Talk Cock Summit

Christmas

2011-12-31T12:24:00.001+08:00

The chance to thank someone for nothing in particular without getting all awkward

The Authoritative Dummies' Guide to Ipoh

2011-12-21T16:58:00.000+08:00

There is only one place where there are flights into Ipoh Airport, and fortunately enough for me, that is Singapore. There are only two airlines serving this route. One is Malaysia Airlines, and the other is Firefly. This trip is the first time that I have heard of Firefly, and it is also the first time I have sat on a propeller airplane. This plane did not even need a separate gangway. The plane door opened downwards into steps and those were enough to reach the ground.

The good thing about such a small plane is that I can close my eyes and imagine it is my private jet. Yes, I'm not the very demanding kind, a small cozy private jet will do. Of course, the fact that I just stepped out from the skanky Budget Terminal somewhat spoils that illusion. The Budget Terminal is designed not to look good. If it did, nobody would pay to dock their planes at the other terminals. I find immense similarities between hospital corridors and the corridors of the Budget Terminal. When there are windows, they are small and narrow. The linoleum floor looks sticky and bare. And then there is always the delay. But these are trifling matters, and all is forgotten once i get on the plane.

If you take a plane to Hong Kong from Singapore, for example, the plane seems to go right out into the sea, goes up, all that can be seen are clouds, and then I go to sleep. But on this flight to Malaysia, as the plane makes its way north-west, I can see the entire Singapore on one side. Not half of it if the plane had flown right on top of Singapore, but the entire country from coast to coast as the plane flew along the northern coast of Singapore. A sobering sight that says without words how small Singapore is. Meanwhile, on the other side, Malaysia stretches as far as the eye can see.

Normally, at Singapore airport, when planes land, they brake, and then they slowly taxi around while saying 'please keep your seatbelts on yadayada'. And even when it stops, everyone stands in anticipation with the luggage in hand waiting for them to connect the walkway and open the doors. At Ipoh Airport, the plane just brakes, stops right there, and then it's 'You people get the fuck out'. No need for parking, no need for walkways, nice and simple.

And when you walk out, it's just lepak. No rolling meadows or beautiful landscapes that might imply tedious maintenance, just some messy plants and low-rise buildings that look like they could be there forever. The town probably looked the same 40 years ago, with the same shophouses selling the same things. Getting around without a car is like being physically handicapped. Walking for distances longer than from the parking lot to your destination in Ipoh is like cycling to your destination in Singapore. It's just not designed for it. In many places, there is a lack of pavement.

Like many other places in Malaysia, the food is the standout point. Even to someone like me for whom food is mere sustenance that we shit out at the end of the day (or the start of the next day), the food was good enough to merit a place in my memory. The enormous prawns at a seafood restaurant were awesome, as was the white coffee at the birthplace of OldTown White Coffee. It was way better than the ones at the chain stores.

And there I was being a parasite to society for the few days. It is remarkable how the day flies by just by having three square meals a day.

Hot bods!

2011-12-13T22:03:00.004+08:00

Have you seen them?

They're the Raffles Institution Waterpolo.. no, of course not. They are professional A&F models hanging around Orchard Road.

Though I must say, it does remind me of my younger days LOL. If you had attended the "A" Division waterpolo finals in 2007, you'd find that the 13 men who stood back there at the CCAB pool were actually better than this. (I wasn't one of them, disclaimer.)

And they had more flesh to show! Wearing sexy trunks instead of these ugly red long pants.

So all the girls who rushed down to take photos with them - you are misguided. You have had the chance back then. What's more, those waterpolo hunks could have even been your boyfriends, which means 24/7 free show! Compared to these people who only stand around at Orchard Road, and who expect you to go all the way down to take a photo?

Now you're thinking, "damn, I want a waterpolo hunk."

Needless to say, the waterpolo story was all in the past. If you want to email me asking for my network of waterpolo friends, I'm sorry to add that most of them are quite fat now haha.

On a side note, imagine if those who paraded there were females?

Aware would have a field day. They'd call up and write to the papers and give retarded comments about 'objectifying' women and all that claptrap. Hey, shouldn't I be complaining that men are used as marketing tools?

Something to think about, huh? It's a strange world, indeed. But I'm too lazy to complain, so I'm off to sleep.

People don't mind being in prison as long as no one else is free

2011-12-09T01:12:00.000+08:00

Lol. Just like how NS hasn't resulted in open revolt because everyone is doing it.

Immortals may live forever, but they sure don't make sense

2011-12-02T16:53:00.002+08:00

FREE AT LAST. Until the next semester starts, that is. But the manacles are off for now, and there is no time to waste. The International Shake Leg Movement (ISLM) awaits.

But yes, the movie review. Immortals is the story about the son of a whore who goes on to become a god. Because the story is inherently messy and confusing, allow me to split it into different parts for you.

The movie begins with a riddle. There are four ladies in sexy dresses. Only one of them is a virgin. But they all claim to be virgins (lol right there). The virgin among the four can tell the future. That means if you know who that is, you get a virgin, and a fortune-teller. Two in one, good deal. In this kind of lame movie, the virgin is confirm the most chio one. I know, that doesn't make any sense to me either. ARE THE MEN BLIND?

Then, the narrator says that she'll lose the ability to see the future once she gets laid. In literature, that is called foreshadowing. It means that she's going to get laid soon. And I was right! My literature teacher is going to be so proud. So after she got laid, she couldn't peep into the future anymore. The Virgin Oracle was neither a virgin nor an oracle by that point. In the grand scheme of things, that made her pretty useless. Right until the last part of the movie, where she gave birth to a boy. In summary, all the VO did was get laid and give birth. Better not let AWARE watch this movie.

An interesting side-plot is that of the traitor Lysander. Thinking that he would be rewarded by the villain if he defected, he got a rude surprise when his balls said hello to a sledgehammer. That was nasty. And throughout the movie, the villain(I think his name was Hyperion), offers a masterclass on torture techniques. They range from eye-gouging to boiling, and if you like analysing the gory splitting of body parts, this is the show for you.

The final part of the story is that of the Greek Gods, especially Zeus, who has no notion of the idea that prevention is better than cure. He is plainly a retard and this movie's portrayal is like having the Mythbusters debunk Greek mythology. In the movie, Zeus killed his own son Ares for interfering with human affairs. All Ares wanted to do was to help the Theseus(the protagonist) stop Hyperion from releasing the Titans. In the end, because of Zeus' retardation, the Titans were released, and all the Gods died except Zeus. The Greek Gods are not very god-like.

You may have noticed I haven't talked much about the protagonist Theseus, because he didn't do much. He fought, yes, but that became banal after a while. If all these parts don't seem to link up to a story, yes, that was exactly the feeling I got after watching the movie. Theseus' rise to become a god was not deserved at all. Maybe one day, the boy you see trawling the lorongs of Geylang will be the next prime minister.

WANTED

2011-11-30T01:07:00.002+08:00

OH HE TOUCH YOUR TRALALA

The Second Coming

2011-11-28T17:04:00.002+08:00

Just as I have decided to come back to write texts, some bookstore out there have decided to stop selling them.

So you're looking at the image, thinking "wow that's pretty". Yea, I gotta admit, it's pretty.. useless. And as of today I happen to be the not-so-proud owner of eight cards. You know how they say "not one.. not two.. BUT THREE yadda yadda?"

Well for my case there is not one, not two, not three.. BUT EIGHT CARDS. What am I going to do with them?

Six years have gone by since my first post - and I have gained a lot more knowledge about the world. For instance, I know that this gift card is a liability on their balance sheet. They owe me the value of all my eight cards.

But what happened? On the dying days of Borders, the company decided to announce that they were NOT going to accept any gift cards, thereby rendering the plastic on my hands useless. I wasn't exactly an emotional wreck, but hey, that was $100 lost.

I once went into Borders thinking of what to use the cards on. At that point the bookshelves were sparse, and they were a month away from administration. Of course I didn't know it at that time - otherwise I would have just bought.. I don't know, something.

Heck, I'd even buy The Dummies' Guide On How Not To Get Scammed By Companies About To Close Down.

Unfortunately, that didn't materialise. I thought, let's wait for a restock. And today I have eight cards that I can't bear to throw away.

Lesson learnt: Money isn't yours until you've spent it. So true.

The story doesn't end here, however. I am still miffed at how Borders could simply refuse to accept these gift cards as payments. The cards might even help them get rid of their books and prevent obsolescence. They were simply being unreasonable.

So in a huff, I openly told all those around me who bothered to listen, that I would sincerely hope that this stupid company closes down. Hope their lousy business winds up.

Oh wait..

The Happiness Equation

2011-11-14T03:09:00.000+08:00

There are 29342059802938402938029384 stars in the sky. There are 6974000000 people here on earth. And there are 9 days left to the final examinations. The typical reaction is 'Fuck'. But it is unhealthy to be so negative. God only took 7 days to create the world. With 9 days left, a palpable sense of optimism still hangs in the air. That's right. Don't make allowance for dead chicken before they hatch.

It is at this still-high point, before descending into the depths of the valley of doom, that one wonders about happiness. What does it take to stay on cloud number nine? Why do people fall into the depths of despair? Do we have an equation for this? Indeed, many a philosopher has attempted to rationalise it. Some say that it depends on the happiness of others. Some give a list of 100 factors that influence happiness. Some say it is Biological Set Point + Conditions + Voluntary Activities. The last one merits some explanation. Having the Biological Set Point means that some are more predisposed to be happy than others. Conditions are things that are more constant over time, while voluntary activities are the things that supposedly make us happy because we choose to do them. But this seems wrong. Sometimes, I don't even know why the fuck I'm walking around like I've got the biggest balls in the world. Like a boss. Sometimes, the exact same conditions can generate different moods. When I walk through Bedok, my thoughts have ranged from 'biggest old folks home and asylum in singapore' to 'quaint old town with character'. And sometimes, voluntary activities like plucking up courage to step out of the comfort zone just backfires like a missile gone wrong.

