Jules: That's my boyfriend.
Angry Girl: Oh.

Angry Girl: You should tell your boyfriend to learn Jujitsu, so I can fight him.
Jules: He knows Jujitsu.
Angry Girl: Oh.

Angry Girl: You know, if he wasn't such an asshole, I would propose a threesome with you two.
Jules: ...Okay.

Apparently when they saw me walking towards them, she buried her face in Jules' tits during a hug and nuh-uh, my fiesty little friend, those are mine. Looking at it objectively though, she's quite cute and knows Jujitsu? And she hates me?

Well, Shit.

But really, you can't make this shit up. I know I can't. I incur the wrath of a few girls because I knocked into one of them. We got into an argument and one of them was intensely angry at me. She turns out to be lesbian and fucking hits on my girlfriend. She even jokes about a threesome if not for me being such a heel. The whole thing is a raining scene short of a John Cusack film.

If you found this blog because you were searching for that evil (but hot) asshole who's the boyfriend of that girl you used her tits for pillows, Angry Girl, I'm always up to trade arm-bars and heel hooks. And it's alright, you're welcome to come without underwear, unlike Windy Groin.

How I almost got beaten up by a group of girls (Part 1)

2008-06-23T21:54:00.003+08:00

Like I have written before, I like Home Club and it's something I look forward to after a week's worth of work. For the first time in almost three years of Friday nights there, something unpleasant happened to me there.

The club was having their anniversary party last weekend, with free flow of alcohol (albeit for just an hour and with a jacked-up cover charge) so it was no surprise to see the place overflowing with tight black jeans and converses. And young girls. And tight black jeans. Young girls in tight black jeans. Free flow of beer. Young girls and free alcohol. Unfortunately, things didn't turn out as fine as it should have.

The party really starts at 1 a.m. when everyone is sufficiently pumped and warmed up to the music and the dancefloor gets really fun and sometimes, a little rowdy. When I say rowdy, it's never in the "HEY BRAH WERE U LOOKIN AT MAH GIRL" faux-Alpha Male kind of way. There's light moshing but as far as I know, everyone has looked out for one another because it's more or less the same old crowd who are genuinely enjoying themselves.

I managed not to get too kiasu on the free alcohol so mind you, I was still sober at that time. In fact, I wasn't buzzed enough to go flailing around like a moron like I would have liked myself to do on Friday nights. A relatively fast and loud song hits and it's the cue for the Same Old Crowd to do their usual bump-into-each-other thing but today's Free Flow Day and the pit got a little more violent than expected. Normally, I don't join much because no matter how much the guys there know each other, shit happens and I like my arms enough to keep them connected to my body.

So, it was a little more violent than usual but I thought, ahh what the fuck and jumped right in. Oh shit this is really quite violent, the pushing and bumping is more furious than a regular Friday night. Oh shit someone falls, I know him and a few of us help him up with the usual "Hey you alright?" and then the "HAHA YOU'RE WEAK!" from everyone after we are assured that he didn't get paralyzed by a stray elbow to his neck. And then we go back to what we were doing and I get bumped pretty far back.

And it was at that time when I found out that I've backed up into this girl who was part of a group who were just having their fun by the wall. With all the adrenaline rushing through my entire body, I'm not surprised that I didn't realise that I almost killed the poor girl who almost crashed through some glasses and other assorted dangerous hard pointy stuff. I was taking a break and being all "Whoa that was crazy" to my friends when I felt a tap on my shoulder and when I turned around,

BOP!

I got a palm shoved right into my face. (I realise how I could have used a less 60's-comic-book-sound-effect other than "BOP!" but that's really how I remember the hearty shove into my face sounding like. Bop.) Of course, I was bewildered as fuck and even got ready to physically defend myself when I realised it was just this tiny girl in white (not taller than 160cm and not weighing more than a my left thigh) who gave my face a nice whack. Looking back, I'm so relieved I was calm enough not to bop! her in the face as that would have given me a very nice charge of assault on my name, which is something not very pleasant.

Of course, I would be lying if I said that I remained calm, ordered a Gin and Tonic, taking a small sip from it and asked her "Young lady, what do you think you're doing?" with a raised eyebrow. I shouted at her "WHAT WAS THAT FOR?" and her friends all crowded around us and shouted back at me, telling me how I pushed her friend and other stuff about me being not so much of a nice person, to say the least. I told the girl in white "Hey this is not your dancefloor." which was actually a reference to one of her friends spilling a drink on Nicholas before the Bopping on my face. Yes, I have noticed that group of girls earlier that night and I got rather annoyed by how nonchalant she was about pouring a quarter of a glass' content into my friend's back. But of course, not enough for me to cause bodily harm to any of them or to spoil my Friday night with.

And this is where the fun really began, a huge chunk of the crowd just stopped dancing and were trying to peel us away from each other but I was very insistent on having a good talk with the girls. I think this was what made my friends go "Oh you're drunk, forget it Arthur" because you know how drunk people always try to push the peacemakers away while trying to get within bopping distance of the other party? I was like that but God, I just got smacked in the face. ? And it didn't help that I had this "This is fucking ridiculous" half-smile going on, so that probably added to the "Wow he's a drunk motherfucker" image I had. But I got smacked in the face! Would you have taken that lying down, even though it was from just a girl?

After a lot of peeling away and persuasion from everyone around us, we gave it up and I went back to, you know, actually enjoying myself in the club. Even though I was kind of asking for it when I was singing "TAKE HER OUT" at the top of my lungs to Franz Ferdinand which was playing at that time but hey, that was slightly creative. After that song, I decided I really needed a break so I went out to look for Jules but the girls just had to start cheering and applauding the fact that I was leaving. I'm sorry but I just couldn't take that and I walked back (very calmly this time, may I add) to them, "What do you want, really?" Then it got pretty ugly again with them crowding around me and shouting stuff I can't make out so I just shook my head and tried to walk out again. I thought, I can only take so much in one night, this is enough.

The girls then started shouting at my friends, and that REALLY FUCKING pissed me off. I walked back again and told them, "Look, I'm right here. What do you want to tell me?" The girl who was talking very angrily to Zhi Wen kept quiet and had nothing to say at all. Let's just call her "Angry Girl" for the ease of your understanding because she re-appears in the second part of the story. I had to settle the matter right there so I asked the one standing closest to me "Are you calm enough to talk to me?" and she said "Alright, let's go."

We went out and I was standing against the railing, with the entire group of them surrounding me and we proceeded to talk things out. The Calm One was a butch, called "Chris" and we even shook hands after introducing each other. That should give you a good idea of how level-headed she was, as compared to some of her friends. We ended up concluding that everything was accidental and no one really wanted to cause harm to the other party even though there were a lot of side-tracking from the other girls: "BUT YOU'RE A GUY AND SHE'S A GIRL!" (which was quickly shot down with my "Are you sure you want to bring that into this discussion?")

So, things settled down, Chris and I even managed to joke about how "that side of the dancefloor belongs to me, not you" but no, the night was even close to being over yet. Part 2 will be about the same incident, but with a slightly...erotic twist. I'm not trying to milk this for what it's worth but I really wrote a lot in this entry and I need a break so don't think that I really enjoy getting shoved in the face by random girls.

I'm amazed I managed to finish this entry without joking about how the most masculine member of the group of girls turned out, not ironically, to be the most rational one. Oh wait, I just made it. My bad.

Umm, sorry.

2008-06-16T22:15:00.002+08:00

There's this Indian buffet restaurant on Circular Road, right opposite Central Mall, called Riverwalk Tandoor. If you believe in getting your money back in terms of quantity during buffets, forget it. Even though it's just 20 bucks (for weekend dinners, no less) for a spread of 8 - 10 dishes, ranging from good to fucking excellent, I doubt you'll be able to go more than four rounds. Sure, you can cheat and not eat the carbohydrates but I'll pity your cheap ass.

The white and biryani rice are perfectly-cooked, none of that soggy and clumpy shit you get at chain Indian-Muslim restaurants with mediocre food and service because the customers don't give a fuck anyway. But really, the main star of Riverwalk Tandoor is the naan. You have to order it because the restaurant knows how beautiful freshly-baked naan tastes and looks. You seriously have to take a good look and whiff of it, naan can compare.

If the naan's the stereotypical broad-chested Bollywood leading star with a head full of hair and an upper lip full of moustache, the Butter Chicken must be the stereotypical broad-chested love interest with a forearm full of body hair. Everything else is good too, don't be mistaken, but the Butter Chicken and naan are perfect together, that combination almost justifies the full cost of the meal for me.

You might want to go light on the dessert though, a couple of them were too bold for my tastebuds. The very same tastebuds that had chewed-up fragments of a duck foetus' beak and kinda enjoyed it. Not to say that the selection of dessert was nasty but they are very heavily-flavoured and might come as a surprise to anyone who thinks that Roti Prata is Indian food.

For some reason, the last two times I've been there, I had the intense urge to do a number 2 after the meal. I'm pretty sure it's not because cockroaches and rats frequently take leisurely swims in the vats of gravy in the kitchen but because of the bowel-rocking ingredients used in the food. Anyway, I rushed to the toilet in Central Mall after the meal last Saturday, with lots of shuffling about while waiting at the traffic lights to ease the intestinal pressure.

I got into the toilet and heard a little boy's voice in one of the closed cubicles. Hey, no big deal, he's not old enough to be in the toilet by himself. I entered one of the cubicles and was again, shuffling about while unbelting because Goddamn, the pressure's always the most intense when you're actually in the cubicle because it's the anus' way of making sure it gets to let out the torrent of shit being held back by its friend, the rectal muscles.

Then, I hear a woman's voice. It's the boy's Mom. She's telling him to get up from the toilet seat. One of us was in the wrong toilet. I look at the bin beside the toilet bowl. Why is there a bin in the cubicle? My shit literally stopped forcing its way out for a minute while I was figuring everything out.

I opened the door and stepped out. There was a woman looking into the mirror, checking on her eyelashes. She was talking to the boy, "Tyrus, are you done?" And then she saw me, she froze for a second. She then panicked, looking around for clues to re-assure herself that I was the blind one who bull-rushed into the wrong toilet, not her.

I said, "Umm, sorry." and rushed to the correct toilet (Not that it was possible to get it wrong the second time around) and took a huge dump. I had a good shit.

First, a story...

2008-06-09T21:52:00.003+08:00

...I hover my lips over her shiny, black top, making sure she feels my hot exhale glide up her lightly-covered skin. With glimmering eyes, she looks at me. It's the pause. The pause that comes before the next verse. The pause that says "I'm ready, are you?"

Her waist twitches forward as my fingers find the way to the zip. She smiles at me and buries her smooth, flawless cheek into my chest. I find the zip and her coyness melts in one smooth tug, into a pool of liquid desire. I've been expecting this for a long time, after months of teasing and waiting, it's her in nothing more than the thinnest layer of fabric possible.

I see, and feel, her body tremble lightly in my hands. What I see now sends me into a dizzy spin, I compose my vision and heartbeat. I can't just stop now, she wants it as badly as I do. The tips of my fingers lightly rake down her torso and I start lifting that last piece of garment up but she stops me.

"No, you can't."
"What, wh-why not?"
"Th-This is my first time, I'll...I'll scratch."
"I'll make sure you won't, I'll be gentle."
"No. Even then...you will leave smudges on me. You don't want to happen, do you?"

Her eyes mean it. We want it so badly but a wave of rationality just swept over us. I release her plastic membrane and say, "I understand. I can wait."

No, I didn't just write a piece of faux-erotica about an iPod Touch. I'm not sick so I found it on the web instead of spending 18 minutes on a passage that arouses as much as a bowl of soup Yong Tau Foo. Not the dry kind because there's something about the purple sweet sauce drizzled over the yellow noodl - Anyway, I've used the iPod Touch for a couple of days now and I must say, it's worth almost getting cheated over.

Like I the writer mentioned in the quoted passage above, it's a total darling and you will hesitate removing the thin piece of screen protector but then you realise, leaving that layer of plastic on is your equivalent of Auntie Helen not removing the remote control's wrapping because "it will last longer that way". There's a sexual innuendo somewhere in that previous sentence but I really need to stop digressing.

However cheap it looks, you will leave the screen protector on until you buy a $50 protective casing from a licensed Apple retailer and no matter how hard you've tried to avoid it, you're now a stereotypical douchebag Apple owner who spends as much money on accessories as you did on the Apple product itself. At that point, you will also develop a strange craving for a double-shot Caramel Macchiato (You even know how to pronounce it, out of nowhere) and using the in-build Google Maps software on your cute little device, you find the nearest Starbucks and ease into the faux-wooden chairs. All's well with the world, iPod in your right hand, a venti cup in your left. Trees around you blossom with the lushest pink you've ever seen and you feel a spring breeze caressing your face. Steve Jobs materialises in front of you and you waste no time in unzipping his dark blue straight-cut jeans and start licking his...uh...pod.

The above might have been a little too sharp for my own good but I really felt an urge to get a drink at Starbucks just so I can be seen using MY IPOD TOUCH HEY GUYS IPOD TOUCH in public, poking away on Facebook and YouTube on the IPOD TOUCH. The YouTube viewer on the iPod Touch/iPhone is absolutely perfect, by the way. Great for outdoors viewing of videos you can view at home.

There I go, veering into Contemptuous Sarcasm Land again but I can't help it, I hate myself for being such a bag of pretensions sometimes. Seriously, YouTube, iMail and Safari are great and Google Maps, Contacts and various little home-brew apps are cool but after a while, you just want it to play music and organise your songs nicely.

It's like how your wife can juggle twenty knives blindfolded, mime the entire opening scene of The Shawshank Redemption and be a Nobel Prize Winner for discovering the cure for AIDS but after a while, you just want a nice blowjob whenever you feel like having one.

Perhaps, this is better and less offensively described by the graph below:

I mean, once in a while, you'll still notice how beautiful she is but eh, nothing you haven't seen before, now ~~suck my c~~ play my music. That's not to say that I don't appreciate its functions and I'm sure it happens to all cool tech gadgets as well. Then again, I'm not too worried because we're still dating at the moment as I'm still finding out new things about her and what she can do. Apparently, there's a GameBoy Advance emulator that allows me to play Pokemon on the go.

Pros: You can play Pokemon in public.
Cons: You are playing Pokemon in public.

Oh well, she's still lean, smooth and agile now, better enjoy it for all I can.

How it feels to get Jew'd (Part 3)

2008-06-05T21:04:00.002+08:00

Well, about Goddamn time.

How it feels to get Jew'd (Part 2)

2008-06-02T23:02:00.002+08:00

This is, of course, a continuation of Part 1, where a Jewish girl took my $400USD in exchange for an iPod Touch that never arrived. A week or so after that post, a forum member who happens to work in her university's IT department managed to get us (Kevin Gorman being the other sad, gullible bastard) the sellers' student email address and the contact details of the campus police and head of the IT department.

So, we emailed the sellers (There's Justin and her girlfriend, Elizabeth Woody/Lisa Tsibur) with the following email:

The people at SA Mart have pushed this far...to get your IP addresses and the courses you're doing...just return us our money before this whole thing escalates...I might as well tell you that we are able to contact...the NDSU Campus Police, as well as...the ITS Security Officer.

Severely shortened, of course. The rest is just, looking back, pretty retarded posturing and threatening from my part but hey, it worked! Two days after that email was sent, Justin replied with the following:

"Your ipod has been sent. It was sent last week. Elizabeth was supposed to send them, but she left the country for Ukraine (she's originally from there) and failed to inform me that they hadn't been sent. Yours should arrive in a few days, if it is not there already. I'm really sorry about the delays, it was a misunderstanding between her and I."

Ahh, interesting. Still doesn't explain some things though, so I pressed on and here's his reply:

"Lisa told me that she would take care of answering PMs and sending the units, and obviously, she failed to do so. You've only sent me one email-- which I responded to as soon as I could, I was out of town--, if I am not mistaken, and Lisa is in Ukraine at her grandmother's house, so she doesn't have internet access.

And I think that her PayPal account is under the same name. Also, she was bumping my thread since it is customary to only bump your own thread once or twice.

Also, have you received your unit yet? It should be there soon."

That means, Lisa/Elizabeth posted in his "[FOR SALE] iPod Touch 32G" thread to bump it to the top of the list, under the guise of an interested buyer. Still pretty shady, but not as bad as what we thought.

But wait, why is Elizabeth Woody = Lisa Tsibur? Here's what he said after I emailed him about it:

"Ahh, I can see how that is confusing. Lisa (which is short for Elizabeth) moved to the US from Ukraine. She was born as Elizabeth Tsibur, however, her father died, and so when her mother married an American missionary, whose last name was Woody, she took his name as her last name. She uses the two interchangeably."

Well, you can't make that shit up. Then again, Justin might have but I was too tired at that time so I just gave him the benefit of the doubt, as long as I get my stuff.

--------------

Despite me writing so much about Justin and his girlfriend (who has never contacted me at all), this post is really about vPost.

They Jew'd me.

The whole concept behind vPost is that you save on shipping from the US or Japan because you're able to consolidate a few items before they get sent over here to Singapore so you pay for just one base shipping charge, and the only thing that increases is the charge for the items' weight. Unless you're shipping a Puerto Rican wife over, the weight costs shouldn't be more than a few dollars and even if you are shipping a chica over, it would be worth it eh, eh eh, you get what I mean, eh? Eh? I meant sex, eh? Eh? Get it?

So, for my iPod and two shirts, which weigh a lot less than a Latina (even if she's not the stereotypically curvaceous kind), everything would've added up to $22.40, in SGD. However, there's this GST that they charge for items over USD400 and I didn't read about it until I was asked to pay up. I end up having to pay $61.62 for the shipping of an iPod and two dress shirts. Not sure how much I managed to save with vPost.

Till now, I'm still not sure if Justin is shipping me an actual iPod or just an empty box with a note inside saying "YOU GOT JEW'D, AGAIN!", which in that case, I will fly over to North Dakota and personally execute the Final Solution on him. Yes, I went there.

What can we deduce about Arthur from this entire ordeal?

1) He is gullible as fuck. Trusts people too easily, online, no less.
2) He is illiterite as fuck. Can't reed instructions on vPost.
3) He is gay as fuck. Shops for dress shirts online. In my defense, they were fucking cheap alright?

The radio, a decade ago

2008-05-28T20:56:00.002+08:00

Slightly less than a decade for some of these songs but they definitely brought a wrinkly smile to my weathered, weary face when I heard them on YouTube again. It was during my early Secondary School days when I haven't discovered p2p music downloading yet and the only music I got was from the radio. Like many psychological experiments have proven, you tend to be happier with what you have when there isn't much choice in the first place.