I am relieved when Prof YJ of Lepak101 fame says the academic consensus has long been that HAPPINESS= REALITY / EXPECTATION. This is simple enough to understand. At this time and place, at least, grades are the most relevant example. If I only expect to pass, and the reality is that I get a B-, then it will feel like a stairway to heaven. Happiness has a value of more than 1.

So is that all there is to happiness? About setting expectations low? Yes, but that is the hard part. Can you tell the perennial overachiever that all he should expect is to pass? He may tell you that is exactly what he expects, and he wouldn't be lying (A+ is still passing), but burgeoning ambition and the perfectionist streak must inevitably inflate his subconscious expectation. When he doesn't get his A+, it's still the highway to hell. At this point, managing expectations seems to be the key. We could just alter our subconscious expectations.

But altering our subconscious expectation is like tearing away a part of our soul. Voldemort could do it, but maybe not mere mortals like us. This subconscious expectation is such a part of us it might even be in the DNA. So you might blame your parents. Anyway, in the hierarchy of deep-seated beliefs, this one is so deep that to drag it out would be to turn you inside-out. Have you tried unconverting a Christian? Yes, it's going to be harder than that.

Fortunately, there is a way other than to alter the subconscious expectation. I wouldn't post this here if we didn't have a happy ending. We have talked about the Expectation part of the equation. The magic happens in the other part, which is reality. Admit it, you didn't think we could change reality. But we can. With a magical tool called self-delusion that, if powerful enough, washes away all the pains and sorrows.

So let's say a chick tells you 'You're ugly'. That reality is probably lower than your expectation, which is 'Hey I'm no Brad Pitt, but I'm above average (Note: EVERYBODY thinks they're above average)'. So reality is lower than expectation, which would lead your happiness ratio to be less than 1. Here's where self-delusion kicks in. You just think of a reason why it's not true she thinks you're ugly, and of course then it hits you...she was talking to the dude behind you!

And there you have it, the key to happiness is self-delusion.

Eminem Saving the World, One Life at a Time

2011-11-05T22:06:00.000+08:00

Toiling like a slave for half a mod

2011-11-05T01:20:00.001+08:00

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted

2011-10-22T00:06:00.000+08:00

It was with great regret that I found myself surfing through http://iwastesomuchtime.com while the pile of work was left untouched at the side. Alas, regret is not the best motivator, as I have experienced. Regret is a self-propagating beast which brings about much sadness without engendering any behavioural improvement, leading to more sadness. And because I was sad, I continued my noble quest to devour and hoard every joke online.

I never cease to amaze myself how I fail to do the things I should be doing.(the right thing is usually studying) Indeed, I was horrified to find out that sometimes, I go out of my way to fail. Study late at night? Nah that's bad for my health. Watching Southpark? Sure, all work and no play makes jack a dull boy. Read stupid online news? Yea of course my mum always told me current affairs are important. In such situations, my powers of self-deception are considerable. I am at the guru level for self-deception. On a sidenote, self-deception is also an important key to the door of happiness.

I have tried improving myself. Like many, I've made promises that 'I will work harder next semester', only to find out that really, every semester is the same. If deductions are made for the time I've been reading random articles online, checking out the SingaporePools odds, enjoying long lunches, having afternoon naps, etc, I've actually been working pretty darn hard. And then the source of the problem dawns on me. Not that I want to shift the blame la, but other people have been working harder. That's it. Other people are the problem. Let's talk about them now.

The library is where honest people go. They admit that they have a problem concentrating on studies, and they head for the quiet refuge of the library, where as in a drug rehabilitation centre, old habits are curtailed in a sterile environment and cold turkey is served.(if the school cafe doesn't yet serve it, it should) The theory goes that the pressure of seeing everyone else study is sufficient to make one do the same. But I want to smoke my weed. Rehab? Nah life is short, you know, got to enjoy it. I am also seduced by the flights of fantasy that take me places when I'm distracted. And taking these flights is how my imagination and creativity develop. I believe it because that is what I want to believe. I delude myself.

And I am not the only one. iwastesomuchtime.com is a popular website. People who can justify wasting their time are clearly self-delusional. Regardless, my regret and my hunt for online entertainment continues. But the most prescient and comforting quote also came from the said time-wasting website. It is the title of this article. You can't believe how much I wish it's true.

The Miracle of Thought

2011-08-13T17:06:00.000+08:00

It is with the greatest reluctance(almost as reluctant as Tony Tan to run in the presidential election) that I add another post here. Because it means pushing my previous post further down into the depths of oblivion that is known as the Talkcocksummit archives. But the urge to write, like Wikileaks, knows no masters. It has resulted in prison time, in infamy and in outright condemnation (like dawn yang, if nobody condemned her, I'm condemning her RIGHT NOW). I am consumed by the said urge, it has swallowed me whole, and the result is that I am sitting in front of the screen not doing anything productive but rather unloading my crappy thoughts onto the public domain for your dissection and analysis.

By dissecting my writings, you analyse my thoughts. Most people would agree that writing is an accurate reflection of thinking, because you have to think what you write. You cannot make a coherent sentence simply by choosing random words from the dictionary. They say a team of monkeys can eventually produce the entire works of Shakespeare. Wait long long. But what exactly is my point about writing and thinking? Find out after the break!

Right, we've had the break, my point is simply that I have been teaching the high art of essay-writing. If she ever comes up with some creature resembling Talkcocksummit, I would be the proudest. But firstly, I gotta teach the writing. And as anyone and everyone who has ever been a tuition teacher will know, asking "Do you understand?" inevitably brings about a "Yes" answer. And next comes the blank stare that shatters all notions of intellectual triumph that one might have had. Therein lies the problem. Writing reflects the maturity of thinking, so the thinking has to be of a good standard. But how do you make a person think a thought?

Although not exactly relevant, the problem is compounded by the standing of people (undergraduates) who teach English or essay writing. We have the moral standing that is right down there with the Viagra peddlers and the Nigerian bankers. I put it down to jealousy. They think all it involves is being there and teaching what is already inside my head. Little do they know of the philosophical implications that I have to grapple with. The whole situation only lays bare how little we know of learning and thinking. Something so integral and yet so mysterious. Like having noodles everyday only to find out eventually that they are the hair of mermaids. Alright time to stop I'm scaring myself.

The Secret to Slimming Down - REVEALED!

2011-04-28T00:00:00.000+08:00

The most effective way to slim down, wondrous in its simplicity, stunning in its ingenuity, timeless in its practicality, is to SHIT MORE

This has got to be the most obvious solution ever. What slimming facial, slimming spa, all useless! The Shitmore® treatment is a wholly natural treatment, requiring no toxic medicine, no visits to the clinic, and no massage by lecherous men. It is based on pure irrefutable mathematics and solid science research, namely that the weight of a person must be equal to input minus output.

Take a patented Shitmore laxative twice a day, at breakfast and at dinner, and then watch that fat ass shrink!

How to save money for the next valentine's day

2011-02-15T02:47:00.000+08:00

I say the next valentine's day because it's already over. But learning is a lifelong journey and I learnt something today. That people still send anonymous gifts at the university level. Wow. I thought these people were extinct. I thought this only happened in primary school when more people were shy. I thought that desperation would have squashed the shyness into a little ball of irrelevance. But I was wrong. So wrong that you can actually make a business out of it.

You probably think this doesn't concern you. I'm telling you it does. The money from the hordes of anonymously deprived admirers could seriously grease the wheels of your love train. Assumption number one is that the person you're after has at least one anonymous admirer willing to send flowers, gifts, etc. Those sweet lovey-dovey things that ironically cost a bomb. Assumption number two is that you're a bit of an asshole and you don't mind taking credit for what other people do. Which means that you're pretty common. So what do you do after finding out that the special someone has received anonymous gifts? Go ahead and take credit for them, they'll never know. How?

You could walk up with a swagger and say, "hey baby, did you like those heart-shaped marshmallows I sent you?" but that wouldn't make sense if she has any brains. If you're sleazy enough to say that, you wouldn't have given anonymously.

The situation calls indeed for the most subtle diplomacy, worthy of Bismarck himself. You could tell a well-meaning friend, "I really hope she likes the marshmallows", and then it would spread like wildfire. And then you can 隔岸观火.

Work some magic and maybe sparks will fly.

So here's a summary of the deal. For a tiny bit of your soul, you get to save up, get love, and get laid. Schweet!

Design means just for show

2011-02-07T22:49:00.000+08:00

Recently, I came across this advertisement at MRT stations.

And it's absolutely hideous! But let's just dissect why this monstrosity irks the senses. First, you have BANGS! on a guy! I would assume that with so much money to spend on the clothes, he could at least afford a haircut more decent than what his mother could do with a bowl.

Then, the many layers of clothing just look weird. C'mon, this is an advert in Singapore, where a mankini is sufficient. Maybe they don't wanna spend money on different on models for the different pieces of clothing, and hence all the clothes on one guy. This is way too cheapskate.

2 black bags of around the same size! What's the purpose of that? If I were a security officer at the MRT, I would make sure I tear apart the bags. What use could there be other than to leave one of them behind as a bomb and to continue to go to work?

Anyway, this guy looks ill at ease with all the stuff on. I think the whole look will be more congruent if he's given a changkoe and some work overalls. And maybe some sheep would be good. Hm I wonder what's the background supposed to be? An airport? Well if he's gonna get run over by a plane and die, I suppose he'd want all his possessions with him. This Picard advertisement sucks without a doubt.

In Shanghai, I had the chance to go to their bookstores, some of which had some great books on web design. So being a cheapskate, I decided to just jot down some webstores used as positive examples in the books, on my handphone. The tragic thing is that most of these webstores no longer exist, which may simply be proof that, having a nice website might not be that important after all!

Translation King

2011-02-03T14:37:00.001+08:00

bittersweet = 先苦后甜

And so, having bitter gourd and then drinking coke is bittersweet.

Tuition blues

2011-01-22T00:11:00.002+08:00

I like to make parallels between the students I take for tuition and Premiership clubs. This is due to my firm belief that as the students' tutor, I make a direct impact on their academic lives, and can therefore be likened to being the manager of this club.

My first student was like Aston Villa Football Club (when they used to be under Martin O'Neill). Not a bad student, but definitely what you wouldn't be calling good as well. They would chase for a top-half finish, and they certainly don't have relegation (= passing) worries.

I went in at a good time, when he was languishing in the bottom half of the Premiership. Like what O'Neill did at Villa, I moved him from scraping relegation to challenging for As.

Unfortunately, I did not get a chance to do an O'Neill on him (ie walk out on the club). The season ended, and so did my contract. There was no renewal - and like the great Business Law student that I am (my other part-time occupation, apart from football manager), I knew I had no case, so I silently left.

My second student was Wigan Football Club. Relegation threats are constant, and the players just don't have the heart to play football. (He didn't feel like studying.)

Until they realise there are only 3 games left in the league.
(Until he realises there are only 3 weeks left to O levels.)

I was called in to do emergency rescue, and he secured a B4 for his O levels. Not the best of results, but there's only so much you can do with Wigan. He moved on to Poly, and as I only wanted to manage Premiership (secondary school) clubs, I had to bid him goodbye.

After these two stints, my agent decided to go one better and sign me up with Chelsea Football Club. This one was a major disaster. I was like Claudio Ranieri dealing with troublesome Chelsea players with an attitude.

See, Chelsea under Ranieri thought they were good - but evidently not THAT good, since they didn't win jack under him. After a while, Chelsea declared themselves independent of a manager. I was fired.

Today I took on my fourth club, and from the title you know it won't be Arsenal or Manchester United.

Well but I'm tired now, so that will be for another time.

Stay tuned.

How to get rid of bad luck

2011-01-17T15:03:00.006+08:00

You know, sometimes the title misleads people into believing that it is descriptive of the content. For instance, did you know that "Spirits Having Flown" by the Bee Gees does not have the word "spirits" in the song at all?

Maybe that's artistic, or maybe that's bullshit.

But I can assure you what I'm going to write next is the latter - so you have been warned.

How to get rid of bad luck.. you can't. You will just have to sit and wait for it to go away. Let me illustrate this with a real-life example: me.

To say I've had a bad week would be funny. It wasn't just bad, it was so bad beyond bad that it had to be bad luck. If your week sucked, some self-reflection might have put the fault with yourself. But if your week REALLY sucked, then you can attribute it to bad luck.

I don't know where to start, but these are the things that happened last week:

I shortlisted 4 stocks and chose to buy one. The other three went up while the one I bought plummeted five cents. Maybe that's my fault.

I was fired by Roman Abramovich aka some smart boy's mother. The smart boy happened to be my student. All right, maybe that was my fault too.

My unit trusts suffered losses. Maybe that's my fault - since I could have chosen not to buy them and let my money accumulate 0.1% interest in the bank. Or was it 0.01%? Can't remember, but you get the drift.

The Euros which I was holding went down as well.

And I have a total of thirty-one new mosquito bites as of last week. This is NOT a joke. So maybe this is also my fault, since I could have slept in FBO (full battle order) and gloves.

And I was half an hour late for lectures because of massive jams that were previously unbeknown to me. Okay so MAYBE that was ALSO my fault because I could have left the house half an hour earlier.

Putting all these situations together, my fault factor is so high that it becomes clear to any ordinary bystander that there must be some other factor involved. No one can be that much at fault. Contrary to popular belief, faults are like mathematics, it can be undefined at times. I'll leave that for another day.

Simply put, it just had to be bad luck. Christians would claim something along the lines that I was being tested - I guess that works as well.

ANYWAY.

Saturday rolled along, and Saturday means Premiership night.

I have a habit of betting on draw matches, as does YL. We have been playing it for a while. I told him that with my abysmal luck, there was no way I was going to win any bets this weekend.

And by extension, since my luck was abysmal, if I wasn't going to bet, the result would turn out exactly to be a draw. (hence making me pissed off that I didn't bet)

YL was going to place the bet. I told him that I would cause him to lose if I did, so I decided to save my money and his.

Later that night, Wigan 1-1 Fulham

Exactly as envisioned.

Moral of the story? If you have bad luck, recognise it and admit you can't do anything about it. It's a bit (actually a lot) like serving National Service really, and they even have a term for it - "suck thumb". Once you've accepted your fate, things become much easier.

Life is a zero sum game. For every loser there is a winner. While you are condemned to being a loser, make sure one of your friends is the one benefitting from it. Although I might sound like I'm trying to claim credit, I believe that I helped YL win his bet this weekend.

Even if I didn't, the idea still remains.

If you know someone is always wrong and makes all the wrong decisions - it automatically follows that going a different path from him would make for a better choice. (assuming two choices)

So even though you can't get rid of bad luck, you can channel good luck elsewhere. Just don't channel it to Singapore Pools, they're the major propagator of bad luck.

Profound question of the day

2011-01-15T23:31:00.000+08:00

Why are open-top dustbins round in shape? - yj and I
Is it just so that people can miss by throwing it into the gap between the round dustbin and the corner of the wall? Was the first dustbin designed by aliens?
These are all perfectly important questions that must be answered by mankind. Yet, a cursory search of the exact phrase on Google yields no results. Mankind has been asking all the wrong questions.
So it's up to me to put forth my theory.
Maybe, we've all been conditioned to treat open-top round containers as dustbins. Thus, if you leave a round bucket in the middle of a public area, you're likely to get some idiot spitting into it. But if you put a open-top square container there, it might just be treated as an art installation! Hence, the manufacturers make round dustbins so that the dustbins will not be confused for something else, such that they can fulfill their true destinies as dustbins.
However, why do we treat open-top containers as dustbins in the first place? It is highly possible that it was mentioned somewhere in the Bible. It is also possible that the first dustbin was a gift from a higher being. For purely rational reasons, I prefer the second explanation.
It goes like this. The world was once clean and dust-free. Then, a higher being bequeathed to mankind two things: Dust and a open-top round dustbin (to hold the dust of course). The higher being must have done this because he was bored. Blogging probably didn't exist then. Well, dust in those days was one big vast mass that was round in shape. The higher being said, "Do not touch this mass of dust. If you touch it, it will disintegrate and drift all over the earth". That also happened to be the moment reverse psychology was invented. To cut a long story short, some asshole decided to touch it, and in so doing became the first terrorist. The dust drifted all over the world, and we have been manufacturing round open-top dustbins to contain the dust ever since.

Quote of the day

2011-01-14T00:45:00.000+08:00

"If I don't make myself happy, nobody's going to do it for me" - I think yj mentioned it, but it just popped into my head again.

It's probably true for both those with friends and those without. You can't be a miserable blackhole where happiness goes to die everyday, else your friends will find that you're just not friendly. The nicest of friends will have trouble cheering up someone who just wants to be down. After all, gravity is everywhere.

Q: What would Marilyn Monroe be doing if she were alive today?
A: Scratching at the lid of her coffin.

Another one that just popped up. I think it's from the Fight Club book.

This is so awesome!

2011-01-12T22:36:00.000+08:00

Talkcocksummit has more than 100k pageviews! Omg champagne freeflow jizz in my pantsss! Although I have to admit that those last 10k or so pageviews were akin to a fat and saggy marathoner crawling towards the finishing line and the Milo van.

But of course, it's not the pageviews that actually matter. It's that you're still reading this, and that is truly heartwarming. There is absolutely nothing better than this on a cold winter night, and Singapore is rather cold right now, what with rain every single day. I shall carry this fuzzy feeling with me as I embark on my latest intellectual adventures.

Random Quotes

2011-01-12T22:08:00.000+08:00

"Faith is seeing what can't be seen" - from the Christian book that the dude beside me on the train was reading. I kid you not.

Right up there with "What is the colour of the white horse?"

Random quote

2011-01-10T22:20:00.000+08:00

"Nothing is fun until you're good at it"

Hi, I just need a minute of your time...

2010-07-13T13:31:00.000+08:00

Touts. Fucking touts. From shopping surveys to 'charity' tickets to scams. They always say, "Can I have a minute of your time?" Well, my very polite answer is NO! It's a blazing injustice that I give my time for free and they make money off it. That's like charity except that you're donating to corporations who shouldn't be asking for them. For example, each time you help them complete a survey, the company is being paid to conduct a survey. Each time you buy a 'donation ticket', you're paying the company helping to sell those tickets. The touts are taking advantage of everyone's good nature with their insidious schemes.

If they want our time, they should buy it. For example, when you take a taxi instead of bus, you're buying time. Let's say it takes a $12 taxi ride to get from my home to the city and it does so in 15 minutes. The same trip by bus and train takes $2 and 35 minutes. Thus, I pay $10 for 20 minutes. That's 50 cents a minute, enough to make an international call. That's just one of the metrics for the value of time. If they can't afford my time, well, then they should let me sulk my way home peacefully after a hard day of whatever I've been doing that day. And let me eat peacefully at the hawker centre.

Sure, life is tough. But stealing my time is like stealing my money. Do we condone robbers and thieves? No, we say 'good riddance!' and throw them in jail. That's Singapore.

Win at soccer betting

2010-06-16T16:28:00.000+08:00

This revolutionary new strategy involves spreading risk around.

For example, YJ tells me that the odds for Germany topping their world cup group started at around 1.47, means for every $10 you put in, you get $4.70 in profit if you win.