Third Eye Blind - Semi-Charmed Life

I think it's apt that I start the list with one of the most defining pop songs released in the 90's. Also known as the "Doo-doo-doo doo-doo-dooooo-doo song" to me, I only discovered that the song is about meth addiction a couple of years ago. "...B-b-but it's such a happy tune!", I thought, and hence began the transformation into the old, jaded, cranky bastard I am today.

Chumbawamba - Tubthumping

Prior to this one mainstream hit of theirs, Chumbawamba was actually an anarcho-punk band playing very...different music. I heard this all the way back on FIFA 98 (Also had Reel Big Fish on it) and I knew it as the "I GET KNOCKED DOWN I GET UP AGAIN AGAFJSGPIJSPGJDPFGJPD" song.

Dexter Freebish - Leaving Town

One-hit wonder as fuck but at least this was, and still is, a very good song. This was actually the song that made me post this entry because I had the sudden urge to listen to it again. Watch out for unbuttoned shirts layered over t-shirts and the random wearing of sunglasses.

Jimmy Eat World - The Middle

Jimmy Eat World is the only band that I still listen to on a regular basis but I believe this was the song that brought them mainstream fame and screaming alternative girls that the greasy, floppy-haired angst-ridden fatso of a singer would never otherwise be able to get. Also, Jimmy Eat World is abbreviated as JEW.

The Wallflowers - One Headlight

More than anything else, this band was well-known for having Bob Dylan's son on the vocals. They also wrote a song for Godzilla: The Movie's soundtrack but like I said earlier, The Wallflowers are better known for having Bob Dylan's son in it.

Evan And Jaron - Crazy For This Girl

This song will always remind me of my first crush in 1999 or 2000 and on who? I don't even remember now. This is Evan and Jaron's only hit song, "The Distance" has one of the worst choruses ever.

Collective Soul - The World I Know

One of those uplifting, "Hey fuck this, life is beautiful" kind of songs, the video reflects just that. Ignore the singing hobo and you actually have a beautifully-shot video with a nice little story behind it. I remember watching a video montage of various human sufferings (Wars, famine, floods and shit) with this song layered over people crying and wailing and it was a perfect fit. Can anyone find it on YouTube?

Semisonic - Closing Time

Apparently, this song is about abortion. Not sure how true that is but I always imagine a bar closing quietly, like how the lyrics describe. The abortion thing probably spawned from one of the bored retards at SongMeanings.net.

Spin Doctors - Two Princes

I never expected the band, especially the singer, to look like that. I've always thought the band would look more...juvenile and teenager-like. Seriously, the lead singer looks like the hippie nutfuck Michael Caine played in Children of Men, which is a great movie by the way. Mostly because of that one scene, watch it and you'll know which one scene I'm talking about.

Len - Steal My Sunshine

Probably the ugliest people to ever appear on a music video, they nevertheless managed to produce the perfect summer song, which means it's perfect for every single day in Singapore hurhur.

OMC - How Bizarre

I'm not trying to do a "Ugly people in one-hit wonder bands" theme here but forward the video to 0:37 and witness the Pacific Islander hotness. Pat Tanaka also makes a intensely-charismatic cameo appearance in the video, sitting in the backseat of the car. What does he do in the band? We'll never know.

In all seriousness, I kind of miss the feeling of anticipating any of these songs to come on the radio while I'm doing my homework or when I'm about to fall asleep at 11 p.m. But of course, Nickelback came and made it alright for mainstream rock music to suck donkey balls. I fucking hate Nickelback.

The Money Cult

2008-05-23T23:54:00.004+08:00

For some reason, I was reminded of how an ex-classmate tried to recruit me into a Multi-Level Marketing (MLM) company. If you've somehow been unexposed to this evil, MLM basically works by you getting recruited as a "Marketing Executive/Sales Executive/Idiot" by someone else and he/she gets a good cut of your profits which come from selling generic-quality utensils or health products. You don't earn much by merely selling those and that's why you should recruit more Sales Executives under you so they can do the work for you, giving you a cut of their profits. It's capitalism boiled down to its simplest form and coated in self-help motivational babble jargon and put in a faux-corporate environment.

More often than that, these "Marketing Companies" (which they are sometimes called, to reduce the dodginess) require new recruits to spend a couple of hundred bucks on training seminars, tapes and videos and this actually earns the companies quite a bit of money because through insistent bugging, psychological pressuring or just plain naivety, new recruits end up spending the couple of hundred of dollars on the training material even though many of them do not continue past this stage.

If you do end up continuing past this first filter, designed probably to weed out the unenthusiastic, skeptical and lazy (Doesn't matter, they've paid for the bullshit already), you will find yourself using every single social situation as a sales pitch to your friends, relatives or strangers.

If you managed to live with the fact that all your friends now avoid you like the motherfucking plague for a few years, you'll probably find yourself earning enough to eat alone at posh restaurants rather often. However, and hopefully, you'll realise that you'll never earn as much as the top executive who drives a Mercedes (Choice of car for the noveau riche) because you're not at the very top. All you've been doing for the last three years was to work for his S-Class, his quarterly European travels, his gawdy-but-Goddamn-look-at-the-logo Ralph Lauren Polo shirt and his penthouse suite on the East Coast. You realise this and hopefully, you go into depression after being enlightened on how silly and futile the entire idea is and hopefully, you commit suicide by sinking yourself down in your condominium swimming pool.

Fuck you, do you have any idea how much you've just scarred the five-year-old boy who unknowingly jumped in for his morning swim? Fuck you and your wrinkly, bloated corpse, do you have any idea how much of a PR nightmare it is for the condo?

The best part of my visit to the company was when three other Junior Executives in G2000 suits and ties that were too big for their tiny heads and eyes, introduced a more senior executive into the meeting room so he could brief me on the company's function.

"Alright, Arthur, we are going to invite James in, so he can communicate to you on our company. He's a very friendly and charismatic guy, you'll enjoy hearing him speak."

In comes this gawky-looking 24-year-old who probably, no, definitely spent a good part of his life being the nice guy who has always finished last. His perfectly-ironed shirt was tucked in too high, his spectacles expensive but totally unsuitable for his scrawny facial frame. He beams at me and says hi, his breath smelling like cheap mint and reaches out for a handshake. I stick my hand out and he grabs it and attempts to break my forearm by forcing a violent up-and-down jerk.

Wow, he is not charismatic at all.

The junior executives loved him though, laughing at every punchline during the presentation. I smiled, for courtesy's sake but it was clear that I wasn't enjoying it. My "friend" (the one who brought me there) kept looking over to see if I'm buying it and obviously, I wasn't. She needed to bring in the big guns if she wanted her first car by the first quarter.

I was then introduced to another guy, this one a lot more comfortable and natural than James and he even showed some half-joking cynicism at the Calcium tablets that he sells. It took me five minutes of conversation before I remembered that he works for the company as well and he wants me to join, he wants my money.

"Arthur, I was from a rich family so I have always been labeled a rich boy and I don't like that. I want to be rich because of my own efforts, you know?"

He wants your money.

"When I saw this opportunity, I grabbed it because I want to be somebody, you know? Being from a rich family is nice but what did I do to achieve that?"

He wants your money, he wants you to sell those fucking Calcium tablets.

"I know you feel the same, you look like the kind who wants to go out there and create a name for yourself, I can just tell. As a friend, I would advice you to do this, start early and you won't have to worry about it later."

He wants your money, he doesn't give a shit about what you want or how you think. Run out of this office, it will be your best decision all day.

How did I get involved in all these anyway? It all started with an old classmate wanting to "catch up" and after asking some questions about what I did in Poly, she invited me to her office because they were interested in hiring "marketing talents". Basically, I had no idea I was going to an MLM company's office. After the visit, I told her firmly that I wasn't interested and she got the not-so-subtle hint and stopped talking to me after that. Biggest relief ever and no, she wasn't hot so it wasn't a huge loss.

The entire thing happened over two years ago and I got reminded of it this morning, really weird. I think it's my mind nudging me in the shoulder, going "Hey, remember how dumb you were?". Never again, my mind, never again.

Hype hype hype hype

2008-05-20T23:00:00.002+08:00

As the coolest and indiest fucker on this over-commercialised planet (fuck the system lol), it's only natural that I resist all forms of fads and hype. For example, I still don't "get" donuts because really, guys, they're just donuts, they've always been there. Of course, I enjoy eating a few now and then but I don't feel the need to blog about how I travelled overseas and DUNKIN' DONUTS DUNKIN' DONUTS DUNKIN' DONUTS FUCKIN' DONUTS URHRHGGGGGHHHHHHHHH I'M CUMMING URRGGHHH.

The worst fad that has hit Singaporean youths lately has to be skinny jeans. Never has one single piece of clothing been able to separate the utterly style-less from the others like skinny jeans. I've found myself afraid to go to Orchard Road because of kids in skinny jeans and the worst are jeans that are divided down the middle with one colour (most probably red) and another (always black) on the other. I honestly hope the Taiwanese don't hear of the music genre they call "Emo", oh God please don't.

That being said, I own two pairs of skinny jeans which cost $560 in retail pricing. But it's okay, I was there before the trendwhore kids hopped onto the 38-year-old-prostitute-like bandwagon which looked pretty damn good before but is now an overexposed and sagging hag because of the number of people who have gone on her. Creating analogies like a hero, Goddamn.

Don't worry, I haven't gone crazy from getting scammed yet. That was just the blogging equivalent of Craig Nichols going crazy on national TV. It's okay! He's an Autistic!

That brings me to my main point (The music, not the Autism) of fads and hype, I wasn't kidding when I wrote about resisting hype because that's just what I've been doing since my Secondary School days when I felt the need to be different. I was never one of the popular kids so I refused to consume what they consumed but like I said, Secondary School days.

Hence, I missed out on the entire Garage/Indie Rock thing which was ENORMOUS from 2000 to 2003. I heard The Strokes on Internet radio and dismissed them because, shit, their name is everywhere and if they're popular now, I mustn't listen to them.

What a mistake.

I got the band's entire discography and I can't believe what I've been missing out on. The third album was a mediocre effort but if your band's portfolio consists of "Hard to Explain", "Last Nite", "12-51" and "Someday", you probably won't give a shit about some pseudo-indie dickhead's opinions anyway. Same thing with other bands such as Hot Hot Heat, Bloc Party and The Arctic Monkeys. The latter two made good music but God, there was way too much hype.

So, am I a pretentious faggot for listening to music that's only past its prime so I won't look like a trendwhoring faggot instead? Well, maybe but I should upload the glossy and extremely 2.0-ish logos that I've been creating lately and you all can e-lynch me for being an e-hypocrite.

What am I listening to now? I'm so indie that I'm listening to The Ultimate Motown Hits Collection now. Beat that, you electro-listening, threadless-wearing hipster dicks.

Webcomics

2008-05-15T21:50:00.003+08:00

Ahh, webcomics, perfectly designed to distract you for that five minutes after you're done reading your bookmarked blogs and before you search for that new Emma Watson Playboy shoot. As expected, there are tons of webcomics out there that make Garfield look like comedy genius in comparison but here I am, with the best.

Wondermark

Wondermark's gimmick is basically the usage of vintage illustrations but it works so well and in fact, I can't imagine the execution being any better. Also, the actual content is excellent, ranging from observational humour to social commentary to pure slapstick silliness.

It has the great archive to trawl through but some strips might be a little hard to grasp so don't feel dumb if you don't get the humour, dumbass.

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Explosm

It's very hit-or-miss and the site is laden with ads for online t-shirt stores and other nonsense but I thought the latest comic was pretty funny.

Even though some of his strips have painfully-contrived set-ups and he relies too much on running gags, I can see some of you liking Explosm the most because you're all dumbasses. But seriously, you'll like this if you enjoy stuff like The Family Guy.

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Morning Glory

The most legendary webcomic ever, Jesus will hate you for laughing at it. Seriously, you can spend 40 years of life dedicating yourself to helping blind retarded AIDS victims deep in Africa but one chuckle at this and you're still going straight to hell.

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And, an honourable mention for Questionable Content, which has more snarky hipster-ish dialogue than Garden State and Juno combined together but start reading from the very first strip and I dare you not to feel a connection to the characters. You will also go blind because the time I read through the entire archive, it took me five hours.

That's all I've got. Seriously, the Morning Glory comics are not work-safe at all.

Premier League Champions

2008-05-12T00:12:00.004+08:00

That's right, that's a capital C on "Champions", because it's a proper title and it belongs to Manchester United. The best part was Bolton's 92nd minute equaliser against Chelsea, which means that "The Blues" didn't even manage to win their last match which could have won them the league HAHAHAHAHAHAAH. NINETY-SECOND MINUTE HAHAHAHAHAHA. When the camera panned onto the Chelsea fans looking all upset and shocked, I started laughing and twenty minutes now, I'm still beaming.

Prior to this, I've always thought of schadenfreude as a one of those foreign words that morons use to sound smart but now, I'm fully understanding its meaning. HAHAAHHAH CHELSEA 1, BOLTON 1.

What's sweeter was the conversation with Jules, an ardent Chelsea fan who would suck off the entire first, reserve and youth team if presented the chance. After laughing in her face for the first five minutes, we moved onto other topics (which she was only too happy to) and she mentioned how her hair is coming off while she was combing it.

Jules: Oh my God, I'm losing so much hair.
Me: YOU LOST THE LEAGUE AS WELL HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Edit: And it continues,

Me: ...HAHAHAHA okay okay okay, let's talk about something else. How was your mahjong game?
Jules: (Relieved) Not so good, I lost ten dolla-
Me: NOT THE ONLY THING YOU LOST TODAY HAHAHAHAHAH.

How it feels to get Jew'd

2008-05-07T21:19:00.004+08:00

I was browsing this buy/sell forum a couple of weeks ago and I saw a thread with someone selling three "Brand New 32G iPod Touch"s at 400 USD each. I don't need a new iPod as my old one is still functioning nicely but the Government just returned me some money which means nothing until I exchange it something more material. Even if I don't use the iPod Touch, I should be able to sell it for a little profit, which then be again exchanged for more material.

The seller did the old "Username in product shot" thing and look at that, pretty damn legit, isn't it? It also helped that another poster gave her positive feedback on an iPod which he bought from her previously. "Free bump! I bought a used ipod touch from Sekundes and I thought the unit was in better condition than originally described. Good deal."

Couple that with the fact that the forum required a registration fee of $10 and on top of that, you had to be registered for at least seven months before you can post in that buy/sell sub-forum, I was feeling pretty safe about the deal. I've done almost 20 transactions there, both selling and buying, and not once have I encountered any problem.

I complete the PayPal transaction, like I've done so many times before so again, I felt very safe throughout the entire process. And of course, I receive the confirmation email from the seller.

The e-mail title was such because I was using vPost's mailing address so I won't have to pay out of my ass just for shipping. "Heh heh", I thought to myself, "I'm saving money."

A few days passed and I wanted to know if my package has been shipped out so I e-mailed her, but no reply. I waited for a couple more days before trying to contact her again but still, nothing from Lisa Tsibur. I then checked the thread in the forum and apparently, another guy who purchased an iPod from her hasn't received anything in the form of an iPod or a reply. He lives in California and if the deal was legit, he would and should have received his purchase a long time ago.

It was only then when I started to feel uncomfortable so I went through the details of that transaction, the thread on the forum and the one and only e-mail she sent. And it was only then, that I realised that the names used for her e-mail and paypal account were different. Scroll up to the previous image and take a look for yourself. But hey, maybe a friend and her are sharing a paypal account, which is fairly normal.

But I take a look at the forum thread again and saw this post. Apparently, this poster "Dinara", is Elizabeth Woody as well.

Since she was nice enough to post her e-mail address, the Californian guy is in the midst of trying to get her school's authority to kick her door down and then arrest her for online fraud while she wails and kicks, going "I'M SORRY I'M SORRY I WILL SHIP THE IPODS I'M SORRY" Okay no, that's probably not going to happen, I'll be happy enough to get my fucking money back.

But this whole ordeal wasn't just anger and regret. I did a search for "Tsibur" and well, it's a Jewish surname. Nothing like a little stereotype-reaffirming joke to make me almost forget about getting cheated.

So...that's how a girls' school is like

2008-04-27T00:52:00.002+08:00

Last Saturday, I was at Singapore Chinese Girls' School's annual fair where the girls raise money so that they can buy the newest Click Five album and more clothes from Urban Outfitters Online. Possibly inaccurate stereotyping aside, here are some photos from the fair and I promise, I will try not to make inappropriate jokes because come on, these are Secondary Schoolgirls, you sick fuck.

Ahh, the long-forgotten sight of that school skirt + PE shirt combo, and the smell of butter and sweat at a Secondary School fair.

~~First paedophile of the day.~~
No, Arthur, that was not appropriate.

I didn't have any high expectations of the food I could get at the fair but come on, this was unforgivable. The rice was hard and clumpy and tasted like clay and the ebi prawn was overcooked and tasted like clay. Girls, what the hell?

These lemon-flavoured cupcakes were all sugar, (thankfully) no spice and not very nice. Luckily, we had $50 worth of fair coupons given to us by Jules' sister so we didn't actually spend real money on these sugary fuck-ups.

Finally, some decent food. The chocolate cookie on the left had the right amount of chewiness ~~and so did the girl on the left~~. NO, INAPPROPRIATE.

A girl making a chocolate + marshmallows crepe for us. I wasn't the one who ordered this because I'm not a fan of neither crepe nor that combination of ingredients. It didn't help that the girl went all "Aiya, fuck it la." and had plastic gloves on just her right hand. The other hand is touching the food as well, you dumb bitch.

After taking a bite from the crepe, I can now appeal for a PES downgrade to E for contracting Diabetes.

The pita "wraps" were the best food item I had and surprise, these were not made by the girls but the staff from Breeks instead. The guy on the left was a complete jerk to his colleagues by ordering them around and shoving criticisms down their throats. "Eh, you lack the creativity to stuff the bread, go man the cash register instead." Ironically, the pita wrap he did for my order fell apart when I took it out of the bag. So much for the creativity, you 40-year-old line worker.

You can just imagine how the guy smelled, fuck. And couple that with his most probable intentions of visiting a girls' school fair. He will be Cleo's Bachelor of the Year one day, because I can see him being a bachelor for a very long time to come, hence the higher chances.

The games tent was quite boring but I saw this little bastard being a complete asshole by smashing the sponge as hard into the girls' faces as his tiny little boy arms could hurl. I like how the girl's face goes from happy-smiley to "Oh shit." as the boy releases the sponge from his hand.

Samantha, and his sister, who happens to be my girlfriend. Sometimes, like when I look at this photograph, I feel that I might have chosen the wrong Lau.