Now the odds are at 1.10, so you only profit by a dollar if you bet $10 now.

Assuming I foresaw that the odds for Germany to be group winner would drop, I would bet when the odds open at 1.47.

Seeing now that the odds at Singapore Pools are at 1.10, I would hang around a Singapore Pools outlet and offer to sell my ticket to smart punters for $12. The total sum of money the ticket earns if Germany is the group winner is $14.70, and $14.70/$12 is 1.225, thus I am still offering better odds than Singapore Pools at this time.

I would only earn $2 instead of $4.70 if i do the above, but I don't have to wait to see if Germany is group winner. $2 in hand is better than $4 in Singapore Pools. Ok so this is a bad example because Germany is going to be group winner, but you get the idea.

This strategy means that you don't have to guess if the vuvuzela sound waves will propel the Jabulani world cup ball into the net. You just have to figure out which bets are the more popular ones. Damn this is totally a lesson in quantitative finance.

Experience sharing

2010-06-05T23:16:00.002+08:00

I am an advocate of experience-sharing. That way we can all learn from one another and not to make the same stupid mistakes we all have gone through. One learns best through his own mistakes, however, and here are my reflections..

The Renovation
In one of my weekly visits to my grandma's, i found a notice pasted next to the lift on the ground floor. i glanced through it and the gist of the notice was to announce that re-screeding works (whatever that was..) were to commence on 5th june, lasting about two weeks.

and all that yada yada, sorry for the inconvenience caused, etc. BUT right at the bottom, someone scrawled "請用華語" exactly as it is here, in 繁體字.

i realised he/she made a good point, for there was no chinese version of the letter. so being a good bilingual samaritan, i took out my pilot pen and started scribbling out a brief translation.

i was about to complete the first sentence when a lady appeared behind me, looking disgusted. bet she thought i was some vandal. and the lift arrived so i stopped what i was doing and went in. she continued to stare at me.

lesson learnt: 好心沒好報

which naturally leads to 別多管閒事

The Strategy
I have a friend S who is a soccer connoisseur. Actually, we both are. This means we appreciate watching football matches and considering their outcomes. we enjoy debating over the possibilities of win, lose and draw.

after some thorough research, the draw rate was found to be around 28% (go calculate it yourself if you don't believe me). this means 3 draws out of every 10 matches. i gingerly placed a bet for 10 matches, and none of them ended up in a draw.

lesson learnt: SOCCER IS NOT MATHEMATICS

..and i'm going hungry for the next few days hahaha.

The Magic of Photoshop

2010-05-19T22:46:00.000+08:00

Before:

After:

My view

2010-05-18T00:15:00.006+08:00

In YL's essay on Mother Tongue, he mentioned in the second paragraph that the self-serving English-speaking "persuasive" people are "Very persuasive, indeed, almost as persuasive as my guinea pig."

Thought you guys might like to know that his guinea pig is dead.

Well, unless you are Zhang Yang in the latest Channel 8 serial 我在你左右, I guess you can't be persuasive at all as a dead person.

I was toying with the idea of writing to the ST forums on this topic since retards with "5% logic, 20% personal example, 20% fallacy and 55% emotion" can already write in. But YL is not a man of harsh words, and what I read was more like 110% emotion and -10% logic, so much so that I've forgotten how to argue logically after reading one too many letters in the forum.

I bet the editors sometimes publish these asinine letters for a kick. After all, humour definitely sells better than logic (let's see, who's richer and more famous - Subhas Anandan or Russell Peters?)

Most people are logical, but not everyone can be comical. Although I must say after reading the forum page more regularly in the ST, I am inclined to start doubting my first line. Seems as though the balance is swinging towards the other way, albeit unintentionally.

To me, the whole situation is simple. You can only do a few things.

1) Lower the MT weightage in PSLE

2) Let it remain as it is

3) Raise the MT weightage in PSLE

4) Do it O level style and let students take their three best subjects

Item 1 sounds fairly logical, but only in the eyes of those who are weak in Mother Tongue. I was fairly weak in Chemistry back in school, and since it hardly has any real life application in the BUSINESS world, which is the course I am applying to.. shouldn't we lower the Chemistry weightage for A levels?

(Note: I know this is a lousy argument, but as mentioned it's easier to talk cock nowadays than to talk logic.)

Item 2 is what MOE decided to do. I think it's fair. The anti-MT camp will have a lot to say about this, but in the meantime their kids will have to continue failing MT while they gripe and bitch about how smart their children are, less MT.

Hey, I would have got perfect grades in RI if you didn't count Chemistry, Physics, French, Literature, English, Social Studies, and oh, Higher Chinese..

Item 3 is something no one has ever mentioned or talked about. I don't know why I raised it here, either.

Finally - letting students pick their three best subjects. This is about as "logical" as it could go - and it would benefit those strong in MT, yet not disadvantage those weak in MT.

Sounds good?

The PSLE is already about as basic as it can get. It amuses me how parents can think of their children as "talents" if they cannot even handle four subjects.

And still, this mode of examination will invite trouble. Let's say in one particular year the Science paper is a killer (to me it always is), and the MT paper happens to be unbelievably easy. The parents of those geniuses are bound to make noise. No matter what.

You can give them moderation and you can give them assurance, but as my BMT commanders say "stupidity has no limits" - their stupid words will go on limitlessly.

The ideal and pragmatic way to deal with this problem, in my humble opinion, is to leave it as status quo. As some anonymous prick said, "you can't please everyone" - you're going to piss people off no matter what.

Should the government change status quo and alter their current stand on MT weightage, what will only result is a different group of people getting pissed off. And human nature is such that one remembers grievances more than he remembers favours.

Might as well keep the same group of people pissed off.

So don't lower the MT weightage.

PSLE Chinese weighting - The argument to end all arguments

2010-05-17T11:57:00.001+08:00

Recently, the Straits Times reported that the Ministry of Education was doing a review of the 25% weighting of Chinese in the Primary School Leaving Examination. What ensued was hilarity. The Chinese newspapers were full of protests(duh), with the full blast of Chinese idioms pummeling the logic into all the readers. It was funny because I assumed that the people who make decisions don't read the Chinese newspapers. But I was horribly wrong, because the Education Minister apologized just a few days later.

Meanwhile in the English papers, the deluge of self-serving fucks seeking to lower its weighting because it was 'difficult' was definitely enough to flood the Bukit Timah area. Absolutely solid examples that Chinese is difficult included "My son is an intelligent young man, and he finds a lot of difficulty in Chinese" and the like. They even think about Singapore's well-being, as in "My son is a talent, and since he finds Chinese difficult, the family is emigrating. If this continues, Singapore will suffer a brain drain. That is not in the interest of Singapore." Very persuasive, indeed, almost as persuasive as my guinea pig.

The letters published contained maybe 5% logic, 20% personal example, 20% fallacy and 55% emotion. Well at least I got a laugh. Maybe even several laughs. If you remove the emotion, the opportunism and the defeatism so blindingly obvious in those letters, the crux of the matter is fairly simple.

Bilingualism is still a pillar on which the Singapore economy rests. As a trading hub, the more languages we speak, the better, so I would say that being bilingual is the minimum. In addition, with a low birth rate, an immigration inflow is also necessary for the economy, and Singaporeans being bilingual would definitely aid in immigrants' integration into society. It is quite undeniable that Singaporeans should be bilingual in the interest of the economy.

Despite the increasing number of English-speaking families, a large part of the Singapore society communicate in their mother tongues, especially the older generation. Therefore, it is also in the interest of communication and harmony in society that students are bilingual.

Now that we have established that bilingualism is essential, we can move on to the more contentious point of what should be done to ensure bilingualism.

If what the government wanted was true bilingualism, the mother tongue would share the same importance as English all the way up to the entrance of the tertiary institutions. But it does not. The government probably thinks that one has to be more proficient in English, as it is the business language. We need mother tongue more for basic communication rather than to excel in our chosen professions. As a result, after PSLE, the weightage of mother tongue gradually drops in examinations, such that one barely needs to pass mother tongue before being able to get a place in a local university.

What we can see is that the current system already has a heavy bias in favour of English and other chosen subjects as the years roll on. What the equal weightage at PSLE does is to act as a stop to ensure a basic level of mother tongue for communication. What possible benefit does reducing this weightage have? Some win, some lose, but for Singapore it is a step backward in terms of bilingualism.

Furthermore, the current system does not unduly restrict students. If you don't do so well in the mother tongue, you can still do well in the other subjects and achieve an excellent score. The system rewards students fairly in whichever subjects they are strong in. It is only if the mother tongue level is truly horrendous that it has a significant effect, and this horrendous level is exactly what the equal weightage is designed to prevent. It is serving its purpose. Those who are going to be outstanding engineers and entrepreneurs will be outstanding engineers and entrepreneurs. Why on earth would a mediocre PSLE score stop them? That would be a very defeatist attitude. Those who want to be lawyers and doctors and have lousy mother tongue results, it may be harder because the spaces in the local schools are so limited. However, I can't be the only one thinking that doctors and lawyers should be bilingual in order to cater well to Singaporeans. You are not a talent simply because you have the money to emigrate if your grasp of mother tongue happens to suck.

In my humble opinion, there is no shortcut to learning a language. You have to make a conscious effort to immerse, to read, to write. Unless the student has a learning disability of some sort, there is no evidence to suggest a decent result in mother tongue cannot be obtained through hard work. After all, there are more than a billion people who can communicate in Chinese. It is true that English-speaking families have a disadvantage. But don't the Chinese-speaking families have the same problem when it comes to English? An even bigger problem, because English is already more important in our system and society. The PSLE proves itself to be the last bastion of linguistic equality. If the equal weightage is vanquished, it risks splitting society into 2: English-speaking families enjoying all the perks of society, and mother-tongue speaking families struggling to keep up. Class warfare might result. The concept of bilingualism would degenerate into a farce.