What's the best thing about receiving oral sex from a 78-year-old woman?

2008-04-23T21:03:00.005+08:00

No teeth.

Unnecessarily attention-whoring opener aside, this post is actually about Teeth, one of the more pleasantly unique films I've watched lately. Although "pleasant" isn't the word I'd normally use when it comes to talking about a teethed vagina that's hungry for penii and I'm not saying that in the sexy "Hey I'll satisfy its appetite HAHA" kind of way.

The first 20 minutes or so lures you into thinking that it's a normal horror film but the first penis-chomping scene should be enough of a clue that this film is not supposed to be taken seriously unlike, say, The Ring. When I realised that, the film's entertainment value immediately doubled and on the next cock-consuming scene, quadrupled.

I think it was the way the actors screamed and howled in pain exaggeratedly (not that I would know how it's like without exaggeration) while having a hand over their vacant and bleeding groin. The film also features a couple of dong shots which was what probably warranted the R21 rating so if you're squirmish about looking at other people's penii, those might be the real horror scenes for you.

The highlight of the film has to be the scene in which Miss Cunt-on-a-hunt (Dawn) goes to a gynaecologist to get her cunt checked out. Because of how physically uncomfortable he made Dawn feel during the examination, she involuntarily clamped down on four of his fingers. As blood splurts out of the stumps, the doctor screams out in the most dramatic fashion possible, "VAGINA DENTATA! IT'S TRUE!" That, my readers, was the film equivalent of a straight-up uppercut on my funny bone.

Also funny was the row in front of us, made up of mostly Muslim girls with headdresses and they were going "Oh my..." at the gorier scenes and generally getting excited whenever the cute guy comes on screen. Whose dick got chomped off, by the way.

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Another hilarious film I've watched, albeit for the less desirable reasons, is Denias, Singing on the Cloud from the Singapore International Film Festival (SIFF). I was expecting an inspirational and realistic film, you know the kind that makes you cry and feel great about yourself after watching it because of how much it lifted you up?

It was anything but that. Apparently, the film won the "Best Children’s Feature Film at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards" and I somehow, missed that part of the synopsis which ultimately led to my thorough disgust at how bad the film turned out to be. The quality of the acting in the film was on par with the Aiyoyo Lao Shi TV shows we had in the early 90s' with overly-obvious gesturing geared towards the less subtlety-sensitive kids. And the casting was overly-blatant, with the fair-skinned pretty lady as the heroine of the film and the fair-skinned rugged man as the father figure of the protagonist.

Really, I have only myself to blame for having such high expectations and got presented with what I thought was dog shit smeared all over the theatre screen when in actual fact, it was just a piece of dung neatly smeared on the centre of the screen.

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The next film, The Hard-Hearted by Alexei Mizgiryov, was much better. Nothing epic or mind-blowing but it's the kind of film that would be a great rental for an evening because of how short it felt. If you can find this film, get it. But you might want to think twice about paying $10 for a ticket to watch this in the cinema, which was what I did.

10 Years Ago...

2008-04-20T16:35:00.003+08:00

This afternoon, an old primary school friend of mine sent me scans of his old autograph book which every kid used to bring to school after major examinations so that all his classmates can write nonsense and doodle penises in it. Let me present to you, the genius of an 11-year-old Arthur Koh.

That's right, I used to be one of those "Girls are yucky" boys. Also, "Favourite Food: Western Food". At least, my least favourite piece of food still stands true. Note that "Jun Yi" is the owner of the book so you can see me sucking up to him to my best efforts on this page, even though I called him a fruit.

Same book but written a year later. You can see my taste in food evolving from "Western Food" to "Hawaiian Pizza" but I still didn't see the light in the form of girls and the pleasure they bring you.

"Favourite Actor: Brad Pitt"?
Definitely gay.

I don't know.

Come on, I was "11+".

Here's sometink really cool, writing in painful detail about your good friend! Odd to see my 11-year-old self making incest jokes but censoring "dirty words".

Almost-fully serious post

2008-04-10T22:33:00.003+08:00

Especially at 20, a long distance relationship is really one of most ill-advised situations you can get yourself into. At 20, you have probably never felt or looked better, you're full of bravado and energy, you want to get out there and...just do something. At 20, you can still date 18 year-olds and not look like too much of a creepy bastard because as we know it, 18 is the sacred age for girls when they have just, for a lack of a better word, ripened.

Hence, it's difficult to settle down comfortably into a steady relationship, much less one that only allows your partner and you to actually see each other less than half of the time. When you finally get to meet him/her, you'll have some of the best times of your life because it feels so good to have your blue balls finally cured, metaphorically and physically. But most of the time, you'll be spending hours on the phone, trying to recall what it feels like to have him/her by your side again.

And that's if you two have a good amount of faith in each other and the relationship itself. If you don't, God help you because it's so easy to just sneak another person into your life and not have your partner knowing anything about it. It's also too easy and natural, even, to imagine the other party sneaking another person into his/her life for romantic purposes.

Distrust starts to arise as you listen to how he/she has made some new friends who are really fun and awesome and then he/she describes this one person in more detail than the rest. "Oh, he's got a great sense of humour and can you believe he did this and that today? Oh God, what a funny guy, he almost reminds me of you sometimes."

Wait, what?

"Oh please, he's just a friend."

Alright, let's see how long that lasts.

"What are you talking about? Can you stop being so paranoid?"

And there you go, another quarrel caused by strain of the relationship. I believe in not doing whatever that's not making you feel good and logically, a long distance relationship's cons outweigh its pros by such a huge margin that I wonder why I'm doing it, almost all the time.

But it's a good thing, that I can still think emotionally and when I do, I happen to be a huge sucker for this face:

The Singapore Film Festival: Red Road

2008-04-06T14:45:00.002+08:00

Never, never, never watch a movie filmed on handheld cameras while sitting on the front row. When you've just had dinner. Never, ever, ever do that. I got so sick halfway through the film that I ran up the aisle to the back of the theatre, sat down against the brick wall and proceeded to burp like mad. So if you were there and smelled onion rings and beef during the screening, I'm sorry.

Red Road is about a CCTV operator, obviously dissatisfied with her life and her greatest pleasure in life is to observe other people's lives through the cameras. And I lost the plot from then on because of the Scottish-accented dialogue. I barely made it through Trainspotting but this really pushed my comprehensionary boundaries, and then stomping and shitting on it after breaking it. Alright, I didn't lose the plot but I was struggling with the dialogue and it didn't help that I had nausea threatening to burst out of my ears.

To be honest, I expected something totally different from the film: Something like the life of a Big Brother, something more creepy but there wasn't enough of that. It's still an alright film but not $9.40-alright. That's how much they charged for a ticket at a "normal" FilmFest movie. For one of the opening and closing movies, probably because they are the more popular ones, it's $20. A little ridiculous but I can't comment further because I'm not well-versed in how the local screening of indie films works.

There was also an unnecessarily-long sex scene which had Clyde (Tony Curran) licking up Jackie (Kate Dickie) for around three minutes (No, I wasn't timing) before banging her for less than one. Even though it made me feel good about my abilities, it was still unnecessary but hey, it's supposed to be raw and real.

I hope the next two films that I've booked turn out better. Fuck, I just checked, they're on Row A and B.

The Terminal

2008-04-03T20:56:00.005+08:00

This was one of those films that I've managed to put off watching since its release four years ago in 2004. And even when I had it on my hard drive, I didn't watch it immediately because the audio was totally out of sync with the video. I'm talking about a 15 seconds delay in the audio track here, can you imagine some of the most memorable moments in film history with a 15 seconds audio delay?

I tried hard to think of an example but they weren't as witty as I thought so...yeah...15 seconds delay is a long delay yeah which is a long time to delay ANYWAY, I managed to fix the problem using a technique I've learnt in my teenage years from badly-ripped porn. You open two different video players and place one of them in the background, that'll be your audio track, and maximise the other but mute it, that will be your video track. After two months of sitting idly in my E:/ drive, the video finally saw me put together enough effort to watch it.

It's funny (not really) how there was so much waiting involved in my watching of the film when waiting, is in fact the main theme of The Terminal. Viktor Navorski (Tom Hanks), with his Borat-esque mannerisms and accent, travels to New York from the fictional country of Krakozhia but because of a government overthrow in his country, he ended up as a stateless person. And because of that, he can't get the necessary authorisation to step foot out of the airport onto official American soil.

Viktor ends up living in the airport and making friends with a black guy, an Indian (dot kind, not the howling kind) and a Mexican. As in the case of The 40 Year-Old Virgin, Gupta (the Indian guy) ends up as the comic relief of the show including a rather out-of-place scene of him as a performing waiter but thankfully, he had a perfect deadpan expression for that scene.

Along the way, he meets Amelia Warren (Catherine Zeta-Koh) and of course, a romantic relationship was teased and withdrawn, teased and withdrawn and I fucking fell for it. I haven't been affected by love stories in films for a long time and this really drew me in, probably because that's one of my wives you're trying to court there, Mr Navorski.

I think this is as much as I can tell without spoiling any more because you should watch the film. There are good comedy bits, heart-warming romantic bits, war-films-style manly-ly emotional bits and small little jabs at Bureaucracy and the American government. There's a healthy amount of cheesiness such as the last line from Gupta, which was unnecessary and wrecked the awesome build-up to that climatic scene.

Still, go watch it, don't wait.

Home is where it's at

2008-03-30T14:20:00.003+08:00

So, for one week, we decided not to go to Home Club and went to Zouk instead. The playlist was getting repetitively stale and you can only pseudo-skank to Reel Big Fish and sing along to Morrisey so many times. We thought, maybe Zouk and Phuture will be something different for a night, we might even enjoy ourselves more.

The most common thing you hear when you tell someone about a club that plays mainly indie rock is "How do you dance to that?" and that was exactly what we said to the Top40 hip-hop that was being played at Phuture. Of course, the ironic thing is, that's the default music-of-choice at most clubs around the world and we could try to move to the music but dammit, it just wasn't the same. It just...wasn't fun.

But this...

...was fun. Retarded fun but still, fun.

My relationship with Home started in 2006 and ever since then, I must have spent over 30 Friday nights there, some less enjoyable than the others. In that humble little room, I've seen relationships sparking off, myself getting attention from another guy, different sides of friends I never knew existed, my very own romantic relationship growing (off-beat) to The Cure, and a cast of very...interesting people.

I'm not sure if it's intentional or not, pretty sure it's not, but this is emotional branding; Something I can't imagine other clubs doing with their glossy interior and patrons. Then again, different strokes for different folks, Home just happens to work for me.

My favourite club isn't without its flaws, of course. The waiters almost work on a "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" basis when it comes to change and tips, which gets a little irritating at times because I have to specifically ask for your change. No, that's not my tip for you and if I want to tip you, I will.

The Beat! playlist hasn't changed much since my first visit and while I can always count on The Arcade Fire, The Stereophonics, We Are Scientists and The Postal Service to be played every Friday, it does get a little repetitive after a while. It's a good thing they've added The Cribs to the rotation a while ago but addition of new songs doesn't exactly happen as often as I'd like.

And also, that "Young Folks" song, I can't help but cringe whenever it comes on, urgh, especially the whistling, God. And it's not even because of the fact that the song is a mainstream hit that annoys me, I hated it before it got mainstream. I'm that indie, bitches, I hated it before it got mainstream.

Despite all these flaws, the fact that I still go back there at the start of every weekend says something about the place, doesn't it? It's like why people still eat at McDonalds' despite knowing how unhealthy the food is and that's because of the emotional connection with the fast food chain. It was the place your parents brought you to when you did well for your Mathematics test in Primary 2, it was the place you went to study for your 'O' levels and perhaps, it was the same place where you bonded with your new JC classmates at. Don't tell me the smell of French fries in a McDonalds' paper bag doesn't refresh some old memory in your mind. It's going to take more than just a shockumentary to put a dent in all these.

It's the same case as with Home Club; even when you would come out of the place drenched in cigarette smoke (that was before the smoking ban), you knew it was worth it. Not saying that Home Club's perfect or anything because chances are, you won't like it as much if you don't listen to the music.

Then again, it's not for everyone but for the others, it's home.

Ho Chi Minh City part 8

2008-03-25T21:49:00.004+08:00

I managed to drag this over nine entries, the first one was blogged on the 28th of January, which was eight weeks ago. Never has the saying "milking it for all it's worth" been more apt, unless you're comparing me to a farmer who squeezed his cow dry which in that case, I suppose it's even more appropri — anyway, here's the last entry on my trip to Ho Chi Minh City which took place more than two months ago.

As promised, here's my best meal I had when I was there:

Goulash from a restaurant selling assorted European food, which I had doubts about visiting because it's located in the backpackers' area and it's easy to think of it as overpriced stuff for the gastronomically-timid or homesick ang mohs and most importantly because you can only eat so much. To be honest, I haven't eaten goulash from other places so I can't rave about how this is "the best goulash ever, I wonder why Hungarians are always so Hungary lol", but this is definitely the best stew I've tasted and combined with the $2 price tag, this is hard to beat.

And they actually put in effort for the bread, which is always a nice thing, because it's so easy to just serve toast with garlic spread on it and people won't give a shit anyway. All the Pho, Banh Mi, spring rolls and unborn duck fetuses I've eaten in Ho Chi Minh City were tasty but the combination of the price, taste, unexpectedness and the fact that I was really fucking hungry made it a damn good meal.

They do pizzas well too. It's sad to see people not eating the crust of the pizza because of the mass-produced frozen pizza dough that Pizza Hut uses so they just presume that all pizzas are supposed to be like that. The crust on this one is fluffy (not clumpy) and I still remember the aroma of the burnt dough.

This is all we ordered because we thought we would have the chance to eat there again since it's just outside our guesthouse but noooo, we had to leave for the airport early next morning and I sincerely hope for the restaurant to still be there when I return to Ho Cho Minh City.

This is the lovely little alley in which our guesthouse was located in. It's always a nice sight after an entire day out in the hot and dusty streets because of how clean and almost dream-like the alley looks, mainly because of the lighting from the row of guesthouses there. And then there's the group of kids who laugh really loudly in the morning while playing some kind of game involving chucking slippers at a pile of slippers. I need to sleep, assholes.

Our room, which is...less than satisfactory because of how thin the walls are (i.e., not sound-proof) and as you can see in this photo, the bathroom door is lacking a doorknob. I believe the room cost US$9 per night so I can't really complain.

I was complaining about the thinness of the walls mainly because of how I didn't want our TV-watching to disturb our neighbours. Also, I don't know which pair of feet is mine as both are equally ugly, which is rather surprising considering how my grandmother always used to laugh at how awkward my feet looks and that actually made me feel like a freak for a while.

This is the owner's son, who lives in England but was back in Vietnam to act all shy and faggy for the camera. Not sure about you but I was reminded of my...friend when I first saw this photograph.

This was taken somewhere near the War Remnants Museum and I really liked how weathered the yellow walls look. So much that the same house appeared in my dreams two months later and a MILF lived there. It wasn't an erotic dream but that really tells you what I think of during the day.

Nice-looking place behind a row of old shophouses.

I think this is a slightly richer part of town as these were many serviced apartments around the area.

What most of Ho Chi Minh City looks like.

This is a common sight and from what I can remember, these are phone numbers belonging to construction people or something like that. This is direct marketing.

Another common sight in the park, people playing what is known to Singaporeans as chapteh. It's really popular there, kids play it, grown men play it, women play it, even old men play it. The guy in green was constantly showboating with his fancy kicks and twirls but I bet his friends hate him, what a moron.

"You have HIV? Hehe."

Alright, that's it for Ho Chi Minh City. I was supposed to travel to Penang and it got cancelled but if nothing goes wrong, that should be my next trip. The glorious street food shall elude me no longer.

Ho Chi Minh City Part 7

2008-03-17T22:35:00.003+08:00

This is the first warning, I hope you're not some kind of massive duck-lover.

With that being said, our third day in Vietnam was a little more adventurous as we wandered all the way to the port area which was interesting but not something I would do again. The trademark South-East Asian humidity and heat was in full force that day and we couldn't have chose a better time to walk around the city by foot. I didn't take any photos while we were walking around but the architecture found around that area was somewhat like what I saw in Fremantle, Perth. That area was obviously developed with old, rich angmoh tourists in mind so other than the architecture, it was pretty bland.

There was a Hang Ten outlet not too far from there and we saw this:

Agent Orange affects everyone.

I think this is the High Court and I can't confirm it at all but I loved it for the combination of its european-style grandeur and the huge-ass red and yellow Vietnamese flag crowning it.

Now this is weird, we saw this directly outside the above-mentioned building. There are Cyrillic characters, mention of various social science terminology and names of drafting and 3D modelling software. What the fuck?

---------------

Just in case, I'm warning you again: I hope you hate ducks.

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A few hours of walking in the hot sun really brought our throats to their knees and to solve this anatomically-impossible problem, we stopped at a sushi place which was a street away from the blue-collared zone with heavy industries and a shipyard. In fact, there were tons of Japanese restaurants in that area, most of them classier than the one we visited.

Seriously, how can this translate to class?

Rather tasty but not at all funny. Please discuss.

Nope, still not funny.

The meal was around 30SGD and the second worst meal we had in Vietnam, a step above the fried chicken meal at KFC. Nothing wrong with how it tasted but it was expensive and so...typical.

However, our dinner at Ben Thanh Market (again) was better. I seriously love that place, it may be the Lau Pa Sat of Vietnam (overpriced and mass-produced to the locals) but I regret not trying every stall there.

And also, they have huge Mantis Prawns.

However, I didn't try it because "bigger = better" simply doesn't work when it comes to prawns as it's always the small dainty little faggot ones that taste the sweetest. That's right, faggot prawns, I just called some prawns faggots.

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Last warning: Denounce your love for ducks if you have any.

Ahh fuck you animal-loving fags, here goes:

The infamous balut, it's called something else in Vietnamese, probably Gȯ tṐ Hẹḽḽ or something. It looks incredibly innocuous like this, all cooked and still safe in the shell, nothing like the 70-years-of-sin-in-a-shell described in various "exotic food" specials on Discovery Travel.

To be honest, I couldn't wait to crack the thing open. There was no reason to wait, the egg wasn't going to hatch by itself. Well...it could have but you know, not anymore.

It's starting to look a little more promising now, you can see the yolk reserves and some white stuff which makes you go, "Are those remnants of the egg white or the...fetus?"

Nah, doesn't seem like the fetus. You'll still be eligible for entry into heaven if you stop now because after all, it has been like eating a boiled egg. So far.

Oooohhh there you go! That's more like it, the feathers of the poor duckling that never became one.

Poor duckling.