Some think that bilingualism can be preserved by having those with interest in the mother tongue study it, and those without interest to have reduced weightage for it. Such idealism is suited for a revolution, which is not the case right now. How many primary school kids do you think will study out of interest? As if they didn't have enough to study already. That suggestion is like throwing a sucker punch in the face of bilingualism and calling it a massage. In fact, we do have a track record for letting people study languages according to their interests. It's the Third Language Program, which has an astronomical drop-out rate, although that's alright, because they're third languages and not commonly used in Singapore.

At this point, I've run out of ammunition. And I lost the loaded magazine in my vest. The above might have been confusing. If you take away the sarcasm, insults and metaphors, you would probably get a simple and effective argument. That was my intent at first but I failed, because writing without those tools is like eating KFC chicken without the skin - not shiok. I might end up with a boring-ass essay that has no place in the hallowed annals of talkcocksummit.blogspot.com. If the above has confused you further, just remember that the simple conclusion of the essay is that I am right.

"Rules don't apply to me"

2010-05-12T23:38:00.000+08:00

Today, I was just waiting for the bus, because I'm poor. Then, I saw a guy wearing a shirt that says "RULES DON'T APPLY TO ME" in big bold letters. We got onto the same bus, and I wanted to ask him why the hell did he pay his bus fare. What a nice guy. Or a douchebag.

Today I will tell you a Secret...

2010-04-23T21:56:00.000+08:00

I was on the bus the other day, staring at the scenery zooming past, scenery so familiar I could tell if a leaf had fallen from a tree. That is usually more interesting than staring at the other people in the bus, because staring at other people generally exhibits animalistic instincts like attraction or disgust.

Let's face it, the only reasons we continuously stare at someone are that she has face/boobs/legs/butt that look like angel/watermelons/stilts/baboons' respectively or she has face/boobs/legs/butt that look like monster/brinjals/trotters/buses.

How often have you thought to yourself 'This thing is so ugly it's bewildering...I must find out why it's so ugly (and continue staring at it)!'. Never? Well watch this video

Anyway, none of these things happened on the bus, but just as I was minding my own business, there was some mind-thumping music. the IQ-decreasing kind that makes parents cover the ears of their children. Now who is that inconsiderate son a of bitch. You know how is it with stereotypes, and already in that few seconds, the image formed in my head of a guy in skinny jeans and possibly a tattoo or two. with a rotten attitude. and the stupid handphone blasting crap. I got ready my parang. It was going to be a hard fight.

And my jaw dropped when I realised there was no douchebag with a phone. The source of the retarded music was a demure Malay girl. And there was no phone. She was wearing earphones.

Now, being able to listen to music from someone else's earphones is not a new phenomenon. In fact, I did the same thing one time on a bus, when some idiot sat next to me. I even had to demand that the idiot change a song because he was looping some chinese rock song to rock himself to sleep. He resisted, but after I told him I was Ip Man, he obediently complied with my orders.

But this Malay girl was different. She was special. After all, I was not sitting next to her. It was a single-decker bus with loud engine noise and all. I was standing at least 5 metres away. And yet I could hear every alphabet in the song (and no, it's not the alphabet song). She is a veritable shining beacon of light for those who want to be deaf. Maybe she is an alien trying to masquerade as one of our species, and failing miserably.

I do have another idea: it was all a prank designed to irritate. Enter the Speaker Earphones

See the sinister little holes at the back of the earphones? That is where the music is actually coming from. Here's how to use this baby:

Step 1 : Find some obnoxious music you know everyone will hate. (don't worry the earpieces act as earplugs for you)

Step 2: Get to a public place where there are lots of people piss off.

Step 3: Play the music on your speaker earphones.

Step 4: Shake leg and enjoy as most people feel like punching you, but reason that they don't want to since you are torturing yourself the most with the crap music. Meanwhile, you're enjoying the silence your earpieces provide.

Step 5: When the battery runs out, go home to charge and repeat from step 1.

The Life of a Big-Tits Girl

2010-04-16T20:44:00.000+08:00

Today, I had to take my guinea pig to the vet. My guinea pig is this furry furry ball of total cuteness. It has large inquisitive eyes that peer at you in a perpetual state of wonder. It also has long glossy fur that I can style into a Mohawk. My guinea pig is not like a hamster. It does not run away even if I open the cage door, and it does not bite. If you scratch its ears, it will half-close its eyes in a pure show of bliss. In short, awwsome.

Well, the problem was that recently, beneath the veneer of the fur coat, it was losing weight. I felt its tiny body, and all there was was skin and bones. It's the kind that you probably never felt before because Singapore stopped starving sometime in the last century. I assumed that it was due to dental problems. Maybe fat people can go get dental problems. Anyway, a vet seemed like the man for the job. A woman, as it turned out.

The highlight was undoubtedly the trip to the vet. Everyone, from the obese woman to the foreign talent to the old man, was staring at me, or rather the guinea pig. I thought maybe I had put bunny ears on it, but I looked, and I hadn't. And everyone was just staring, staring and staring, it felt kind of rude. That must be how a girl with big tits feels.

Give this man a ticket to Romania

2010-04-02T17:04:00.000+08:00

There are only three things that I know Romania for. Gypsies, Dracula, and most recently, Dr Silviu Ionescu. Now if you've been following the papers, you'll know that Dr Silviu Ionescu is the piece of shit who hit two people while drink-driving, failed to admit it, and even lied about his car having been stolen.

Certainly, he is not the first, nor will he be the last. But in Singapore, there is only one thing that happens to people like that. They go to jail. Dr Silviu Ionescu hides behind his diplomatic immunity and goes back to Romania for a holiday instead.

Remember the stories we read as kids where there's always an evil guy with a totally screwed-up moral compass? As I grew older, I thought those were simply stories, because in the real world, there are always nuances, gray areas and different standards or morality. For example, it is hard to consider a person who steals just to feed his family a force of pure evil.

Fortunately, with Dr Ionescu, there is no such ethical dilemma. He is simply a liar, a murderer, a coward, who has shown absolutely no repentance for his actions. In fact, he is loathe to even take responsibility for them. On the bright side, it gives Singapore no reservations to condemn him as a united nation. Can you imagine if he had said sorry? Half of Singapore would have shouted "Fuk you! Sorry no cure!" while the other half would have said, "Aiya he say sorry liao, what you want him to do?" But he didn't. So we don't have a problem calling him a scumbag together.

Unfortunately, Dr Ionescu's house in Romania is presumably beyond the range of our F-16s. Even if Romania waives the diplomatic immunity of Dr Ionescu (and they should, unless they're a country of evil fucks like him), he can still sit on his fat ass in Romania because Singapore does not have an extradition treaty with Romania, meaning there's no way to drag him back. It is at pressing times like this that we wonder, why doesn't Singapore have more nutjobs? Maybe one of them can be self-sacrificial, go to Romania and kick Dr Ionescu's ass? With this line of thought, I trawled through the net for that special person for the special mission, and found him... Singapore's only hope...

This is the dude who set an MP on fire. I believe Singapore has few people as crazy as him, which makes him apt. Give this man a ticket to Romania, and watch him kick Dr Ionescu's ass. Enough said.

World Cup Joke

2010-03-22T23:59:00.001+08:00

This blonde walks into a bar. They happened to be giving out free bras at the bar. The bra-giver asks the blonde, "What size are your boobies? B-cup, C-cup, D-cup? " The blonde replies "WORLD CUP!!" ooh yea.

What are your chances of having breast cancer? (if you are a woman and have positive results from mammogram)

2010-03-14T01:14:00.002+08:00

You are a female who has just received a positive result from a mammogram which you have undergone under the subtle influence of the many advertisements put up by the government. Yes, it is a positive result. You ask the gamemaster (also known as the doctor), what are your chances of actually having breast cancer?

Now how does the gamemaster know? He probably has a manual that details the research conducted on the accuracy of mammograms. It'll say something like this:

   1. The probability that a woman has breast cancer (prevalence) is 1 percent.

   2. If a woman has breast cancer, the probability that she tests positive (sensitivity) is 90 percent.

   3. If a woman does not have breast cancer, the probability that she nonetheless tests positive (false-positive rate) is 9 percent.

And the answer that the gamemaster should infer from the above is one of the following:

   a. The probability that you have breast cancer is about 81 percent.

   b. Out of 10 women with a positive mammogram, about nine have breast cancer.

   c. Out of 10 women with a positive mammogram, about one has breast cancer.

   d. The probability that she has breast cancer is about 1 percent.

What do you think is the probability of having breast cancer given a positive result from a mammogram? To extract brain juice, give it a try before reading on.

The answer is C. Your dice of life has 10 sides, and only one of them says breast cancer. Kind of. The reason is not that you are all guys, but that in interpreting the information given, we tend to make some assumptions.

The answer that most would come up with is B, because we only utilise statement no.2, that "if a woman has breast cancer, the probability that she tests positive (sensitivity) is 90 percent."

In doing so, we are already assuming that you have breast cancer. What if you don't have breast cancer? Then the chances of you still having a positive result is relatively low at 9 percent (false-positive rate), but because a majority of the population does not have breast cancer (see statement 1), that 9 percent becomes a large number of people and you are likely to be one of them. To get the figure of one in ten, we do some simple calculations.

Percentage of population that has breast cancer and tests positive: 90% x 1%(of population) = 0.9%
Percentage of population that does not have breast cancer and tests positive: 9% x 99% = 8.91%
Probability that you test positive and have breast cancer: 0.9% divide by (8.91%+0.91%) = about 10%

Gamemasters should get a degree in statistics too. In case you're wondering, it came from an issue of Scientific American Mind (a magazine), and it called for greater clarity in the presentation of research results, seeing as most gamemasters chose B as well, causing unnecessary worry for patients. Now you know better.