Sup? How are you?

It was only at this stage that I felt a slight tinge of sympathy for the duck fetus. I think it's the eyes.

"Why? Arthur, why?"

"Surely you can spare my head."

"Please, you can just stop here. I beg you."

Fuck to you.

Next entry: Best food I've had in Vietnam? Which happens to be not local? Such suspense!

An evening with Broken Social Scene

2008-03-10T00:16:00.005+08:00

Neither was this taken by me, nor was it taken on Sunday, nor was the line-up the same but I just needed a picture here.

Okay, I admit I'm not the hugest fan of Broken Social Scene (BSS). They were one of those bands that I kept hearing about but didn't bother to check out until I came upon a recommendation for a R Kelly vs. BSS mash-up when mash-ups were still fresh and amazing to me. That being said, the remix still sounds good even though it has lyrics about how R Kelly iz a playa in da club who be flirtin wid ya girl (blackest shit ever) layered over complex, layered guitars (whitest shit ever) played over a video of a few black guys rapping while bitches flash their cleavages at you in slow-mo (blackest shit ever). It's almost like Lethal Weapon in musical form.

But it's one of the biggest indie bands in the world (in terms of both roster size and popularity), in Singapore! Never mind the fact that I suffered blue balls from them not playing Major Label Debut (Fast), never mind the fact that I paid a quarter of my salary for it, never mind the fact that Feist wasn't prese—wait, I couldn't care less for that one.

One two three four
Tell me that I'm not a horse
I have a long face
But still, I'm not a horse

The band even made some jokes about indie kids going up to them, asking "Where's Feist? Where's Feist?" and then launched into a half-joking cover of that 1, 2, 3, 4 song. All in good fun, of course. Another highlight of their between-songs banter is their jab at our death sentences for possession of drugs,

"...passion and love are so wonderful, they should be drugs! Oh wait, they actually are. Just don't take them here (in Singapore)..."

It's not just witty banter, of course. All four guitars were in perfect harmony, the guest brass section sounded grand and Kevin Drew sang like how he does digitally and the sound crew created some echo-ing effects for his voice for that little extra touch of epic-ness. In fact, I think they sounded as good as they do on CDs and that's great because despite not being my favourite band, it's obvious that these people know how to make beautiful music.

The band opened with "7/4 Shoreline" with extra guitars which made the song sound faster and it was perfect, the entire theatre abandoning their seats in less than 10 seconds. It would remain that way throughout the entire concert with a lot of toe-tapping from my side and a lot of body-jiggling from the guy in front of me. How he managed to move so enthusiastically to Broken Social Scene, I have no idea. I thought there were a couple of weaker songs in the middle but nothing fell below "good" though as the lighting and the instruments kept things interesting. Would have been a lot better if they played "Major Label Debut (Fast)" but at least I didn't buy the tickets just to see Feist.

Local promoters should really take note of how loud the sing-along section to BSS' cover of "1, 2, 3, 4" was: Singapore WANTS Feist! Singapore DESIRES for Feist! Singapore wants to BLOW Feist's HORSECOCK.

This was my first Mosaic experience and while costing quite a bit, I would do it again in a heartbeat, if the right bands came along, that is. Before the concert, Vivek and I talked about what bands we would definitely pay to watch.

His choices:
1) Coldplay
2) Radiohead
3) The Arcade Fire

My choices:
1) Against Me!
2) The Clash with Joe Strummer revived just for one night, which I would pay $500 for.

Out of these bands, The Aracde Fire's the most possible candidate for Mosaic's single "Famous indie band" slot next year but it will be interesting to see who they really pick for 2009.

Ho Chi Minh City Part 6

2008-03-02T18:05:00.002+08:00

After all the food in the afternoon, we went back to our hotel to clean ourselves up because without fail, a coat of grime and dust on your skin if you spend more than five seconds anywhere near a Ho Chi Minh City road. Maybe it's just a placebo effect caused by all the black smoke from all the vehicles and the lack of trees but whatever it was, it got quite irritating. So there you go, I'm that typical spoilt Singaporean bastard, complaining about traveling in other countries because they are not the same as our beautiful little island.

I know, there are so many things wrong with this. Firstly, eating less than three hours after our previous meal but we got a little hungry because of how tiring the three hours break in our hotel room was. Whoa guys hey a thinly-veiled attempt at making a "we had sex" joke. I know what you're thinking, "He could have really done without telling us about it" so here's a picture of a mule to distract your one single working brain cell.

Secondly, eating at an American fast food franchise when you're surrounded by amazingly cheap and delicious food made from fresh local meat and spices? I know how this will dent my street credz yo but I'm always curious about how different food from these franchise stores taste in other countries. That being said, the fried chicken was dry but still managing to be soggy at the same time, that small dollop of mashed potatoes had as much taste as the porcelain plate it was served on and the rest just sucked. Sucked sucked sucked sucked, it really sucked. If I'm to write a haiku for this meal, it would be:

Sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked
Sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked
Sucked sucked sucked sucked sucked

We really should have tried Lotteria instead, which has a lot of outlets in Ho Chi Minh City.

After the meal, which sucked, we went for a walk through this long strip of park in the middle of the district we stayed in and came upon this group of boys playing football with a punctured plastic ball. The kind that I played with when I was in primary school because no one dared to bring a proper football to school because they would get stolen all the time. For some reason, all they did was to play penalty shootouts. Maybe because it's a more equal way of playing football, with everyone kicking the ball from the same spot. In that case, their government has done a good job.

Cong Hoao Na Hoic Gua indeed.

Anyway, the boys were definitely having fun but I just felt like I could do something to make them happier so I went to a nearby sporting apparel shop and bought a Size 4 football for $9.50 which I'm quite sure I got ripped off for. I brought back to the boys and of course, they got excited at the prospect of playing with such a (relatively) beautiful football and I even managed to join in for a while. Until they started playing penalty shootouts again.

The smallest guy in there, we called him "crab boy" because he kept trying to freak Jules out with crabs caught in the park's pond. Not once or twice but he did it for almost ten times and without fail, my very brave girlfriend ran away from that little boy and his crab. Ten times.

They couldn't understand me and there was a coat of Ho Chi Minh air on my exposed arms, legs and face but I had fun. We did know how to play "Monkey" by making Crab Boy run for the ball by passing it to each other or by lobbing it over the little bastard.

After a while though, a pack of rougher-looking boys came over, the smell of fresh rubber on the new ball must have attracted their keen sense of smell.

It wasn't anything serious though, they all know each other but obviously, the older and tougher boys were more alpha than Crab Boy & Gang. When I decided to leave, with the ball in their possession because I was taking it for granted that they knew I was giving it to them as gift, they all run at me with the ball, trying to return it to me. I explained to them (with a lot of arm-flailing and finger-pointing) that I was giving it to them, I got very loud "NO!"s and "You take!"s as replies. They then explained to me (with more arm-flailing and finger-pointing) how the ball will end up being the older boys' anyway.

Just as they finished telling me that, one of the older boys came over and grabbed the ball away from one of the smaller boys and began to walk away. I had to step in so I stopped him and got it back from him, much more gently may I add, and told everyone to share it and how the ball is for everybody. In the end, they accepted it rather reluctantly and just then, I realised what I was doing. I was telling a bunch of kids raised in a socialist state to share a rare resource and how it's for everybody. They, of all people, would know that equality is impossible. They, of all people, would know that the strongest will end up being in control of it.

Maybe I was thinking too much into it so I said fuck it and drank some beer.

But I still wonder, what happened to that ball? How many fights and quarrels have been started over that one seemingly-innocent gesture of kindness on my part? Would live-long hatred and street gangs be formed over it? Or I can be pessimistic and think about how the ball encouraged them to play more football and eventually form two local teams: Ho Chi Minh City Wanderers and the Ho Chi Minh Vagabonds. Would they remember me as the guy who bought them fun or as the guy who came over and upset the delicate balance of power in their 'hood?

Like how the kids from my Primary School brought lousy plastic balls to school because a nice, shiny one would get stolen too often?

I say, fuck it, I'm going to get some beer.

Ho Chi Minh City Part 5: Fuck, does this guy love eating or what?

2008-02-27T21:29:00.003+08:00

This is still my second day in Ho Chi Minh, after the visit to the War Remnants Museum and all the viewing of those poor children affected by Agent Orange; shaking, spitting, limping and generally spazzing out, made me quite hungry. Must be all the energy used up during the sympathising. Because of how nasty the beef stew turned out to be, I had to treat myself to something that can't fail. Something that I will definitely like. Something that no one can fuck up.

Something like shellfishes, fuck yes.

Look at all that, my biggest regret is not being able to try everything here.

I did try my best though, coming back on the next two days in an attempt to eat every single type of shellfish they sold.

I think I spent enough to support her three daughters through college and university.

Do I think it's cool to punctuate one single point of "I ate a lot of shellfishes" with four images?

Yes.

And that's right, we were given bobby pins to pick the flesh out from the shells and these required more effort than the rest which were more easier to shuck and suck. These, we had to pry and wry but so worth it because the flesh was noticeably sweeter than the ones found in the other shellfishes.

This is the dip of vinegar, plum powder and chilli they gave and it was pretty damn awesome, adding some spike to the peaceful taste of the shellfishes which I eat for their texture anyway.

Jules ordered this, well done. This is the shellfish equivalent of ordering a well-done steak, or eating fast food when you're in a foreign country known for their culinary culture, or choosing chicken over beef, mutton and pork. These clams are really the chicken of the sea; they don't taste bad and can actually be pretty fucking good when cooked properly but the thing is, they're so...boring. These are the seafood equivalent of accountants: Easy to find, sells well but god forbid them from having an ounce of fun in them.

Just kidding, of course. I'm saying that only because I'm jealous of how much money they make and how good they are with numbers. Liabilities, interest and taxation? Shit you be living the life dawg.

Her strawberry smoothie and my...other seashells. Those large black ones aren't as delicious as they're a little too tough and rather tasteless but there's just something so addictive about them. Serious "Once you pop, you can't stop" material.

After we were done, we took a look around the market. Anyone looking at us? No? Good.

Because we really wanted to eat the spring rolls again. Like, damn badly. Mostly because of how our previous plate tasted so good. Perfect setup for a disappointment as the sauce here wasn't as good as the previous place's. Jah bless Mr. Lau and his spring rolls.

We then went to another stall and ordered this, which I have no idea what it's called but this was good. Lots of contrasting textures and taste in this and I can really eat a plate of this right now.

And then we thought, hey, the spring rolls didn't turn out so well. Let's try ordering them here and maybe it'll be better.

We ordered two. They gave us four. I hate to waste food and needless to say, we were full for a very long time after this.

Ho Chi Minh City Part 4

2008-02-20T22:26:00.003+08:00

I had to re-upload Lindsay Lohan's nekkid pic because it violates one of Photobucket's conditions but really, they're not hard to find. If it's not on Google Images, just send an email to this guy at edison_2hot4u_73@hotmail.com and he'll sort you out. He has a fine collection of nude celebrity photos but with 86% less crotch fur, his Western selection is better than his Asian one.

Enough talk about pubic hair, this post is actually quite a sombre one. After our lunch at Chinatown (two posts ago), we headed down to the War Remnants Museum which is mainly about how the Americans are evil invaders and how they massacred whole villages, not sparing children or women. Also, the Vietnam War, as known to us, is known to the Vietnamese as the American War. However skewed the museum's message was, I had a genuinely interesting time viewing the war from "the other side".

This is the facade of the museum. I'm sure the half marble/half cement look is meant to represent the process of rebuilding Vietnam. Fuck, I'm a genius.

Outside, there is a number of captured American weapons on display, such as this Huey attack helicopter. The fact that I know its name just goes to prove that I'm a nerd. An awesome and genius nerd.

Oh what's that? There's something sticking out of the left side.

Fucking kickass.

Once you enter the museum itself, you are bombarded with tons of photographs and quotes depicting the Americans' heinous war crimes and the Vietcong's tremendous resilience and fighting spirit. That got tired after a while and this is coming from someone who works in the — nah, probably not a good idea to continue that sentence.

That's me. I was either really intrigued or yawning, can't really tell.

Kind of sad but hey, no one said War is about giving each other gifts over a cup of coffee and some cake.

These is not a shot of Lindsay Lohan's back but a victim of a bomb containing steel pellets.

What shocked me the most was probably looking at the effects of chemical warfare, such as these unlucky bastards here:

Not winning any beauty pageants any time soon, these ladies.

Of course, you can't talk about the usage of chemical warfare in the Vietnam War without mentioning the infamous Agent Orange. Besides a reasonably successful 80s' punk band, it's also one of the more obvious war crimes committed by the Americans during the 70s'.

Be warned, the following images are rather graphic and if you are an easy-queasy kind of person, scroll down really quick with your eyes closed. You know you're in safe zone if you see Lohan's tits when you open your eyes.

So, here they are, effects of Agent Orange:

I won't be commenting on them because guys, this is serious stuff.

I thought I was fine until they started playing a video of Agent Orange victims, I was so disturbed that I left the museum immediately, in quick, wide strides. Straight out of the main entrance.

The video was like these two combined, but with the added element of twenty quiet tourists all paying perfect attention. My sense of self-control wasn't strong that day so I had to leave because that's really the much better alternative to getting stoned alive.

After all the graphic photographs of ripped flesh, punctured skin, bleeding wounds, deformed babies and the descriptions of how the soldiers bayoneted children through their chests and burned harmless villagers with napalm, I had my post-lunch snack.

This cup of stewed beef brisket was bought from a roadside stall outside the museum walls and while I really love animal innards, this wasn't very tasty at all. The intestines and liver were chewy and flavourful enough but the gravy smelled and tasted like cheese. Which is fine when you're expecting cheese in the stew but no, the stew did not contain cheese. But it smelled like cheese.

Of course, I still finished the whole damn thing.

This post is about Lindsay Lohan's tits

2008-02-19T19:39:00.004+08:00

I'm interrupting my slow but regular update on my Vietnam trip to bring to you: Lindsay Lohan naked. It wasn't a particularly stimulating photo shoot and she doesn't look as good after all the rehab for drugs, alcohol and dicks but make no mistake: Dem be nice titties.

This is the original image, without the Japanese pornography-esque mosaic action and even then, the pixelisation kind of blends in with the freckles on her body anyway. Well, at least she's not skinny anymore, that look really wasn't made for her. If she did a nude shoot right around when she was filming Herbie, hot damn. Just take a look at Lohan '05.

Amazing.

The thing about Herbie: Fully Loaded is that it was such a horrible film and I can barely remember the plot of the film and in fact, all I can recall is Lohan in a tight tee making me guilty for staring at her in a kids' film.

Now that the whole world has seen her naked, it's your turn soon, Scarlett.

Ho Chi Minh City Part 3

2008-02-12T21:06:00.000+08:00

On Day 2, we visited HCMC's Chinatown which didn't turn out to be anything special; rows of weary-looking shophouses running along the roads and a central market selling the same things we could have found in Ben Thahn Market, which was 10 minutes away from where we stayed. The most Chinatown-y thing about their Chinatown was a temple here and there, and that's about it. Not to say that I expected thousands of pigtailed slant-eyes running around pulling rickshaws and eating noodles while squatting by the road but I won't be giving that place a priority visit anytime soon.

A typical scene at Chinatown. Or Ho Chi Minh City District 1, where we stayed in. Or the area surrounding Ben Thahn Market. As you can see, the weather didn't get any cooler on my second day there and neither did the amount of motobais get any lesser.

Speaking of which, here's how the traffic works in HCMC:

The scooters and motorbikes, being the nimble little bastards they are, weave in and out of the larger vehicles which are always caught in jams. This photo was only made possible because I stood right in the middle of the road with the camera up for more than ten minu — Okay seriously, what am I talking about, I would have shat my pants so hard that the stream of shit will create the second Mekong River. The traffic there is downright scary and there's no way to take a head-on shot of it.

The main reason why we risk being roadkill: The promise of good food. This is called the Bun Thit Nuong and despite sounding like a tasty mish-mash of ass and breasts, it's not because it's actually a light and cool vermicelli dish, perfect for staving off the heat. It's like cold Soba noodles with herbs for an added layer of fragrance and taste, and a lot cheaper as well, this bowl (plus the seasoned meat thingy) cost me less than $1.50.

Okay, I don't know what this is called because I think I ordered this by pointing around wildly and hoping for the best but this isn't too bad, vermicelli in a warm broth which tasted like chicken stock and herbs, can't go wrong. Except for the radish. I fucking hate radish.

The famous Vietnamese fresh spring rolls, they're the kind of food which taste like how they look and in this case, it's a good thing. Like the colours suggest, they taste refreshing, sweet and snappy. One thing about these spring rolls that amazed me was the thinness of the skin and how tightly they are wrapped around the fillings. Bouncy, taut skin and wrapped tightly, like how I like my women. There's also the sweet dip which tasted too complex for me to correctly describe so just visit the wikipedia hyperlink instead.

This is the guy whom we bought the food from and after successfully managing to converse with him in Mandarin, he's a Mr. Lau (Or Liu). See, speaking Hua Yu is cool! And I didn't even need an awkward government-backed campaign to tell me so! But seriously, it was really comforting to be able to have a natural conversation with a hawker there after having to finger around like a dumb tourist who's afraid of anarchic traffic. Pay attention in your Chinese lessons, kids, it's more than just something to appease your future Chinese overlords in the year 2040.

After the meal, we bought coffee powder. This is the most boring photo ever, why did I even capture and upload it? I don't know. I tried speaking Chinese to the shop-owners again but they could only speak dialect, resulting in a confusing minute or two and a slightly-reduced appreciation for my Mother Tongue.

As mentioned many times, it was scorching in Ho Chi Minh City so whenever we found a stall selling cold dessert, we bought it.

It costs less than 20 cents.

The ice cream costs around the same as well.

My fourth glass of iced coffee in two days, this one was at one of the many Trung Nguyen coffeehouses, which is the Vietnamese equivalent of Starbucks but they actually sell, you know, coffee. There's even an outlet in Singapore Polytechnic but I don't remember liking it because it was quite expensive, about three to four times more so than in Vietnam.

When it was presented to me, I had no idea what to do because I have never received more than a plastic cup, ice and coffee when I ordered iced coffee. I had to call the waitress for help and turns out that I had to wait for the filter to stop dripping and then pour the mixture of coffee and condensed milk into the glass of ice. Such complexity, I must have looked like a red-nosed Einstein. Anyway, it was from the air pollution which did a decent job of making me want to rub my nose off from irritation.

Next update: The War Remnants Museum, effects of Agent Orange, victims of bomb raids and other hilarities!