Asshole Rehab Centre

2010-03-02T23:52:00.002+08:00

Update: Jack Neo has signed up for TCS Rehab. Woohoo!

This is partly about Tiger Woods. It is quite lag, but I read with interest as he checked into a sex rehabilitation centre, came out supposedly all cured, made a public apology that had more viewers than the World Cup, and he saves the $300 million that he would have lost on divorce. Sounds like a fairy tale.

While everyone was busy debating whether sex rehab actually works, Tiger was probably thinking, "Hmm, so which is more expensive, rehab or divorce? Such a tough question.-brain grinds-". And his mistress beside him in bed said, "Oooh I know, a divorce is more expensive!" Not that her maths is any more impressive, but she knew that once Tiger got a divorce, he wouldn't have to pay her to shut up anymore. Brilliant economics.

Why don't we just say that Tiger Woods is an asshole? Why bother with crap like sex addiction? Imagine you rob a bank, get caught (that's you not me i don't get caught), and you tell the judge "Your honour, I'm suffering from money addiction, that's why I robbed the bank". If I were the judge, I'd say "Yes, I totally understand, that's why I'm sending you to hell, then your relatives can burn all the hellnotes they want". Addiction solved. And I think it's still the death penalty in Singapore for armed robbery.

Look at John Terry. JT doesn't apologize for his actions. He doesn't say, "I'm addicted to sex." He's all "Sex? Hell yeah." For that, the public calls him an asshole. And his England captaincy was lost. Now he can't sell the captain's VIP seat anymore. But all is not lost. I'm always on the lookout for business opportunities, and this is a great one. Introducing, the Talk Cock Summit Rehab Centre for assholes....

...guaranteed to reform assholes. Maybe you'll be a dickhead, but definitely not an asshole. We'll even give a certificate that says, loudly and proudly, "No longer an asshole!" I suppose that's even more relevant in Singapore's certificate-obsessed society. If JT attends, he'll get back the captaincy in no time. Prices start from $1000 a day.

How to Make Firefox Crash

2010-03-01T11:43:00.001+08:00

Feeling too happy today? In need of a dose of frustration? Using Firefox? Well, you're in luck! Find the link in the sidebar to crash your Firefox. Have a nice day!

How to Write Powderful English

2010-02-24T00:18:00.000+08:00

As I sit on my bum, shaking my leg, and taking in all the words and knowledge that the Internet bestows upon me, I suddenly feel enlightened. What is it that makes an article such a piece of crap that you curse the author for wasting your time? And what makes an article so good that you'd not only want to share it via facebook, twitter, digg, stumble, reddit, you'd even print a copy out for your grandmother?

Should it be flowery and eloquent in a sophisticated way? Consider this. If you read it to the end, well done. The author's vocabulary and grammar may be way above mine, but I'm the reader, and so I judge. And I'm not impressed. Sure, there is descriptive language, 'sound of countless languages intertwining into an incomprehensible melody', but that's all. Do you feel interested in the story? Do you feel the author's sense of enlightenment? No I don't. There are descriptions, but no details. When it comes to the gist of the article, which is to say the author is inspired by her internship, she can only describe it as an 'understanding of a human element', and the 'human element' part of the phrase is taken from some commercial which I have never seen before, so that's another negative point. In addition, it's just got the 'sheltered person starts working and is inspired' kind of bullshit taste. Like some bullshit forced out of the bull's ass because a university application asked for an essay about a life-changing experience. Poor bull. Article fail.

Contrast that with this. Although such a long article, it is simply interesting, with an array of examples and personal experiences, and it makes sense too! I wish I could write like that.

The last example that I have is also the best. It's nowhere near as long as the previous two, and it simply proves that writing is also about putting the heart and soul into words. It comes from the best of Craigslist, which is an online bulletin board wildly popular overseas, but not so popular in Singapore. It also happens to be a time warp for me, because everytime I exit the site, I wonder where all my time has gone. Well at least there was this . Enjoy and don't cry.

It appears that there are really a lot of ways to write an excellent essay. You just need to ask an extra question of 'How do I make this interesting?' Unfortunately, years of writing badass General Paper essays has sucked the soul out of writers in Singapore. I mean, we even have to pay people to read. And mark them. Fortunately, most of the people will end up drafting badass government policies or writing legal documents that should not intriguing in the first place, so it's less of a loss. Still, if this post is boring to you, I blame my education.

My favorite author Roald Dahl says somewhere in one of his books."It's a gift, you either have it or you don't"

Woah new template!

2010-02-23T00:25:00.001+08:00

New year, new template. I wonder if making a website is like writing in the olden days. You can pay someone to make one for you, but it is fast becoming an indispensable skillset.

The new blogger layout system makes most things easier. The archives widget lays bare the history of our posts. School must have been a great environment for writing crap. I guess NS was too, but we were phyiscally unable to blog.

The template was done using photoshop (header and background), and the rest is just CSS and blogger widgets. Do you ever get the feeling after you accomplished something that 'what the fuck that should have been easy what the hell was I doing?'

Detailed Plot of the Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus

2010-02-03T22:11:00.004+08:00

The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus.

Welcome to the imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, an inventive world of unending landscapes, flights of fancy and ultimate indulgence. Can even have sex in there, though it is innocently pictured as a rocking gondola on a calm river. That can already be reason to say it's much classier than porn flicks.

The story starts with a traveling show, that seems just a little out of place in modern day London. As time passes, we realise that everything is not what it seems. Each character is unique and so different from the characters we are used to in our lives.

Dr Parnassus is an immortal old man who has taken bets with the devil (higher stakes but worse odds than Singapore Pools). He had regained his youth in the past in return for giving the devil any child he would have when the child turned 16. The primary reason for that bet? A pretty woman, no surprises there. Well, the family planning didn't work, I mean, I'm pretty sure the devil has a way of controlling these things. If you've watched enough horror movies you would've noticed how evil and wombs are inextricably connected, like my left ass and my right ass. Anyway, his wife died giving birth to Valentina when she was 60.

Valentina is the 2nd character. She is pretty, pretty and very pretty! That said, I'm not sure what her character was all about, maybe she is just there as a mirror for all the others.

Anton is a young swashbuckling dude taken in by Dr Parnassus who is in love with Valentina. Unfortunately, he is suffering from the always-been-there-so-girl-never-treasures-him syndrome. There is even a hilarious moment where he decides to leave the troupe, and Valentina chases after him, and says "Don't go, I need you." After she says those words, the audience can see as Anton scrunches up his expression and tries to express all the frustration of not being appreciated, but before he opens his mouth, Valentina asks, "How much money do you have with you?", ensuing laughs all round. But don't worry, he gets a happy ending! Oops I guess that's a spoiler. I know I didn't warn that there would be spoilers. But are spoilers still spoilers if they don't spoil the movie for anyone? A question for the philosophers.

Percy is a dwarf, and is primarily the voice of reason. Not that there's much in this imaginative film, but he does have a funny habit of whacking people at the knees with his stick.

That is how the film starts, with a few days before Valentina turns 16 and has to be given to the devil. Out of the blue, they rescue a guy hanging from the bridge. He is miraculously still alive, because the fucker put a small flute braced against his neck so that somehow he wouldn't die when hanged.

His name is Tony, formerly accused of scamming money from charities. When he joins is when the fun starts, by first pissing the hell out of Anton, as Valentina goes goo-goo eyes all over him. Even though Tony simply seems like like normal man, the romance is all too understandable. His mysterious past (he claims he cannot remember), boatloads of charisma, infinite amounts of business ideas and seeming all-round ability must be totally refreshing to a girl stuck in a traveling show. Tony showcases his abilities further by upgrading and bringing big bucks for the traveling show by revamping the whole thing. I just feel admiration for those who can talk with honey and hope flowing from their mouths without even pausing to stop for a breath, although they might be things as funny as "the waterfall of happiness".

Just makes me wonder, where do we find such random connections in our modern-day world, a connection that is a total breath of fresh air? Time to join a traveling circus!

Then there is the all-important imaginarium. One fact i neglected to mention earlier is that Dr. Parnassus does have powers. He can power the imagination of people and enlighten them in this imaginarium of his. In the imaginarium, however, people have to make a choice between temptations and what is right. If they choose the wrong one, their souls are taken by the devil. the right one? they'll be enlightened and purified.

The thing is this: because the Devil was so bored, he decided to give Dr Parnassus another chance. If he could enlighten 5 people before the deadline, the devil would not take Valentina. Tony helps in getting 4 women to choose the right path in the imaginarium, and what do you know, before he can get the 5th one, his past catches up with him and loansharks arrive to chase him. I told you the devil couldn't be trusted. They have a fun run in the imaginarium and Tony changes faces (Heath Ledger to Johnny Depp to Jude Law) to finally escape. Anton sees his different faces and I guess that foreshadows the fact the Tony was a conman all along. Moving on, they have about 1 hour left to get the last soul.

Anton finds a newspaper cutting with news about how Tony had scammed from charities and is determined to show it to Valentina. At this moment, Tony had just told Dr Parnassus that he is willing to be the last soul. And then Valentina arrives scolding and spitting because she has only just found out she was the pawn in the bargain. And Anton arrives with his newspaper cutting. So it is all a mad struggle and Valentina ends up getting thrown into the imaginarium and Tony goes in after her.

The scene changes to the afore-mentioned gondola, and this time it is Colin Farrell who is the lucky guy as Tony. This is also where if you're male, and you've been asleep for the whole movie, it's time to open your eyes wide. And the gondola rocks gently.