Ho Chi Minh City Part 2

2008-02-06T00:07:00.000+08:00

For our first dinner in HCMC, we ate some of the most delicious animals that mankind deemed distant enough to slaughter: Crabs, eels and kebabs. The only problem eating at Ben Thanh's night market is the number of eateries you get to choose from and they all look the same. "How do I know which one is the best? I only want to eat the best here because I have only so much stomach capacity." We eventually settled on the one that had the most number of locals and the friendliest waiter. I didn't even understand half of what he was saying but hey, he was smiling most of the time.

I've always found soft-shelled crabs to be extremely overrated because of how "empty" they are. I don't know about you but when I eat crabs, I expect thick, juicy, ~~veiny~~ wads of meat instead of just fried shell. But hey, this works as an appetiser so I was probably being a moron ordering this as one of the main dishes.

The moment this was served on our table, we knew we were going to be in for a treat because of how fragrant it was. The marinated beef was done medium rare, so we didn't have to gnaw down on hard, stringy meat. The vegetables were also wel—no one cares about vegetables, I just saw them as "NOT BEEF".

You won't be able to tell but this is a plate of eel stir-fried in sweet peanut-y sauce and with TONS of assorted greens and peanuts added in. The eels they used were the short and skinny river-dwelling kind so there wasn't much meat and to be honest, the only reason why we finished this was because of the sauce and the peanuts.

Many people might not dare to order cockles, especially in a less-developed country because of the threat of hepatitis. But I am one brave mofo with brass balls so I didn't give a shit. Also because I was born with hepatitis B. Mostly the latter.

Anyway, I didn't enjoy this much because of how overcooked and dry the cockles were, which is a shame because the only reason why people eat cockles is because of how juicy and bloody they are when cooked properly.

The whole meal came up to around $20, a little expensive for a mediocre meal in Vietnam but luckily for us, we were going to have better meals later in our stay.

I wasn't even done yet because I was bent on trying as much food as possible when I was there. This is one of Vietnam's traditional food, the Banh Mi which is a mess of pork and vegetables in a baguette sandwich. I didn't take a photo but when the stall-owner was preparing it, she scooped a spoonful of grey gunk off a large hulk of grey gunk and just as she did it, a few flies took off from the surface of the grey gunk and goddamn, what an unappetising piece of grey gunk. I later learned that the grey gunk was actually Pâté, which I would probably appreciate a lot more under a non-fly-infested form.

Possible maggots-ingesting aside, the sandwich was excellent. The baguette was light and fluffy but the real winner was the mystery sauce used. It was sweet with a tinge of dairy I think it was some kind of cheese-infused mayonnaise but well, I guess I'll never find out.

Wait, I actually can find out and well, it's the forementioned Pâté, nice. The fly larvae must have really added a whole new level of flavour into the mashed up pig guts and spare parts. But seriously, for 8000 Dongs (80 cents), this was a perfect snack. Maybe this will become the next food craze in Singapore with hundreds of same-same shops mushrooming under slightly different names. "IchiBanh Mi", "Banh Meez", "Bann Mee" and "Banh Mi Talk".

Speaking of which, why haven't people gotten over donuts yet? Why do retards still go crazy over Krispy Kreme (OH MY GOD YOU'RE GOING TO HONG KONG PLEASE GET KRISPY KREME FOR ME I WILL GIVE YOU MY FIRSTBORN AND MY LEFT BALL)? It's just donuts, people, they've been around for ages.

Ho Chi Minh City part 1

2008-02-04T00:11:00.000+08:00

Everyone knows about Vietnam's rapidly growing economy which like China, was encouraged after old and unfeasible communist economic policies were stripped and replaced with greedy, selfish but highly workable capitalist ones. In fact, it's growing so fast that a lady whom we met at pho restaurant told us about how the Vietnamese are so quick in acquiring the newest cars and TV sets but are also equally quick at forgetting who they really are. At least, that was what I understood through her French-accented English as she's living in France now, married to a French guy.

This is what the airport looks like. Sleek, shiny floors and fully air-conditioned, just like any other found in modern cities around the world.

Care and consideration for Vietnamese who tried to play hopscotch in minefields.

Alas, it didn't take long before we were reminded that Vietnam is still a socialist state. This was a pretty surreal sight, after reading so much about North Korea, Soviet gulags and satirical communist fiction, here I am, in a real socialist state, standing before the awe-inspiring Soviet red flag.

Also, it didn't rain once during our stay there and the sun was absolutely scorching. The Vietnamese know this and they have invented some of the best cold drinks I've ever tasted. My very first purchase was a plastic cup of iced coffee from a roadside stall near our guest house, 5000VND (50 cents) for a very refreshing respite from the heat was damn good value for money. I got so addicted to it that I ordered another one at a cafe not too far away and when I say cafe, I mean a small little shop with less than six small stools and tables facing the road (for people watching, probably another one of the French's influence) and four of them taken up by old men watching boxing on the overhead TV set.

This is my glass of iced coffee, without condensed milk because I thought I should try to enjoy coffee by itself, without any outside interference. This was my expression after taking the first sip.

I returned it and asked for milk to be added in it. Who was I kidding? The only coffee I have ever drank in my life is the kind that was mixed with a disproportionately large amount of cheap cocoa powder and sugar and sold for a 1000% profit because they have beautifully pretentious-sounding Italian names.

This is the view from where I was sitting. No teenage girls smoking and bitching about their friend who wasn't there while they shift their tight denim-clad asses around in their chairs and bending over to...I should stop now. This was around 11 in the morning so we saw a lot of hawkers and Caucasian backpackers walking about and the occasional motobai speeding past.

This was taken at the strip of park that runs through the district in which our guest house is located in and at any given time, there will be a group of people playing this. Apparently, the point is to kick a shuttlecock-looking thing around while looking like your mother still dresses you. Have I mentioned that this game is really popular? We've seen students playing it, children no older than seven kicking the shuttlecock around and old men being surprisingly agile while punting it to each other. It seems that every Vietnamese has to love this game, unless you love hopscotch in minefields more, of course.

This is it for part one, the next post will be on our dinner that night. Well, our dinner and my post-dinner snack of a not-very-hygienic serving of Banh Mi.

Ho Chi Minh City

2008-01-28T22:56:00.000+08:00

The first thing I noticed on the taxi ride from the airport to our guest house was the insane amount of traffic on the road, 95% of which was motorcycles. Or "motobai", like how our taxi driver said it. It's fine if you're in an air-conditioned car but once you're out, you better be dexterous enough to weave through the motobais and the occasional BMW. That's another thing I've noticed, it's either a motobai or a luxury car for the Vietnamese; a perfect visualisation of the class breakdown in Ho Chi Minh City.

As with any other developing South-East Asian country, there are many beggars and tacky mass-produced plastic goods for stupid tourists to spend their USD on. That being said, I bought four pin badges with either communist stars or my homie Ho Chi Minh's face on them. At 10 000VND (or Dong (Hehe, dongs)) each, I could have bought two bowls of Pho, or five servings of Banh Mi, or enough to stop 40 beggars from pestering us.

Don't get me wrong, I don't hate them. I just think it's pointless to give them money, my measly donation of 20 000 VND (Approximately 2SGD) is not going to raise their standard of living. And this one scraggly-looking beggar was aware of that as well. She approached us with her palms out while we were walking near Ben Thanh market so Jules the Charitable gave her 2000VND (20 cents) but guess what? She glared at us, one eye livid with rage and the other glassy with...glass and shrieked "NO!" while waving her hand around.

A beggar just rejected Jules.

In a moment of shock and disgust, I looked at the beggar, spread-eagled my arms and shook my head, "Then you're not getting anything." I really hope that was obvious enough for Old Glass-eye.

The rest of the trip is a lot better so don't worry, an entry or two on the food (See what I meant about being a lot better?) is coming. So, next entry: Banh Mi, various shellfishes, Goulash (in Vietnam!) and balut. Yes, I ate duck embryo voluntarily and not because I could stand to win $50 000.

Fat

2008-01-23T22:29:00.000+08:00

It was a pleasant surprise to be able to get a seat on the 6 p.m. train ride home. Usually, I would be pressed all the way right up to the door, close enough for me to breathe in the reflection of my own breath. Even better, there was a whole row of blue empty seats. Between standing and having to squeeze in between two other passengers, I would choose standing because you will look like a dumb ass trying to fit into the small allowance of space by arching your shoulders into each other.

A seat away to my left, was an obese lady. No way getting around that (or her), she's huge, ass-spilling-over-to-adjacent-seats huge. (So, to be accurate, there was only half a seat separating the two of us.) Not pudgy, not chubby, not pleasantly plump, not big-boned, not slightly overweight, not full figured, not curvy, just plain obese.

She was looking downwards on a book, not once did she look up. It must have been a very engrossing read.

People were stealing glances at her, it must been very engrossing for them as well. A woman, the housewife kind, was more obvious than the rest. Despite averting her gaze every few seconds, she might as well be staring at the fat lady. Not just the harmless "looking around in a public place" kind of eyeballing either, her nose was slightly crinkled up, chin slightly angled up, eyes narrowed into a glint, contempt and disgust.

People were looking at the fat lady, she knows it, she must have known it. She must have felt the heat of the glares, the kind that burn into your neck and the back of your shoulders when you were asked to stand in front of the whole school, or when you tripped over a chipped pavement tile on Orchard Road and the whole world was staring at you. You couldn't see them but you knew, you just knew it.

It wasn't a long train ride, it reached Boon Lay 15 minutes later and everyone alighted then. I have forgotten about my observation, instead thinking about what I would do when I got home while winding my earphones cord around my iPod. I took my time; I hate to rush things when I'm not working because it's a good way to preserve my sanity. The fat lady was just getting up too, she waited for the carriage to empty before alighting. I half-turned to put my iPod with neatly-wound earphones cord into my bag's front compartment and I saw her patting her book with the corners of her cardigan. She was trying to preserve the pages, they had blotches of tears on them.

Slayer of zombies, ghouls...and women

2008-01-20T22:58:00.000+08:00

The Witcher is one of those games in which you get a good amount of freedom to do whatever you want with your character. Your melanin-deprived hero, Geralt of Riviera is supposed to be a well-known and feared monster hunter or something generic like that. Fuck it, I said. If I wanted to save the goddamn world I would have gotten one of those Japanese RPGs with caucasian-looking ladyboys wielding giant penis swords fighting against blatantly evil deep-voiced bad guys with distractingly awful outfits. And along the way, an underaged girl and a MILF-y woman will always join your team. And you fight giant tentacled monsters. Video game developers know their target audience, that's for sure.

Thankfully, I can be a bastard from the get go in The Witcher because I sure as hell am not one in real life. Call it an escape from reality if you will.

Because of how vast the game world is, you meet a huge variety of characters (called NPCs or Non-Playable Characters, this piece of knowledge is going to get me pussy one day) ranging from a corrupt priest who dabble in politics to a village retard who became so because of a whack on his head when he was four. However, the women NPCs in this game are less varied because they're either:

1) Big-boobied
or
2) Old

Boobs.

Tits.

Boobs, tits, boobs.

Badly-lit tits.

Booby booby boob boobs.

Titty tit tit tits.

Boo-OLD. I MEAN OLD, NOT BOOBS. SHIT.

And yes, that's an old woman hitting on you, tales of your sword-thrusting skills have gotten around. But mainly because she's not had sex since 1218.

Geralt is also a master pick-up artist, having written Thy Mysterie Methodology way before some faggot re-wrote it a few years ago. Here's an example of his skills:

It's important to note that he showed vague disinterest before using negging to bring the HB9 down a few notches on her self-confidence before moving in for the closing line and BAM, he manages to score.

But sometimes Geralt gets too lazy to go through the whole process of picking up and dating before he gets to hunt the cunt so he just sneaks into strangers' homes.

Surprise Sex time.

Shit, she's a light sleeper.

To add to the prick factor, Geralt also listens to indie music.

In the local pub, Geralt meets this guy:

Drool dribbling off chin, clothes that his mother chose, inproportionately-sized head; he is clearly retarded.

Hate time.

But believe it or not, this is actually a pretty good game even though the voice-overs get really ridiculous, with Geralt sounding too much like an albino James Bond at times and some women sounding like they got wet the instant they had their eyes on our cum-haired hero. The main storyline is nothing special but the side quests and subplots are actually interesting enough to keep you going for a while.

Get it if you have the time to spare like if you're...oh...serving NS or if you like tits modeled by creepy neckbearded 3D artists with enough chins for a Chinese phonebook.

A little too late for Christmas, but...

2008-01-06T04:26:00.000+08:00

It's a tradition for some people to watch the yearly Tim-Allen-preparing-for-Christmas-as-bumbling-Dad movie but next year, don't. Just...don't. Even though there wasn't one of those this Christmas, we received a huge piece of coal from Hollywood in the form of Fred Claus. I remember a friend telling me, "I watched Fred Claus over the weekend. It was bad."

Really? Didn't expect that at all.

There's no way this can be a shitty movie filmed with the "Hurr Christmas, must eat Christmas food watch Christmas film take a Christmas dump" audience in mind! Too bad Vince Vaughn's career though, not so money now huh?

What I watched for this Christmas though, was "Joyeux Noël", a film based on the series of Christmas truces that actually happened during World War I, which many called the "last humane war".

It's heartwarming, well-acted, has great atmosphere, features good actors, has a nude scene, has Diane Kruger looking pretty, has tits, Diane kruger shows tits heartwarming christmassyfeeling elves and other good points BUT NOBODY WANTS TO READ THINGS and it's always so much more satisfying and easier to be a funny asshole than a funny saint. (Which one is funnier? A chicken crossing a road or a retard thinking he's a chicken crossing a road?) The movie climaxes when the two sides climb out of their trenches, singing Christmas carols in their own languages and exchanging gifts in the form of French champagne, German chocolate and Scottish...erm...Scotch.

This would be pushing it quite far, in terms of cheesiness but no, the film doesn't stop there. The Scots started the whole truce by singing a traditional folk song accompanied by five bagpipes. FIVE bagpipes. FIVE. Makes you wonder if they wanted to kill Germans any more than wanting to annoy the shit out of the French with incessant wailing of their testicle-like musical instruments.

I only managed to capture three here because it's physically impossible to fit so much bagpipes-induced cheesiness in one picture.

Not to be outdone, the Germans happen to have a tenor fighting the war as a grunt soldier so he steps out onto no-mans-land and sings Christmas carols in a dubbed voice which got quite distracting because the movement of his mouth doesn't sync up well with the sound he's supposed to produce. Why does it feel like I'm QC-ing a badly-encoded gay porno clip? Quite the coincidence, isn't it? Conveniently having a tenor and five ~~balls~~bagpipes on a battlefield.

But you'd be surprised, it doesn't just end there. The Germans had more surprises up their sleeves, adding to the epic-ness of the whole scene. I have included the original subtitles in the following screenshots.

I'm just having fun, of course. I liked the film and shedded very manly tears while watching it the first time around. Go watch it even if it isn't Christmas now, you'll appreciate the side-themes of enemy dehumanisation, religion and bagpipes.

For the time being, put papaya there!

Bears wearing Topman at Starbucks'

2007-12-23T03:40:00.000+08:00

I've been downloading these "Indie/Rock Playlists" which are compiled and released on torrent sites monthly and they're great for getting new music and bands. The genres covered in these compilations range from indie-folk to indie-dance to indie-punk to indie-indie to indie-polka-porno and while there are the occasional gems in there, most of it is pretty rubbish, to be honest.

If not for these monthly downloads, I wouldn't have found out about The Slack Republic ("Wait For Me" makes my rock-hard heart melt), neither would I have realised that beneath all the glossy, exaggerated hype, The Arctic Monkeys actually makes good music. Also, in Indie/Rock Playlist March, there's proof that music doesn't always sound like how their creators look because Lily Allen's songs aren't filled with drool-muffled grunts while she says "I made urine" over and over again.

However, there is always quite a lot of bleepbloopybleepbleep-sounding bands, also known as nu-rave, dance, electronica or pleasure seizure music. I have never been much for these kind of music because whenever one of these songs play, I will get worried because my motherboard produces the same noises when it's under heavy load.

Also, I suggest that these kind of music be categorised as "bleepbloopybleepbleep" just so I can watch hipster kids go, "No, Janice, Dance Dance Bear! isn't bleepbloopybleepbleep, they're more like indie-dance. Bleepbloopybleepbleep is like, Urgasula and He Who Man's first album. Bleepbloopybleepbleep bands must incorporate repeating lyrics over distorted synthesiser beats. No Jam is also bleepbloopybleepbleep and Chi Mpanzee is also bleepbloopybleepbleep. You know, when I did a Google search on bleepbloopybleepbleep, I received results such as 'myspace.com/bleepbloopybleepbleep', 'The History of bleepbloopybleepbleep', 'If you like these bleepbloopybleepbleep bands, you will also like...' and 'bleepbloopybleepbleep songs you will bleep bleep bleep to'. Yesterday, I read Brenda's LJ and she is apparently really into bleepbloopybleepbleep now but look at her! She's totally NOT bleepbloopybleepbleep."

I kid, of course. Some of my favourite bands sing about being in 50s' motorcycle gangs.

But there is one irritating pattern that I can't ignore, the indie-hipsters fucking love bears. Going through the archive of previous Indie/Rock Playlists, I've found these band names:

Grizzly Bear
Minus The Bear (More forgiveable because they've been around for a bit longer, as far as I know)
Panda Bear
Golden Bear
Bears
Bear on Bear
Seabear

That's A FUCKING FUCKLOAD of motherfucking fuck fuck McFuck bears. I remember a few of their songs sounding quite decent but I deleted them anyway because the band having the word "bear" in its name made me feel as if I'm stuffing one through my ear when I'm listening to their songs. And what the fuck is a Seabear?

When I did some thinking about it, these bands using "bear" in their names in their names is kind of justified because their fanbase is actually quite comparable to the animals.

Bears have enough killing power, jaw strength and intelligence to eat fresh meat and berries but no, they scavenge. Indie kids are more often than not, rich enough to buy imported clothes from Sweden but no, they visit Salvation Army and thrift shops.
No matter what species of bears you're talking about, you will know it's a bear because of the snout, paws and body of fur. No matter what race of hipsters you're talking about, you will know it's a hipster because of the big hair, tight jeans and MacBook.
Do you really think all bears love eating fish that much? No, it's because the cooler bears that live upstream FUCKING love eating fish.

I didn't want to complete the last point because that might hurt a couple of fragile hearts and I admit, I have a fair share of these "hipster music" in my playlist but I will have my arms crossed comfortably over my chest, eyes narrowed into a glint and a sideways smirk on my face when the whole "indie music" fad gets too big and implodes into itself, leaving behind a mess of Threadless tees, western shirts, white earphones and Grande cups.

I have crabs

2007-12-07T01:46:00.000+08:00

Long Beach's chili crabs don't disappoint. You can always expect them to do it right because after all, it is their signature dish. And you should always get a lot of fried buns to go along with the incredible gravy and in fact, I will pay just to eat the fried buns by themselves because they are that good.

The best meat is in the pincers but like so many other "best" things, you have to work hard to get it. And I don't think crabs would taste as good if we don't have to use our mental and physical strength as much.

Because of how lightly fragmented the shell was, I had to perform what amounted to a mini engineering project to remove the shell. First, I had to find that one fragment of shell that was the main cause of my Crustacean Frustration (New band name). Then I figured that I should unhinge the claws by opening it really wide before I can loosen the main piece of flesh for easy extraction.

That, by the way, would be the equivalent someone stretching your index finger away from your middle one by yanking on them at the same time. But it doesn't matter because it's the crabs' fault for having delicious flesh.

After slightly separating the meat, I pushed that vital piece of shell inwards and then outwards again to jerk it out from its original position and aha! Everything got simple from then on, just brute force required for removing the rest of the hard shell.

All these for the luxury of being able to eat the pincer flesh like a chicken drumstick, to be able to strip the meat off with a single mouthful. Was it worth it?

YES.

(I should have taken pictures of the meat glistening in the light after being liberated from the hard and limiting shell that's holding it back from its ultimate and noble destiny but please, do you really expect me not to eat it immediately after the work?)

Heinz the Hairdresser

2007-11-27T21:08:00.000+08:00

Okay, so his real name isn't really Heinz but it's something equally pseudo-German and I don't want to use his actual name here because I'm nice. He's been cutting my hair for a few years running now and since he offers $5 haircuts for NSFs, why the hell not?

For $5, you can do a lot worse. Let's think about this rationally and you will see why I'm paying this guy for my monthly trim.

Pros
Cheap haircuts
His stories

Cons
His stories

One of his more memorable tales took place in Thailand. Keep in mind that Heinz is 30 years old and married.

Heinz: The girls ah, in Thailand are really friendly. I met this very sweet-looking girl at this bar.

Me: Are you sure she's not paid to be friendly? Haha*.

Heinz: No la, she was just a regular there. Anyway, I was dancing and saw her on the dance floor also because she gave me this very naughty smile.

Me: Haha.

Heinz: I danced with her for a while then I bought her a drink lah. And then we talked quite a bit, she's really very sweet. She then asked me out for dinner the next day. Can't say no lah, she so sweet and her body quite nice ah.

Me: Haha. (Wait...what the fuck?)

Heinz: I brought her out for dinner at a hotel restaurant, could tell she was very happy because it's good food mah. But she brought this friend along, who can speak English quite well so she was the girl's mouth because her English...not so good lah.

Me: If her English wasn't so good, how were you able to communicate with her?

Heinz: Aiya, can say "yes" , "no", "cannot", "okay" and smile can already la. Anyway the friend was telling me like how the girl's mother is very ill and requires money for medication and after the dinner, we went over to see the mother. She was really damn ill, coughing a lot and looking very white. (Note: He meant white as in "pale", not "Caucasian" although that would be quite a serious illness)

Me: And then?

Heinz: Too much burden la, I just wanted sex mah. So I just gave them a few hundred dollars but I did try to ask the girl out again. But she was busy working and I no choice la, have to go back to Singapore.

Me: ...I think the whole thing was a scam.

Heinz: How can? She so sweet.

*Social laughter. You know the kind.

******

This one was told during another haircut when he discovered that I'm in NS so he proceeded to tell me about his NS stint.

Heinz: You know I used to be at the old Yew Tee Camp? I saw ghost there.

Me: Wow, no shit? You lying-ass bitch. (No, I just said "Haha. Is it?")

Heinz: I was doing guard duty with my Indian friend ah, 2 a.m. at night and the place was damn dark. We were walking past this rows of Land Rovers and I saw this girl in a yellow dress and long black hair sitting on one of the hoods.

Me: Wow, what did you do?

Heinz: I thought "Die, confirm is ghost" but I curious mah, maybe it's a pretty girl then I can be quite happy that night la AHAHA.

Me: Haha. (Why am I listening to this?)

Heinz: But I look ah, wah lao eh. Really is ghost la, the face so white. (Note: Pale) After that I asked my Indian friend if he got see but he said never leh. So it must be a Chinese ghost.

I kept silent after that because I was expecting a really obvious "Indian in the dark" joke but he didn't make one, respect. His racial sensitivity kind of made up for his brilliant deduction of "must be a Chinese ghost".

******

There were genuinely funny moments too, so it's not just about Heinz being a horny retard. Just today, I wore shorts to his place for my haircut (Sounds dodgy, I know) because I like to show my legs off since they're the sexiest part of me. Tied with the rest of my body. After the haircut, he lifted the cape thing up and brushed the stray hair off my neck. Without noticing anything wrong, he said "Eh your thigh got hair."

I looked and nope, there weren't any hair on my thi ─ oh wait. "No, That's not hair from my head."

******

A few months ago, he was doing his haircutting with music playing from his stereo system and I heard a very familiar voice. It was Morrisey's and he was actually listening to The Smiths.

Heinz.
30.
Wears singlets when cutting hair.
Says "Alright maaaan" in a really odd way.
Gets a fair share of his income from cutting hair for cheapskate NSF and student assholes.
Listens to The Smiths.

One of the above doesn't fit, guess which one? We then talked about 80s' music for a while and at that time, The Cure was going to perform at the Indoor Stadium so I asked if he was going. His reply?

"I want to go la, but no one to go with."

That coupled with a weak smile while he was slightly distracted from my haircut made me feel so sad for him. Of course, that only lasted for two seconds before he launched into a story about how "havoc" he was during the 80s' just because he had half-permed, half-shaved hair.

Seriously, all these combined is really good value for $5.

Not sure why I found it so amusing

2007-11-18T22:11:00.000+08:00

As I was returning home, I saw this skinny 20-something guy, more hair than meat, with his earphones plugged into a MacBook which he carried under his arms. He was one of those people who smile and bounce when they walk, as if he's going home to Scarlett Johansson laying down on the bed in black lacy lingerie. After a while, he opened the MacBook and did something in iTunes.

I thought, "Biggest iPod ever" and smiled to myself. Even though he looked like a complete dork, he must have been very "U LaUgH bEcAusE Im DifFerENt, I lAuGh BEcAuSe u r AlL ThE SaMe"

I have feelings too

2007-11-16T00:07:00.000+08:00

I will probably lose my "I am tough manly man with no heart because I find mental retardation and physical handicap extremely funny and I constantly make fun of my girlfriend" image because of this post but I have to say this, Jules' return is making me think that my days are worth trudging through, just so I can see her at the end of every week. As for weekdays, there's always Team Fortress 2, which is so fucking fun. Godammit, it's almost better than having a girlfriend.

But seriously (Wait, I was being somewhat serious), us being far apart for months has actually brought us closer together. I met her for the first time in two months today (didn't go to work) and it was almost like how it was, before I got enlisted and before she left for overseas study. I said almost mainly because of the fact that I actually have work the next day and I needed sleep so much that I slept for the whole 40 minutes of train ride from Eunos to Boon Lay, alternating between the really unglamorous sleeping pose with my head tilted upwards and my mouth slightly agape and the one with my head nodding downwards. The former is actually less embarrassing because when I tilted downwards while sleeping, I actually drooled on my bag. I discovered it when I woke up for a brief moment and very nonchalantly wiped it away before continuing my nap. Fucking cool asshole, this Arthur guy.

What will happen to us in the future, I'm not sure but I can very safely say for now, that I'm in a very satisfying relationship. Not just in terms of sex, please.

MILFs

2007-11-15T00:11:00.001+08:00

Mothers I'd Like to F...ornicate. MILFs used to be a somewhat taboo topic before milfhunter.com (I'm not linking there) was launched as part of the Internet niche pornography boom. Because of the website's popularity, it is now perfect alright to have a thing for older women who are "old enough to be your mom". Despite the extremely Freudian nature of this topic, I would still like to talk about it because the term "MILF" is so commonly mis-used.

This is Nigella Lawson, celebrity cook.

MILF?
Yes. In my opinion, this lady here is the quintessential MILF; full round hips, breasts enough for a whole nation of infants, a good amount of meat on the bones and most importantly, the very feminine brand of sexiness she exudes. I think it's how she jiggles when beating egg yolks and the way she smacks chocolate fudge off her fingers. Even though there's an electronic blender in the kitchen and the dish doesn't require chocolate fudge.

And she also looks like she could be your neighbour or a mom-next-door, to be more precise. MILFs have to look somewhat unpolished to qualify as one.

Rachel Hunter, model.

MILF?
No. Despite being cast as the hot mom in the Stacy's Mom music video, it's hard to think of her as a MILF. MILFs are supposed to show slight signs of negligence in their appearances. Calves and underarms sculpted by carefully-planned gym regimes don't exactly portray negligence. So, NOT a MILF.

Moro Islamic Liberation Front, rebel group based in the Phillipines

Even after the many terrorist attacks they've committed on the people of Phillipines, I still can't take this group seriously. That's a really unfortunate acronym to have for your guerrilla fighters who want to fight for liberty and freedom. Sorry guys, not a MILF.

Britney Spears, part-time pop star, ex full-time caretaker of white trash bums

MILF?
I honestly don't know. On one hand, I don't think she's even 25 years old but on the other, she does have the required figure and a son. On a related note, I heard her new single playing on the radio while I was in the gym. She now owes me new ears.

Adelfa Volpes, 82-year-old who's married to a 24-year-old

MILF?
NO. Fucking gross. If anything, she would be known as a GMILF but even then, would I want to fuck her? Not in a million years. No wait, make that a trillion years, she might have actually been around for a million years so I'm going to play it safe. What was the guy thinking? If it's for money, then he's as low as his wife's tits.

So next time before you use the term "MILF", think about it. Does she fulfill the necessary requirements of having a slightly out-of-shape body? Is she actually old enough to be a mother? It's serious business, guys. Treat the term with respect and if you happen to know one, lots of attention she hasn't experienced from her businessman husband.

And yet again, the show delivers

2007-11-04T01:38:00.001+08:00

Big Fish, Little Fish

2007-10-31T22:38:00.000+08:00

Big Fish (2003) is one of the films I have wanted to watch in the theaters but ended up forgetting about it because there are always better ways to spend your money on. And for that time, LAN shops. Shut up, I really liked counter-strike, I didn't pick my MSN username for nothing alright?

I can write a long post about how feel-good and inspirational the film is but considering how "Hot Shots" and "Airplane" are among my favourite films, I don't think I should. About the movie, you should just watch it and I believe it's showing on Channel 5 very soon, so there's no excuse. Other than hating advertisement breaks coming up every 15 minutes, I guess.

If not for this film, I would have never discovered how cute Alison Lohman looks.

Damn it.

And then, there's Steve Buscemi, who's famous for being ugly. I swear he's the only actor who gets paychecks because of pastiness and eye bags deep enough to be categorised as natural lakes.

Helena Bonham Carter, I have always expected her to look like a old saggy fuckshit insane bag of goth because of her past roles but does she look good for someone over 35 or what? She may have creeping vines for pubes and a bat for her privates but shit, she looked good.

A former colleague once told me a story about how he used to get abused in High School because he was a minority (Fillipino in Canada) and a puny, feeble-limbed one at that. There was this one guy who always picked at him; build of a moose (Canada lol), athletic, intellect of a moose and he had a girlfriend. High School was a very "U lAfF bCoS i'M DifFerEnt" time for him so all the angst and teenage rebellion possessed my colleague to creep to Moose's locker and poke holes in his condoms.

Moose ended up getting his girlfriend knocked up and ended up keeping the baby. The former High School star athlete started working odd jobs to support his premature family and I believe he's still doing the same now. He never found out about the hole in the condom.

David Denham (in the screenshot) reminds me of Moose because he's pretty much playing the same character in The Office as well. While Buscemi is always being typecast as "ugly comic relief guy who's also ugly", Denham is the "loser jock who has the desirable girl but loses her in the end".

I know how unnecessary the story was but I just wanted a chance to type that out. Cannot issit?

Last Perth post, I swear

2007-10-22T22:06:00.000+08:00

My face has been twisted into a perpetual scowl this couple of days and the main reason why I'm feeling so manstrual is for some reason, technology. Basic functions like copy + pasting are not working on my computer, Illustrator not willing to display transparency properly and the installation of Canon's digicam drivers and software is driving me nuts. I don't get it, it's made for old farts who are overly-enthusiastic about sharing their vacation photos because it's their last one before starting to decompose and the "zombie attack lol please be zombie it's fun be zombie" crowd on Facebook, WHY AM I HAVING PROBLEMS?

Even though I cannot imagine myself living in the woods using flints for fire and wearing leaves for warmth, I really hope I can find something to do that doesn't involve electronic technology. There's jujitsu, which has brought you the story of Windypants and for me, a screwy right ankle. A colleague suggested rock-climbing, which sounds fun but having a Windypants there will be a lot more disgusting than having one in jujitsu class.

Also, I do realise how lamenting about technology on a blog is more ironic than an iron bucket of iron irons designed for irons.

Like a sane, straight, non-perverted male at a Cosplay convention, I have some photos that didn't fit well in the previous posts so I'll just dump them here.

See how smoking is bad for you?

Great lighting, awesome background, shame about everything else.

Wah slow shutter sia.

I like this shot, I think it's the colours.

So much emotions!

So much emotions! #2

So much idiocy!

Definitely visiting Perth again.

Not exactly Perth but I found it in my pictures folder, one of the last few photographs taken before my old digital camera broke from Avery attempts at eating it whole.

It was supposed to be a comedy, damn it

2007-10-21T04:40:00.000+08:00

Master Chef strikes again!

2007-10-18T22:29:00.000+08:00

Stop playing Halo 3 if you misread the title. Master Chef, of course, refers to me. If you remember, my previous culinary creations include Cold Soba Noodles (with sesame oil somemore), Baked Pasta with Sardines (which was horrible) and Breakfast Muffins with Canned Salmon. The hyperlinks are working a little oddly now, you have to click the links repeatedly for a minute before being directed to the relevant posts.

My family went to Malaysia for my grandmother's birthday so I had the chance to do a couple of dishes that have been bugging me for a while. The first was poached salmon, simply dressed with with oil and whatever herbs or herbs-like ingredients I can find. It turned out okay but then again, how can you fuck up poached salmon?

The second was spaghetti in Alfredo sauce. My desire to prepare this dish stems from my first tasting of it when I was eight years old. At that point of time, my father, the sole breadwinner, was still working his way up the company and as a result, I did not have many chances to eat food that was normally served in nice sit-in restaurants. But, we were at this European food fair at basement of Ngee Ann City, crowded as fuck and there I was, having my first ever taste of pasta, with tears in my eyes.

Then again, that might have been due to my mother hitting me because I could never shut the fuck up or keep still like a normal child. But ahh, I'm digressing, still can't shut the fuck up. I remember it being a small plastic cup of flat noodles in a white creamy sauce (fettuccine in Alfredo sauce) and after finishing it, I looked up at my parents with a smile and probably some cream around my lips (insert inappropriate joke). I remember saying, "I like this." and my parents encouraged me to get one more cup, "Go on, go ask the man over there. (HAHA we don't have to feed the little fucker for dinner HAHA)"

With a dramatically slow turn of my head, I looked over to the pasta booth.

I couldn't see shit.

Fuck! I was really short so I had to move a few steps so I can actually see behind the booth and the man preparing the pasta was this huge man, as Italian as they come. 80s' moustache, thick hairy arms and a red cap on his head. Wait, that's another Italian guy I was thinking of. Just take away the red cap and there he is, the man behind the pasta booth. Summoning all the undeveloped balls I had at that time, I walked towards him. He noticed me and he stopped scooping fettuccine into small plastic cups for the other cheapskate Singaporeans, his hands now on his sides.

I looked up at him, "Hello, can I have one more?" His scowl broke into confusion and then into a huge smile.

"HAHAHA Why-Ah of course-ah! You can-ah have-ah more-ah!"

He scooped me an overflowing cup of pasta and patted me on the head before waving to my parents and I walked back, all cocky now because I was making the first step towards Singaporean citizenship: Getting a second serving of free samples.

I looked back at the Italian stereotype and even though he was busy, he smile and nodded at me.

There it was, my precious first pasta experience. Hence, my decision to make my own Alfredo sauce for my dinner. Butter, milk, cheese, parsley, some more cheese and oil, wasn't hard to prepare at all, just a matter of adding the right amount. In fact, I got an idea of preparation by looking at the ingredients list on a can of Alfredo sauce in NTUC. The spaghetti was done nicely, not al dente, but good enough. I then poured my precious cream all over ~~her face~~ the spaghetti and I took a bite. My first pasta meal created from scratch.

I know it has become a trademark of mine to disappoint after dramatic build-ups but I can't do that this time, because it really tasted good. Add some mushrooms, bacon bits and maybe a few more sprigs of whatever herbs they use, and I'm ready to run that shame of a franchise, Pastamania, out of business. I'm going to call my chain "Rastamania", a reference to the unique herbs that I will be using.

I'm sorry again

2007-10-15T22:38:00.002+08:00

Totally my own fault. I just had to open up that can of worms again.

I thought I was over you,
I thought whatever we had between us was already gone,
I thought there will be no chances of it being brought out again,
I thought it won't matter, seeing you again.

I swear, my main purpose of watching Lost In Translation wasn't because of you, it's just that...I've heard so much good things about it. You being in it didn't really matter. No, not that it doesn't matter but I...just wasn't expecting to fall in love with you again.

It's not your fault that you're so hot.

I'm sorry

2007-10-13T13:46:00.001+08:00

I just woke up not too long ago and was at my computer surfing websites featuring pregnant tentacular hermaphrodite hentai porn when I heard three soft knocks on my door. I opened it, expecting my parents to be back with my lunch but instead, it was this young Malay girl who, I think is my neighbour. Yes, I can't even recognise my neighbours.

In her hands was this huge dish of Hari Raya snacks and she said, "This is for you", her braces showing in a shy and self-conscious smile. I accepted the gift and just stood there for a while, "Wow, thank you. This...is very nice of you." I don't think I have been more genuine in my life before that.

That whole gesture caught me off-guard and it really made me guilty, especially for the times when I would dump my rubbish bags at their doorstep and put plates of half-rotten rice in their shoe cabinet so the rats would gnaw on their sneakers and sports shoes. When the girl offered me the snacks, I noticed the holes in the pair of Nike's she was half-wearing like a pair of slippers and at that very moment, I knew it. I am headed for an eternity in hell where millions of patchy-furred feral rats with blood-red eyes will gnaw on every part of my body until I have repented on my racist ways.