And the we see a child on the bank of the river, crying. We see Tony's dream. At his greatest moment of going to speak in a grand ballroom, however, Anton arrives as a child to unravel his dream. And we see his true self, as he blames everyone and even hits Valentina. We see how he is actually a conniving son of a bitch. Of course, that doesn't explain why he was talking about sacrificing himself as the 5th soul, and he was even going to go into the imaginarium without Valentina. Then again, this movie does not seem to be one to be reasoned out, it's much more pleasant to enjoy the slices of imagination without necessarily weaving them together. Anyhow, the ballroom in question is falling apart. Anton falls off one of the edges, and Valentina holds him. Her grip is slipping, but before it does, Anton says " I love you", and goes down, just like so many years ago in Titanic, except there was water then. Valentina is very sad, meets the devil, and chooses to give her soul to him. At which point the devil says,"damn, i've won".

This is really a very bored devil, so he tells Dr Parnussus that if he can get Tony's soul, he will bring Valentina back. That he does, by tricking Tony into using a lousy pipe the next time he's hanged, and the last scene shows Valentina and Anton having a family together. Frankly, the plot of this movie is convoluted, I think the director just got lazy in explaining the details. Valentina ended up with Anton, so it might be a case of needing an outside stimulus (Tony) to realise that we already have what we need in life. Still, it makes me wonder, after watching such a fantastical movie, why is my life so boring? The most imaginative way I can think of it is like a video game, Diablo 2. And all the skills we learn in life have different levels that we use to do all sorts of things. Anyway, I consider it a miracle if you've read till the end of this article.

Just watch the godamn movie, Lily Cole is Megan Fox x 10000000000!

Give this guy a break!

2010-01-12T15:40:00.003+08:00

Now I'm going to cut out your typical "Do you know this guy" introduction. Because clearly, you do. And even if you don't, you do anyway because everyone's reporting on this guy's infidelity.

Well, TCS hasn't had it's turn at Tiger Woods yet. So here I go.

It's funny how this dude was the "model professional in the golfing world" until his scandals were thrown into the open for everyone to see. After that people started lamenting that he was a poor role model and how he is a disgrace to golfers, etc.

I don't really get the link, though. How is his having a strong libido got to do with his golfing abilities? In fact if you ask me I think he's a fantastic golfer because even with his sex distractions he still manages to complete don't-know-how-many Grand Slams and all.

Oh wait, are Grand Slams even part of golf? I'm sorry. Truth be told I'm not an avid golf fan, I'm more into soccer but the paparazzi just doesn't seem to give up on Tiger "I love bar hostesses" Woods so I thought I'd just stick my nose into golf.

The uglier truth be told, golf is really just a stupid game. So no matter how many titles or PGAs this guy has won, he doesn't merit as much respect as my mates who play amateur soccer every Sunday. Of course that's only in my opinion, which doesn't count for much; since everyone obviously still enjoys throwing shit at Mr. Woods.

That aside I think I really digress. Being involved in such a stupid game, which is golf, naturally would make a man frustrated. Plus it's been said that Woods put in profuse hours into his training, which was why he became so successful.

But if YOU ask me, which you might not but I'll reply anyway since this is my blog..

If Woods could spend so much time on this stupid game, it's only natural that he's got frustrated with this nonsense. Good that he's woken up his idea, as they would say in the army.

I mean, instead of putting golf balls into holes, he simply decided to put HIS balls in another type of hole. Anything wrong with that?

Americans like to talk about freedom and the human right to do whatever they want. Tiger Woods isn't the first arsehole (no pun intended) to commit adultery and he will not be the last. Just because he's a golfing pro doesn't make him less guilty of this screwed up act; but if there can be so many adulterers in the real world, stop picking on this guy just because he's rich and famous.

So for the paparazzi with nothing better to do: Go pick on someone your own size! Let this guy continue playing his stupid game and stop molesting him the way à la Sentosa woman on New Year's Eve style. It's boring and I'm sick of reading shit about him in the papers every fucking day.

Can someone talk about soccer instead?

Sentosa Molest

2010-01-10T15:46:00.008+08:00

I would like to thank those who are still reading this blog. It is a beautiful feeling to know that one is being appreciated when the blogging fad has come and gone. Those left standing after the melee are those who love to write, and those who love to read.

Those who have blogged before will know that blogging is hard work. Good writing necessitates that we take only the interesting parts of our lives and thoughts and amplify them in the blog posts, and that does require some cognitive work. And inspiration? Where does that come from?

If I were just some dude in his underwear in front of the computer, the easiest choice would be the online news. Recently, there has been the incident of a bikini-clad girl being molested by 4 dark-skinned individuals at the New Year Countdown Party and a video was actually shot of the whole incident. Given that the online searches on the words "sentosa molest" must have been numerous, a blogger who blogs about recent news can even garner new readers directed by search engines.

Heck, since I'm at it, might as well give my two cents' worth. It reflects very very badly that some blog has set up a facebook group something to the effect of "She did not deserve to be molested". Do you see anything wrong? When the fuck, in what kind of screwed up parallel universe, does someone ever deserve to be molested? Enough said. No need for further discussions on the wall. I believe the group came about because, somehow somewhere someone said anonymously that she deserved to be molested. Opinions like this don't merit a response. Like paedophiles who think children are old enough for sex, sadists who think kittens are for torture experimentation, and employers who think maids are slaves, they are the inevitable undercurrents of any peaceful society. There is no point arguing because the people who hold these views will not come out to the open to be convinced anyway. They will only hold their convictions in their deep dark souls. Once or twice, a tentacle might emerge from the surface. but that's all.

Of course, the people (usually all the girls), are totally justified in questioning why no one helped her. Well, all the decent guys were at home studying duh. And all the decent girls were afraid that their bikinis would've been torn to shreds had they gone to help the poor girl.

Wow in those short paragraphs, I've answered all the questions regarding this entire molestation incident. If you just see the amount of words and opinions generated by one high-profile incident on the web, it's little wonder that no one has time for serious literature anymore. Anyway, if you can't tell by now, one reason I usually don't like talking about controversial news is that they always descend to pointless debate that is neither interesting nor humorous.

Back to the part about inspiration for blogging. There is always a niche. Freaks like Xiaxue can talk incessantly about themselves. Mrbrown has politics. Cowboycaleb is cool. DawnYang has scandals. Introduction to other blogs has enough material for an article in itself. Me? No idea.

I intend to write a short story someday, and then post it here. To make a good blog requires certain effort. For example, you probably deserve a better layout to complement all the text, but no because here we're lazy bums. For example, most blogs will have an icon somewhere to sign up for an rss feed, but nahh, I'll just recommend google reader for you guys. I was introduced to it by a friend who happens to read my blog. If you're using gmail, it's convenient. Hope to get started on the short story soon!

Love is like the ideal elastic; it doesn't break when it stretches, and when the stretching stops, it goes right back into shape

2010-01-01T13:57:00.005+08:00

New year, old year, can you really tell the difference? Though I'm sure it does bring a windfall to commercial entities like buses, taxis and clubs. Why do we celebrate the new year? Maybe it's because we haven't actually accomplished anything worth celebrating ourselves, that's why we celebrate artificial things like that.

I was on my way home on the nightrider when I noticed it was actually quiet for once. The mobileTV showed "mobile tv will operate until december 31 2009, thank you for your support". Woohoo something to feel good about!

I'm sure I'll miss the just for laughs show and the taiwanese food shows, but they are no compensation for the inane shit that we have to put up with most of the time. If you aren't a snobbish rich kid who has never taken the bus before, then you've probably been forced to watch a local food show.

And you might have observed that the difference between local foodshow hosts (the ones shown on mobiletv anyway) and good foodshow hosts is that the local ones can't help but get an orgasm when they eat in front of the camera. Once the food is in the mouth, the moaning commences, x 10 the volume if the cook is watching. And the cooks aren't even sexy. And then the host's hand will do that stupid connoisseur motion of squeezing the thumb and index finger together, as if it helps with the orgasm, and when it is finally over, they will say, 'delicious', 'wow', or other forms of limited vocabulary cooked together with zero imagination. Of course, all they succeed in doing to me is to induce a vomit reflex.

And there are worse. There's one time where I watched a show with 3 female hosts (maybe 1 host 2 guests, whatever), so I had to vomit 3 times each time new food was introduced. What the fuck, when you have 3 tasters and 1 type of food, it's obvious the focus is on the people and not the food, so the people had better be chio, but they weren't, so the whole show was ruined.

Let's talk about drama serials next. I must admit that normally, I don't watch them on television, thus most of what I watch comes from mobiletv. Why do normal Singapore serials induce such unpleasant sensations in me? Ok just the tendency to turn away cos it's so bad. Once in a while, there's a serial that's good enough to be exported, but that means that if your life were serials, you would be in jail for 50 years of your 75-year life expectancy. I think I nailed the reason. They're mostly just plain unrealistic. I've never heard real families or people speak in the tone and language used in serials. The stuff the characters say when they get pissed off is just laughable most of the time. And then, when they try to mimic how Singaporeans really speak, they overdo it, but even that is a move in the right direction as it spawned Phua Chu Kang, which I have to admit is funny.

The award-winning ones like Little Nyonya are set in another time and it's more realistic that way because we did not live in that era and will be more flexible in accepting the language and setting of the time. happy new year!

10 best jobs in the world

2009-12-07T17:09:00.000+08:00

http://www.oddee.com/item_96855.aspx, a pity none of them seem to be in singapore.

Chapter 4: Felt like a whore? So did I!

2009-12-02T20:00:00.001+08:00

Admittedly, there were times in NS when I felt like I was a dirty whore. It was definitely the closest that I've felt to being a whore in my entire life. In that respect, ns has fulfilled its educational objective. I swear, if I walk past the streets of Geylang at night, I'm sure I'll have a greater sense of empathy for the long-haired people in high heels drinking beer with old men. After all, it wasn't so long ago that I was watching people drink beer in the army mess.