If you really thought I did all those acts in the previous paragraph, please stop reading my blog. You obviously think I'm a bastard with no heart and I am very disappointed.

Somewhere in Novena

2007-10-11T21:49:00.000+08:00

There's this little restaurant selling fish head beehoon and it was quite a satisfying meal. And this is coming from someone who doesn't normally enjoy fish head beehoon. Anyway, I ate my lunch there this afternoon because I managed to sneak out of camp and it was quite an achievement despite me forgetting to smuggle my rifle out. (Hello, MINDEF security people, thanks for dropping by)

But this post is neither about the food (with pseudo-foodie angled photographs) nor is it about how I'm going to get sent to Room 101. What really burned into my mind was what the old cleaner lady did. She hobbled into the relative coolness of the restaurant from the ridiculously scorching weather outside and of course, she was sweating like mad. She was holding a piece of rag that was used to wipe fish bones, gravy and soy sauce from the tables. Beside her was this pail of brown-coloured water with bits of chili and other assorted now-inedible food items floating on it. Aaaand she needed to cool off.

Guess what she did?

Depending on how disgusting you actually are, your answer will vary quite drastically. If you have guessed "She dipped the rag into the murky contents of the pail and wiped her underarms with it", well done. That's the fourth level of disgustingness, above "wipe face with cloth" and below "wipe underside of floor-draggingly saggy tits with cloth". She then walked behind me to clear up the table beside mine and you know how you try to subtly hold your breath whenever someone who looks like they smell walks past? That was what I did except I took that huge gulp of breath at the wrong time.

Well, at least I now know what to think about when I want to delay ejaculation.

Perth part 6

2007-10-07T22:25:00.000+08:00

Yes, the sixth installment of my adventures in Australia. Yes, I am really milking my trip for all it's worth, which amounts to roughly S$1200. It has been three weeks since I've returned and the one thing I really miss is how cool (although chillingly so at times) and dry the air is, which means I probably had to sprint with a very pregnant cow (No Jules jokes today, I'm not an asshole) on my back for 10 minutes before breaking a bead of sweat. However, the dryness also meant that I had to make a conscious effort to moisturise my skin or else it will just start snowing onto the ground in flakes. Like how I showered my tuition teacher's desk with dandruff but that's really a story for another day.

On my last morning there, I decided to make breakfast. Oh yes, not only am I nice to my girlfriend, I make breakfast too. But please, girls, dry yourself and continue reading.

Not the most appetising photo because I was starving so I ate my way through half the...burger muffin thingy before I remembered the camera.

This might not look very appetising either because come on, it's canned salmon. But honestly, it wasn't too bad! The muffins were toasted with oil on the frying pan before being served and the eggs were...very...fluffy and...delicious...and...other...adjectives used to describe tasty food! Okay la, it wasn't anything special but compared to what Jules normally eats for breakfast, I can safely say that meal was pretty heavenly.

Below are some pictures taken at Fremantle park and they show why Australia is such a popular country for migration. People get recognised there, your efforts will not go unnoticed, you will not just be another nameless citizen.

A statue commemorating John Hobbs, the first man to look like a dick.

This statue is for Paul Benhill, who was born with his brother Edwin Benwill on his shoulder, who in turn was born with a gigantic testicle on his hands.

Not a lot of photos for this entry even though there are some more on my hard disk right now. There's this one photo of me with a very...odd expression and it's good enough to give this a run for its money but I'm not sure. Because I'm still getting comments on the photo of me wearing a dress. I WAS FORCED INTO CROSS-DRESSING AT A YOUNG AGE OKAY?

Perth part 5

2007-10-02T23:10:00.000+08:00

Ahh yes, part 5. Unlike the previous entry, I actually bothered to check where I have left off. I know, the "part...something" was ridiculously lazy.

After the pho we had in Northbridge, we had to rush back to the hostel before the last bus leaves at around 6 p.m. because the bus drivers, like all Australians, want to "CATCH SOME FOOTIE ON TV, MAAAATE". Since I wasn't intending to "CATCH SOME FOOTIE ON TV, MAAAATE", I decided to try trashy food and Chicken Teat was perfect as it was just a footie kick away from the hostel.

However, that wasn't my first taste of trashy Australian fast food. In fact, it was on the second morning in Perth when I decided to wander around alone to Kardinya (10 minutes walk away, two if you're running because of how fucking cold it gets) which was a cluster of supermarkets, mom-and-pop grocery shops and eateries.

There was this fish and chips place which looked a little fishy mainly because of the huge plastic fish ornament on the wall but also the fact that there wasn't anyone else in there. Of course, I got an order of fish and chips and it was just so bland. I'm not sure if it was due to my taste buds' constant exposure to heavily-spiced food but I honestly couldn't taste anything in the fried fish at all. It was only after I've finished a slab of the fish before realising that I need to add the vinegar and salt myself and the vinegar was stored in one of these bottles.

And it was placed on a counter, beside a piece of wiping cloth. Can you really blame me for thinking logically and not wanting to drown my fish and chips in household chemical? So, it was quite a crap meal even though Emma Watson was the one serving me and it's not because about how all white people looking the same, she genuinely looked like that girl every paedophile would give a left nut to merely dream about. But because I'm not a sick bastard, it remained a lousy experience. Maybe the guys who commented in the post about Avery will like it more than I did.

Back to Chicken Teats, I bought a Double Decker set meal for around 10SGD and I felt like I ate the best chicken burger in my life. Probably because I had low expectations for Chicken Teats because really, chicken? The most boring and generic meat you can find?

But oh no, this one was so good that they covered it with a layer of cardboard so as to surprise me when I unwrap it. "Oh what's th―the famous Chicken Treats Double Decker burger! What a surprise! My dining experience will be quadrupled now!"

I think it was the cheese melting on the fried chicken fillets that really sold the burger for me. Then again, it's not like the Double Decker is the only burger that has this combination of ingredients but it just tasted so great and I'm not even sure why. This almost balances out the fact that Australians are so "CATCH SOME FOOTIE ON TV, MAAAATE".

Even this thing that Jules ordered was good, despite it looking really sad. Yes, I just called a toasted ciabatta sandwich "sad", I think it's because of how frowny it looks. At least it tasted good, unlike the guy who sat in the corner of classrooms who was sad and NOT delicious.

Obligatory totally out-of-the-left comment made, I think this entry's complete. Time to sleep but dammit, I think I have just tempted myself to prepare a nice supper for myself.

Perth part...something

2007-09-29T12:23:00.000+08:00

Despite not buying anything, my trip to Northbridge was enjoyable because of the quirky little shops they have there. And of course, the food wasn't too bad either. We settled our lunch at this restaurant selling Vietnamese/Chinese/Singaporean/Malaysian/Burmese (AHAH dying assholes)/ Cambodian food, basically anything from all the "Bong dong fong fong dong nya nya nya" countries.

As you can see, it's an extremely popular place for the locals to eat at, we had to wait three seconds before getting a seat. The place smelled slightly of grease and the staff were practically "Bong dong fong fong dong nya nya nya"-ing to each other. The gaudy-looking SAIGON CAFE sign didn't really help the atmosphere either but I was determined to eat as much as possible in Perth so, not biggie.

I ordered beef tripe noodles and this plate of beansprouts and mint leaves arrived before my bowl of noodles. People of at least average intelligence will know, "Oh this is what I put in my soup, seeing as how raw beansprouts are not very palatable" but of course, some genius like my girlfriend will think differently. She squeezed the wedge of lemon over the raw vegetables, thinking that they just served us the appetiser and I just stared at her, "What do you think you're doing?"

"Isn't...the lemon supposed to be...squeezed-"
"No."
"...Oh. Oh."

Small mistake really, nothing compared to the bigger guffaws she has made. Speak well English, mmm?

This is the Vietnamese lemon soda I ordered, notice that it's Vietnamese hence it's different from Schweppes'. Seriously though, this is very different from the gassy lemonade we get in cans. Of course, there's lemon and soda but I think there was salt added as well. I should try to make it myself but knowing me, I will probably end up creating some mixture consisting of wine, coca cola, brown sugar, soy sauce, fish sauce and lemon juice. Yes, I have done that before and yes, I drank everything.

Jules' braised beef noodles or something. Tasted surprisingly bland despite looking rather menstrual but at least the beef was tender and soft enough to shred under the slightest pressure.

My beef noodles which tasted average until I added the fish sauce. There was a whole world of difference and now, I have newfound appreciation of the condiment which looks like tobacco spit and smells like...fish. Shit, I feel like eating pho now.

Another picture, just because.

Northbridge has tons of these shops selling vintage clothes (nicer term for "dirty-ass second hand clothes with white stains near the crotch area") . This room is on the second floor of the shop and it has nothing but ornamented furniture and clothes for sale. Can you notice the lazy clone job?

Wah lao chee bye, you're not cute la.

Of course, we had to eat again. The eclair was okay, not as good as the INTERCONTINENTAL eclair we had earlier which was FUCKING gigantic but so FUCKING delicious. I didn't get a picture of it because I was too busy burying my face in the mass of custard, cream and chocolate.
...So, I have no idea how to end this entry. Boo bee boo wah.

Part 3

2007-09-26T21:15:00.000+08:00

Back to blogging about Perth after the previous post which made my sister cry when she saw it. Doesn't matter, because I still give her shit by doing the chocolate-smeared expression every time I see her. I know, best older brother ever.

Anyway, this is Fremantle Port, where there are as many boats and seagulls as dumb Asian tourists who expect super excellent seafood just because the place's by the sea.

The place was honestly quite beautiful because of how clean the sea is despite the fact that there are boats all over the place. If the port was placed in Singapore however, the water will be filled with used tissue paper, styrofoam boxes and flattened Coca-Cola cans because we are idiots.

In fact, Jules was considering moving back to the sea because of how clean it looked. She has adjusted well to living on land since moving here a decade ago; her flippers evolved into working limbs and her blow hole somehow migrating its way onto her face, becoming nostrils.

Okay, enough talk about sea mammals. This is the Fish & Chips I ordered for $13AUD but the only thing worth writing home about was the freshness of the fish. And maybe the thickness of the fries but then again, ALL the fries I ate in Australia (and I ate quite a bit of them, trust me) were equally thick, they were probably bought frozen from K-Mart.

Jules ordered the Grilled Garfish and Tits, which was quite a bit better than what I bought. I remember the grilling adding an layer of sweetness to the already delicious garfish meat. What a mistake it was, not listening to her when it comes to ordering fish. I mean, she would know which fish tastes the best, wouldn't she?

The REAL reason why I traveled to Perth! But fuck, it was quite disappointing because of how small they were but hey, at least they were fresh. By the way, I never used the sweet chili sauce because I think it's quite a waste to eat fresh raw oysters with such an overly powerful condiment. I'm the fucking connoisseur in fine dining, bitch.

The whole spread, which cost a little too much for how it tasted but I would like to think that I paid for the great weather and sea breeze as well. And the sight of seagulls patiently waiting for you to finish before burying their dumb heads into your food.

This was taken during the meal and I think she was saying something like "Heh heh, food". While not very pleasing to look at, this expression does lend well to making images of food look more tempting. Let's see how the face can be applied.

See? The meal looks like it's worth the price now.

She's so happy, you might think that it's a plate of grilled mermaid.

Delicious-er.

Mmm mmm.

Despite my poor attempt at veiling this post's purpose of insulting Jules, I would still like to comment on how great of a girlfriend she is and I appreciate her being in my life.

My little sister

2007-09-24T20:53:00.000+08:00

Whenever I'm home for dinner, the normal routine after the meal is to disturb Avery until she gets angry or frustrated. In that case, we'll just leave her alone for an hour and she'll forget why she got pissy in the first place. It wasn't any different today but I got bored after five minutes of poking her in the sides while repeating "Fat, fat, fat" incessantly so I ended up reaching for the old photo albums.

Avery isn't exactly fat and ugly, in fact she's rather pretty because good looks, like diarrohea runs in the genes. Here's a recent photo of her praying to I have no idea what the fuck.

Wasn't lying, was I? She's definitely not ugly but Goddamn if she doesn't know how to spoil photos by being downright appalling.

]

If this was uploaded onto SFOGS, thousands of dumb secondary kids would have had the pus scared out of them.

See her expression? See the toilet lid behind her? Yup, she was crying while shitting.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA.

Okay, that was a really bad photograph. But to make it fair, in case she figures out how to use the Internet for other purposes that's not some dumbass Barbie Doll flash game and somehow finds her way to my blog, here's something to show her that this post isn't just about making fun of her.

Goodness, who is this adorable gentleman?

Show's over. I will continue blogging about Perth in my next entry, this was just an excuse to post the photo of Avery with chocolate all over her face. In fact, it kinda looks like she just ate whatever Avery in image three has produced.

EDIT:

HAHAH my sister got pissed off. To appease her, I have uploaded a very special photo of myself. I am so going to regret this someday.

Part 2

2007-09-21T15:57:00.000+08:00

One of the first things that fascinated me in Australia was the kind of wildlife that was present there. I didn't get to see any kangaroos, koala bears or any other marsupial weirdos but I did get to see quite a number of curious-looking birds. The most prominent ones were these motherfuckers, who seem to take pride in looking like twats. There were also these assholes who BLEAT when foraging for food in the ground, which honestly frightened me a little when I first heard them. Stick to chirping or singing, dammit, what kind of mutant bird BLEATS?

I apologise for not taking any photos of them because standing still in front of a large group of these freaks that evolution rejected can be quite scary. In fact, the only bird that was harmless and docile enough for me to bully into photographing was this guy:

What's the most he could do? Shit in my face? Peck at my knees? Not only are they easy to handle, they're delicious when grilled with chili.

I never knew seagulls could taste so delicious but Nando's made it possible. I ordered their signature whole seagull platter which came with their trademark Peri Peri fries which were way too salty for me. This whole thing cost around 18SGD, not too bad for the whole bird.

The seagulls were cooked very nicely, no signs of them being undercooked but the meat still remained rather soft and moist. That was the major pulling factor for me to return to Nando's twice in two consecutive days even though I could have easily eaten something else.

However, I didn't think much of the sauces Nando's was supposed to be famous for. "Extra hot" was just that, nothing else to it, even KFC's chili sauce tastes better. "Mild" was so boring that I don't even remember how it tasted like. But I would still eat at Nando's again, just for their seagulls.

If you really thought I ate seagulls at Nando's, please stop reading my blog now.

Part 1

2007-09-20T15:06:00.003+08:00

Because of how effective the Army's attempt at "National Education" is, the first thing I wanted to do during my leave was to fly/swim/dig my way to another country. And so I did, I was in Perth from the 13th to the 19th. That six-days stay was plenty enough time to get used to the climate, lifestyle and the fact that you are now a minority in someone else's country. Now, I will have to re-adjust to moist armpits, being able to find entertainment after 5p.m. and the feeling of being part of the main ethnic group again woohoopapchinesesingaporewoohoo.

There were a few reasons for deciding on Perth instead of Thailand, Vietnam or some other touristy third-world bumfuck place which has transvestites shooting AIDS-filled needles out of their manginas at pot-bellied, red-faced European men. Some reasons were greater than the others, I will let you venture which one.

The food was a refreshing change from Tekong meals which were cooked by culinary experimenters who are curious about men's maximum tolerance for saltiness and sogginess in his food. I'll go more in-depth about the food in a future post because I genuinely enjoyed the food in Perth and there is quite a number of pictures, most of them taken in a faux-foodieblog fashion.

Exploring for all the nondescript shops and places was enjoyable too. It's just too bad I didn't have more time because I wanted to really go into every single nook and tranny in Perth. Maybe next time.

Some girl who happens to be living there. Nothing much to talk about, maybe next post.

And since I already have it prepared for upload, here's a bonus picture of Jules grazing on the grass.

Hotel Rwanda

2007-09-12T23:47:00.000+08:00

I wanted to catch it when it was released in 2004 but like the United Nations, I forgot about it. Ooh, unnecessary third-person cheap shot. If you haven't seen it yet, the film's about the Rwandan Genocide, one of the bloodiest of my time but nobody really talks about it anymore probably because it took place in Africa.

Innocent people were dying left and right because they happened to be of the wrong racial groups, women reduced to sex slaves for the soldiers, children being separated from their parents, the white people (even the U.N.) leaving the country because their lives are worth more. So naturally, it was a very dark film. Ooh, inappropriate joke.

I may be on some kind of odd anti-U.N. binge now, having just read Emergency Sex and watched this. I honestly want to be that loudmouth "idealistic" idiot who goes around criticising the U.N. (or fur wearers, meat eaters, major record labels, major corporations, fast food corporations, George Bush, America) just because of some forms of media (Blatantly one-sided ads, that fatass director whose name greased past my memory, Green Day, U2, Internet) I've just consumed. Yay for popular media-fueled hate and mindless sheeps!

Emergency Sex

2007-09-12T12:07:00.000+08:00

Three UN workers get dispatched to places where people and morals were dying in the 90s': Cambodia, Liberia, Haiti, Bosnia, Liberia, Rwanda and maybe some other third world assfuck country I might have forgotten. The book follows the three's experience all the way from days when they led lives similar to ours: Get up, work, get back home and cry, to days when standing knee-deep in piles of corpses and experiencing backwards ignorance (read: female genital mutilation) were routine.

Gore, sex and guns happen to make me very happy (not together, separately) so I really enjoyed this book, so much that I finished it in less than two days. I read it while I shat, I read it while I slept, I read it while I marched, it was that captivating. More maturely, this book gives you an insight on how one of the world's most recognisable organisation operates and it will depress the more naive readers out there. Also, you lose track of what's good and what's bad.

A small African boy, high on drugs and alcohol, holding an automatic rifle. The U.N. promising prisoners a better holding place if they confess to their crimes, a father does so, confessing to contributing to the genocide and then fingering his 10-year-old son as well, of the same crime.

One more thing to note, Heidi (recently divorced and joined the U.N. because she needs a paycheque) fucks a lot of black cocks, at the rate slightly less than the number of civilians killed in the Rwandan genocide.

Yeah, that was inappropriate but that's not important. Go find the book, buy it or borrow it (I borrowed it because I'm a cheap bastard) but be prepared for people staring at you weird if you read it in public because the book's title happens to be printed in big red fonts.

Back home

2007-09-11T18:59:00.000+08:00

Finally, no more Tekong for me. Except for a trip back there for guard duty on the 22nd, fuck. So I will be updating a little more regularly now since I have so much to release from being stuck in camp almost every single day for the last seven weeks. Indeed, there is much to release and I will probably release later at night when everyone at home is asleep.

Anyway, the first thing that greeted me when I came online was my iGoogle page and since they let you add tabs to your customised homepage, I had this "Word of the Day" applet on it because it's interesting and having it will make girls moist in their no-no zones.

Today's Word of the Day happens to be:

morass	(noun) A soft wet area of low-lying land that sinks underfoot.
Synonyms:	quagmire, mire, quag
Usage:	The path from the wood leads to a morass, and from thence to a ford, which, as the rains have abated, may now be passable.

I was quite disappointed, to be honest. I thought the English language guys actually had a word for a situation like this, but it's actually just a mass of wet soil and mudskipper shit. Thank goodness no one actually uses this word in conversation or I will be getting blueballs constantly.

Surrender, Surrender

2007-09-07T22:26:00.000+08:00

Like so many things before it, the seven weeks of BMT only got better towards the very end. You genuinely start bonding with some of the people in there, making fun of Dickrinse, whom you might remember from a previous post. We have since decided to codename him "Cock Marshal" and his ability to melt into the walls whenever there is work to be done isn't really helping his reputation.

Cock Marshal is also the undisputed king of awkward situations, which you might also remember. For some reason, he likes to strut into my bunk and just sit on the chairs which are situated right in the middle of the room. We (a.k.a people who actually BELONG in the bunk) will just give each other that "What the lanjiao?" look while he continues sitting comfortably on OUR chair. We can at least take comfort in the fact that he washes himself enough not to dirty the furniture in our bunk.

There was this other time when he ~~came~~ walked into the bunk when everyone else was just chilling out or resting. Someone was playing a PSP so Cock Marshal (CM) started an incredibly involving conversation:

CM: Wah, is that a PSP?
PSP guy: ...Yes.
CM: What game you playing?
PSP guy: Bomberman. (or something)
CM: Wah.
PSP guy: Yeah
CM: ...
CM: ...

What followed this was so inspirational that I...I...I think I need TO WRITE A HAIKU!

Awkward silence, time flies by
Wah, A Pee Ass Pee?
Should have left then, you cock head

He stayed for a while more, scanning the room with his freakishly large eyes before leaving with a "Okay, bye guys!". Of course, everyone got up and shook his hand and patted his back warmly when he left because he was such a welcome guest.

2007-08-26T10:57:00.000+08:00

When you're living with such a mixed bunch of guys, there is no way not to encounter personalities that couldn't have existed in my relatively sheltered civilian life. While I'm tempted to go all out describing every social misfits I've met, I will need some restrain because this is a public blog and I still need to maintain a certain level of diplomacy because there are still two more weeks of seeing those idiots every single waking hour.

Here's something many people, even seemingly intelligent ones, do: Adjusting accents according to the other party's ethnicity.

WHY? Really, why? Is Rahman not going to understand your English without adding "sials" behind every last word and breaking up your sentences into monosyllabic sounds? Jonathan may be as white-bred as they come but damn it, he understands Singlish! Why do you need to curl your R's anymore than you do normally?

AND WHY ARE YOU SPEAKING IN A MALAY ACCENT TO AN INDIAN GUY? Just because you, Tat Seng, belong to the majority ethnic group in this country, doesn't mean that everyone else just falls under the racial group "Others" and happen to speak with the same accent.

People trying to start a conversation in the toilet

Believe it or not, I do not see the toilet as a place proper for socialising and in fact, I just want to get the fuck out of the place after I've settled my hygiene or bowel-related problems. Trying to start a talk with someone in a male toilet is one of the unspoken social taboos, right up there with picking up girls at a funeral. Unless you're one of the coffin bearers and you have to literally, you know, pick up the dead lady.

I actually had the following conversation taking place a few weeks ago:

Shitfag: HEY, YO!
Me: (Brushing my teeth) Hbrrreyy.
Shitfag: ...Yeah.
Me: (Brushing my teeth)
Shitfag: (Takes out toiletries)
Me: (Brushing my teeth)
Shitfag: (Looks at surroundings, starting to realise how much painful the whole situation is)
Me: (Brushing my teeth)
Shitfag: SO, ELECTRIC TOOTHBRUSH! Wow!
Me: (Brushing my teeth) Ygeah.
Shitfag: ...Yeah.
Me: (Done brushing) Okay I'm done bye see you later electric toothbrushes are great go get one it's cheap bye.

Also, there are people who insist on rinsing their cocks at the basins while others are using it for non-penis related purposes. Please, NOBODY wants to be reminded of your penis when we have a toothbrush and toothpaste in our mouths. It brings up very unpleasant thoughts.

I'm actually quite done ranting for today but don't worry, there are so many more stories from paradise island. I haven't even started on the Downs' yet, such as the Sikh guy whose body went "Ah fuck it" and stopped growing in size while his head continues to very enthusiastically balloon up. It's said that he once fell down and couldn't get up for an hour because of his inconveniently-placed centre of gravity. Doesn't help that he's mentally slow either, some people just get the best out of life.

On a non-Army related note, I'm glad people are still reading this blog. It's a nice feeling to come home to every weekend.

Let me inspire and motivate you

2007-08-17T16:37:00.000+08:00

Being in the Army has exposed to lots of motivational and inspirational talks, posters and messages. Obviously, they work, right? I'm sure you've seen one of those glossy posters in a workplace before. It's always a pretty photograph accompanied with optimistic messages and they also function as an indicator of the management's level of intelligence. "Durrr, pin up a mass-produced poster on the wall and my workers can increase productivity magically just by looking at it every single day? YES, SIGN ME UP!"

Pasted on one of the platoon offices is this amazingly motivating message printed on
a piece of A4 printing paper, obviously created by a very linguistically-inclined genius. It goes (in capital Times New Roman, black and white):

EVERYONE HAVE ABILITY.
IT DEPENDS ON HOW YOU USE THEM.

Because of this extremely inspirational message, I was inspired to create my own and I happened to come across this set of photographs about some guy with an obvious growth defect.

There you go, these should tide you through the days when you feel like you're receiving the short end of the stick, when you feel like everyone's looking down on you, when you feel like you're being trampled on.

Remember, EVERYONE HAVE ABILITY.

2007-08-12T11:42:00.000+08:00

Five hours later and it's Happy Happy Joy Joy Tekong Time (H²J²T²) again. My mind's in a strange state of panic now, I'm devouring every single ounce of non-Army life as much as I can.

Go through blogs in bookmarks. No updates but IT'S OKAY! IT'S GOOD ENOUGH.
Check email inboxes. No new mail BUT IT'S FINE, IT'S FINE, PERFECTLY FINE HEHEHEE.
Log into Facebook. I only have 15 friends on there but OH IT'S GOOD ENOUGH GOOD ENOUGH HEHEHEEEEEHEHEHE.

Yeah, the Army can do strange things to a young man's mind and it's definitely not instilling patriotism and fighting spirit.

Speaking of Facebook, I finally got myself an account because it gives me something else to look forward to on the weekends. But seriously, I'm surprised at how neat and user-friendly everything is. It's not like myspace because there aren't any horrible flashing backgrounds designed specially to induce seizures. Neither is it like Friendster with embedded music that you are FORCED to listen to even though the surface of your ear drums are blistering with pain. Also, surprising lack of alternate-capping! I like.

It also allows you to draw nonsense in the comments section, technology!

2007-08-11T04:45:00.000+08:00

It wasn't the easiest thing for me to say but you and I, both need to let go.
What I want now is you to stay sensible.

2007-08-10T19:38:00.001+08:00

Dandruff seems to be able to thrive anywhere, even on a fresh Army recruit's bare scalp. What seems like a logical and sensible decision of not bringing shampoo to camp resulted in really annoying head itch after a week or so. Ever since I managed to escape back to the Earthly realms on Thursday, I have Head & Shoulder'd my hair six times and thankfully, I don't have to scrape my scalp with a rake now.

This reminds me of the time my little sister (Avery) got a pretty serious case of head lice and I almost had to resort to drop her on her head with various suplexes and throws to get rid of her agony.

Avery: Ma, my hair is itchy.
Mother: (Inspects Avery's hair with fingers) I think you have kutu in your hair.
Avery: (Stupid whining sound every younger sister makes)
Father: I think she got it from school. Also, I have only one line this this whole conversation.
Mother: Avery.
Avery: Yah?
Mother: Do you have Indian friends?
Avery: (Whining sound), how can think like that?
(Short pause)
Avery: Yah, Rita.

So parents-y, my parents.

The Army is tough on Dengue fever

2007-08-09T01:52:00.001+08:00

We get briefed on preventions for Dengue fever very often because the Army sure as hell doesn't want any cases of Dengue to occur on the island where boys become men and men like boys. They always tell us to check for bodies of stagnant water or potential spots where water can gather in, the standard procedures to prevent the pesky idiots from literally bugging us.

They also briefed us about how we are supposed to wear the long-sleeved uniform instead of the short-sleeved one because of course, mosquitoes can't eat through the shirt. All these were told to us in the evening while we were all seated, surrounded by grass fields and drains. While wearing the standard attire for evenings and mornings: T-shirts and shorts.

I had to edit the grammar a little, I was getting used to not having to think.

2007-07-27T01:37:00.000+08:00

...And there she goes. In case you're wondering, of course I'm upset but to be honest, my mind's more occupied by NS at the moment so maybe the actual shock of her being gone will really hit me a few weeks later.

I have never experienced anything like this before and what hurts is the fact that we split while still in love. I remember people asking me months ago if I really loved her and I merely answered "Not really, I'll try not to anyway." but I'm stupid, that's why. The Bangkok trip really brought us closer together and it's not just because we did a lot of Bangkok all night, folks.

The chances of us not meeting were so much higher than the chances of us knowing each other, I could have easily chose to not bother about "that girl at the cafe" and she could have gone home a little earlier. If anything, this will encourage me to take every chance I get, something as wonderful as this might just happen again. Not just in terms of girls, but everything.

To those who offered a listening ear and wished me luck for NS, I really appreciate them, thanks. And to Jules, I will look back on our days together with a smile and possibly an erection as well. You go have lots of fun in Perth and I will have fun in...Tekong...as well. Fuck.

End

2007-07-26T03:27:00.000+08:00

Today was the last one spent with Jules before the two of us leave Singapore for Perth and Pulau Tekong. It's quite obvious which one's going to Australia and which one's going to Prison Island but fuck, imagine if our destinations are exchanged. We were out in town and it was for some reason, REALLY REALLY fun. Eventually though, the sense of finality hit us and while it wasn't uncomfortable or anything, it's definitely not a good feeling. To relieve ourselves, we sat down and started insulting as many ethnic groups and people with disabilities as possible and yeah, we felt so much better after that.

But seriously though, it was quite an emotional night and very understandably so. We had to break up while still in love and of course, something might still happen in the future but we're not holding our breath for it. Despite the emotional mood today, we still managed to come up with a few gems:

Jules: I'm so emotional now that anything will set me off.
Arthur: Suck my cock.

Wait, I can only remember this one but I'm going to sleep anyway so bye and suck my cock.

YES

2007-07-22T01:20:00.000+08:00

I have FINALLY gotten over my fear of swimming in a pool and can actually do so without making loud and nervous splashes now. Yes, just in a pool, which means the sea is still a giant mass of "DANGER ACHTUNG DON'T COME IN" for me. Now that I have gotten over this phobia, I plan to extinguish another very laughable fear.

Peekisatpenisphobia

Also known as the fear of peeing in a public urinal. This stemmed from an incident which still haunts me every now and then even though it happened well over a decade ago.

I was relieving myself in my primary school's toilet when an Indian boy walked in and starting peeing in the urinal next to mine. I guess I have to mention the fact that he has a badly-shaved head and this very unsettling grin which is probably still on his face now as he's serving time for offering sweets to little boys.

As I mentioned, he went to the urinal next to mine (not good in a public toilet), turned to me (really not good at all), flashed that grin (NOT GOOD ANYWHERE). Ending the tale right here would have made for a decent "Creepy guy in toilet" story but our cheeky friend fucking REACHED OUT AND FLICKED THE FORESKIN ON MY PENIS AND SAID SOMETHING WHICH I FORGOT BUT THAT'S NOT IMPORTANT WHAT THE FUCK WHY ARE YOU TOUCHING ME?

I'm guessing that he was circumcised when he was just a wee (heh) kid and the sight of a protected kuku bird somehow amused him. After that little gesture of friendship, I zipped up VERY quickly before shuffling very quickly back to my classroom. Nope, didn't bother to shake the last few drops out and neither did I care about washing my hands, these are really minor compared to having YOUR DICK TOUCHED BY A FUCKING STRANGER.

Ever since then, I have always urinated in cubicles save for a few really urgent trips. Even then, I would push my body all the way forward, creating a vacuum between my crotch and the wall so NOBODY can see or touch me. So if you see someone trying to melt into the wall in a public toilet, it's probably me and no, don't say Hi to me. Go pee far, far away from where I am. Minimum of two urinals away, far, far away.

Hot as fuck

2007-07-18T04:30:00.000+08:00

Recently, Jules put up an exceptionally glamourous photo of herself on her blog. It has gotten pretty infamous because of how inhumanly impossible it is to achieve that look. Apologies if you already have had your retinas damaged by this monstrosity of a photograph. It's also a thumbnail but I can't really blame you if you're not going to enlarge it.

Fun fact: Walruses are able to run as fast as humans!

But I thought it will be a great achievement if I can make the photo look good. After all, I have learned quite a bit about photo manipulation techniques and have done them very often while working. Photo manipulation is definitely not new as many old "ghost" photographs are actually fakes, some more polished than the rest. Most of them were achieved using double-exposure and the results can fool even experts as many of them are still being published in books and the Internet.

Even the communists made extensive use of photo manipulation. The image below shows a photograph pre- and post-manipulation.

The removed man is Nikolai Yezhov, who was once a trusted advisor to Stalin (the one scratching his nipple in the photo, he also did something less important like being Russia's leader or something). However, a dispute happened between Yezhov and Stalin so The Glorious Leader had him removed from the world. In a very Orwellian fashion, all records of him were erased and even photographs that might have led the public to even consider Yezhov as being a real person once were manipulated.

And of course, all photographs that you see in glossy magazines nowadays have gone through manipulation which ranges from something as small as removal of stray hair from a forehead to something as major as removing a good kilogramme from the model's thighs to something as subtle as turning up a pair of lips a little more so it will appear as more of a smile.

Even photos on major news websites were manipulated before being published. The photo on the left below was published in an article related to an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon. The original, untouched photo is on the right and it's just sad how half-assed the attempt was. The photographer was then dismissed as he was the one behind the untruthful editing.

So as you can see, the technique of photo manipulation can be very useful to distort the truth and a certain celebrity blogger had even admitted to using Photoshop on her photos. For what purpose, I can't really remember, probably something to do with making herself look less like a midget lian or something like that.

Let's look at the really stimulating photograph again.

We'll have to:
1) Remove that thick stroke of hair across its face.
2) Un-redden her lips a little, they make her look like a lesbian vampire.
3) Re-model her expression to a more human one.
4) Remove chin #1.
5) Remove chin #2.
6) Remove chin #3.
7) Remove chin #4.

After all these are done, the photograph will look slightly less repulsive and will become a regular "HAHA make stupid faces at camera" photo instead of a "HAHA I hate everyone and I want to blind them" one.

Easier said than done, her collection of chins proved to be a considerable challenge to my Photoshop skills but being resourceful and creative, I have done this to improve the photograph instead:

By tastefully and subtly adding Jessica Biel's magnificent ass in the original photo, I have made it more aesthetically-pleasing and scientists have confirmed that it still has heart-stopping effects on a straight male albeit in a much different way. I'm generally a breasts-man but goddamn if Jessica Biel is not making me question my faith in dem tittays.

Juliana Lau allowed me to use that sexy-as-tits photo only on condition that I post other photos of her looking more decent and I respect that, it's only fair if my readers see the less Walrus-y side of you. I have compiled a few photographs that will do her extreme beauty justice:

I love oysters...

2007-07-14T05:07:00.000+08:00

...But not when there are louse-looking creatures crawling in and out of the barnacles and holes in the shells. I saw a few tiny grey creatures moving around on my plate of jumbo (no fucking exaggeration here) oysters and at first sight, I thought they were fruit flies from the lemon wedges but damn it, they were some kind of weird sea louse bug.

We sent an oyster back, fully expecting a refund or apology of some kind but the waitress came back with the excuse "Orh because you are supposed to taste the ocean that's why got these insects don't worry it's normal lor." Fucking brilliant, she will be a worthy addition to any company's PR department.

With that being said, I finished up the oysters anyway. Weren't that fresh but hey, oysters.

Hell

2007-07-13T03:50:00.000+08:00

I will be going to hell if I actually believe in it.

2007-07-08T04:10:00.000+08:00

I'm feeling really brash and ballsy now, I feel as though I can just fly off to some faraway city and start a new life there right now. That is what I would do if I didn't have to, you know, enlist in three weeks' time. Jules is flying off on the same day I enlist too, how incredibly dramatic! The reason why I linked her blog is because it's something I would read even if she's not my girlfriend. I will then be one of the many weirdos who stalk her blog and then appearing once in a while in her tagboard like some scaly mutant creature living in the sewers coming up to the human world once every few weeks. I know, really good analogy.

Also, my bus driver fell dozed off last night (it was a post-midnight bus service). I pressed for the bell once and the bus went straight past my stop. I pressed it the second time, no reply and I pressed it a few more times in much quicker succession before I walked to the front of the bus, very angrily may I add, to check on him. The fucker had his eyes shut and when I woke him up, he kept apologising to me, even adding a "Sir" behind every sentence. I just told him to take care of himself and got off before he had the chance to drive the bus into a HDB block.

I didn't feel like I could have cared any less for the other passengers on the bus, I may be the most ethical person I know.

Oom

2007-07-05T01:08:00.000+08:00

Bangkok was an enjoyable experience although I would have done more exploring if I had the choice. The shopping and eating (the cockles salad was SO fucking good) were good but the real fun was in talking to other people.

This cab driver and I were having a pretty friendly conversation and we got to the topic of his daughter and the following ensued:

Me:

So what's your daughter's name?

Driver:

Oom. Her name is Oom.

Me:

Oh, what does that mean?

Driver:

Oom is like *makes cupping gesture with hands, like carrying a baby*

Jules & I:

(Oh how sweet.)

Driver:

Oom is also like how you *cupping gesture* your girlfriend.

Jules & I:

(WHAT THE FUCK???)

I'm sure there are other things to write about but I can't seem to recall anything right now, other than the bloody delicious cockles salad.