Catering to the not-very-reasonable demands of multiple bosses probably felt something like a whore serving multiple clients, though I expect she'll charge more. And the wholesale disregard for your welfare? Check. Years from now, I'll still be wondering why the fuck did I ever skip lunch to finish up work for somebody else.

Lack of appreciation? Check. After an audit, it's 'thank you everyone for the hard work put in' and then BAM! 'you need to serve extras cos even though the end-result proved ok, in the process you didn't know what you were doing'. That was one of the most pissing off days of my life. I worked overtime for a few weeks so that they could take my weekend away. But in reflection, it was a learning experience.

For one, it was a day of enlightenment for me. The incident told me that whatever I did scarcely matters, that nobody gives a fuck about me. Seen in another light, it means I don't have to seek to impress anyone, I don't have to give a fuck either. It's like the philosophy in Fight Club, where you have to lose everything so that you can do anything, well sort of. A transcendent experience.

Seen in another light, it also helps in anger management, because if I had done something stupid like punch someone, then I wouldn't be at home shaking leg and posting this. Another educational experience. I think I'd better stop before everyone thinks the world of NS.

There! The last chapter! Honestly the memories fade away pretty quickly, there's a lot that we forget, especially unpleasant experiences, I guess that's what most blogs are for, to whine and rant, and to remember the things that were worth whining and ranting about.

Chapter 3: Sleepless Sunday Nights

2009-11-18T15:26:00.004+08:00

Ah wells, those sleepless sunday nights are a thing of the past, at least until I get a proper job or school starts. Now, the only reason I can't sleep at night would be cos I sleep too much in the afternoon. yay.

Still, memories of those nights have taught me a great deal. (don't be fooled into thinking this sentence connects logically with the sentences below.)

a) Uncertainty is a multiplier of fear

Often, when you step back and think, you'd realise there's nothing to be afraid of, for example, if you're late or didn't do an assignment or misplaced an isac card (computer card in army), there's actually nothing much to it. Or in basic camp, when the most for a minor offence was push-ups, there was nothing much to fear. But uncertainty loomed and we were all scared shitless. We should all learn to embrace fear, and I recommend Harold and Kumar go to Guantanamo Bay

b) Stupidity is good

When you're universally acknowledged to be incompetent, everyone lowers their expectations of you, and that is good. Because at least in NS, dignity doesn't count for anything, cos you don't have any to begin with. Like that time I had a free off cos I went for a medical appointment on the wrong day.

c) Work is never-ending, but life isn't

Usually, we forget this fact when we are swamped, when the boss is squeezing the balls. We fail to realise that all his ball-squeezing are for his benefit and not us. Anyway, i've known from experience that starting work early has absolutely no correlation with ending work early, so it really doesn't hurt to take a nap in the morning, and then again in the afternoon.

d) Slack jobs are not always the best

As an enlightened guy in my camp said, you might sleep so much you just don't wake up.

e) Shit falls on Fridays

This is an immutable fact. Shit never came in so many forms and flavors as on a Friday afternoon. So make sure you get your ass covered. Don't ask me I don't know how, if I knew I wouldn't have been the last one leaving the camp for so many Fridays.

f) You think you own a handphone. Guess what? The handphone owns you now.

Has your heart been conditioned so that it drops like a stone when your handphone rings? If so, you are officially the property of your handphone and the slave of the evil forces that lurk on the other end. Evil forces that have the power over your weekends. Somebody should really do a comic about this.

And that's all for this chapter. About one more chapter to go!

A leg brace ain't enough to get you a seat in Singapore

2009-10-01T14:37:00.006+08:00

For those who know me, you'll know that i've been wearing this leg brace, something like below, except mine is sexier.

An important thing to note for those who intend to get sexy like me is that it's not enough to get you a seat in Singapore's trains. A leg brace just doesn't smack hard enough in commuters' conscience, or they may simply lack one. I got onto the train towards pasir ris at queenstown and had to stand until raffles place.

And even then, it wasn't as if somebody gave their seat up. I had to say " FUCK OFF ASSHOLES THAT'S MY SEAT" before charging through with my fist and plonking my ass down.

But that is not to say that Singaporeans are discourteous. I can think of a host of reasons for why nobody gave their seat up to me.

1. All those sitting down were genuinely asleep, eyes closed or otherwise.

2. All those sitting down were tourists or foreign workers. This would mean that Singaporeans aren't the discourteous ones.

3. Everyone was too busy staring at my handsome face to notice that I was wearing a leg brace. Honestly, I like this reason best. Anyway, one of the ladies who had been fighting with me for the seat later said, "I'm sorry I didn't see your leg brace." Point proven.

Room for improvement:
In order to get a seat in the train, it would be necessary to bring along 2 crutches. I really can't see how that can fail. If you still cannot get a seat, then just jab the crutch at the nearest guy and see if he takes the hint. Too extreme? Then just drop the crutches on his legs accidentally, and repeat that until he takes the hint. Speaking of crutches, i've got a pair for sale, who wants?

Chapter 2: The Most Dangerous Thing in NS is a Sense Of Responsibility

2009-09-26T21:30:00.001+08:00

hmm let's hope that the title isn't the most interesting part of the chapter.

So in any new working environment, the new guy would need time to fit in. Chances are that he's a decent bloke who wants to make a good impression, on his bosses, on the people around him. In the present age of high unemployment, such behaviour makes perfect sense, because unemployment looms menacingly. So that's what most nsfs do.

Except that it doesn't bring much benefit. Because bosses know that you're going to ord anyway. Because bosses don't really give a hoot about welfare unless it gets them into trouble. And because the sense of responsibility is sometimes a parasite that eats away at the soul.

But without a moral compass that is this article, most fail to maximise their time in ns.

The blabber above can be summarised in : Only the good feel guilty.

Chapter 1: Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

2009-09-11T19:57:00.002+08:00

This is going to be the start of a mini-series on ns life (well what other life do i have?). It's probably going to start in a chronological order, and end in total disorder. In fact there may be some repetition since i've already written on the Te Kong Delight in December last year, see http://talkcocksummit.blogspot.com/2008/12/holiday.html.

Let's start by talking about comfort. It's not something we can readily define. Is it picture-perfect like sipping champagne on a yacht somewhere in the Mediterranean? Or is it something as simple as eating a bag of potato chips? It's a real mystery. But being able to piss after the 10th water parade certainly felt quite comfortable. As did going home for a few hours after a week of abuse. It's really quite amazing what suffering one can put up with as long as it's in a group.

One of the starting phrases introduced is: GET OUT OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE.
And my reply would be yea, as soon as you stick your finger up your ass permanently. That can't be very comfortable, and you would definitely leading by example. Not that I would necessarily follow. I think God meant for our rear ends to be one way streets outwards.
Thus, learning point 1: Don't ask me to get out of my comfort zone.

Another topic is leadership. This is a difficult thing to define, cos let's say I'm walking in front of a large crowd towards somewhere, maybe the toilet. Just as i reach the entrance i turn around and tell all those behind me, " Lo and behold, worship me, for i have led you to the promised land!" I'm quite sure the crowd would just shove me aside. Their full bladders were leading them to the toilet anyway, so i could not be the leader. If on the other hand, i make others do what they don't want to do, that is the mark of a true leader.

In the army, though, few are the places where the people are going anyway. The only thing everyone would automatically go for is book out, so doing anything else requires a leader, such as running through a forest with a heat rash on the back, and then waking up to do it again in the middle of the night.
Thus, learning point 2:
army produces leaders because there's so many opportunities to make people do what they do not want to do.

Car of thought

2009-09-06T11:52:00.004+08:00

I don't like cars. I can't tell a Mercedes from a BMW, nor a Jaguar from a Lamborghini. To me, boasting about how fast your car can go is the same as boasting about how rich your parents are. Doesn't reflect anything and it doesn't impress me.

Doesn't make sense? Well this is talk cock summit. Get used to it noob!

Much as I don't like cars, I still have this male ego in me. Which means I like one-upmanship or at least, the feeling of being equal. I can't stand not having something everyone else has. Unless that thing is something which I think I don't want - which okay, doesn't make me very much of a one-upmanship sorta person.

But the driving licence is an exception. So when others have it I must have it too.

Recently I've started taking lessons - and in fact I've just finished one of those mind-numbing sessions where my instructor forces me to go round and round and round because my engine keeps fucking stalling one way or another. Either that or it bumps along.

I think I listen to too much of gold 90. I can't hear whatever he's saying anymore. But at this rate I'm never going to take my test.

Presenting to you the culprit: THE CLUTCH.

Of course you could say "dumb fuck, sign up for auto" but this male ego thing is really too overwhelming. At the expense of sounding like a chauvinist let's just say if the FEMALES (this ought to add to the chauvinist factor) can do MANUAL, I'd better be able to do it too.

Plus, everyone around me is taking manual. So why should I succumb to auto? This introduced me to the world of engine stalling. Sometimes I wish I wasn't so impressionable, but that's besides the point.

The point now is that most cars in Singapore are using auto. So far all my friends that pass their driving tests are using auto cars. Hence fucking manual is outdated. Which brings up to another new point - who invented the clutch?

It only makes sense that technology progresses forward, not backward. And if you were to represent the auto and manual cars mathematically:

Manual car = Clutch + Accelerator + Brake
Auto car = Accelerator + Brake

Hence, auto car is simpler and should be invented first. So who the fuck was the kanchiong spider that invented the manual first and caused the world so much trouble? By the fact the manual car was invented first, there are so many of them around and it's hard to get rid of a few millions of cars so I have to learn the manual way.

The auto car, on the other hand, is elegant and is now taking over the world. Its driving should not be unlike those in an arcade, with only two pedals. Sounds like my kind of stuff.

Fuck, if Daytona had a clutch pedal when you played manual, I guarantee you no one would be playing their silly racing games. And by the way, I always use auto to play Daytona. That gives you an impression of what a lazy bum I am.

So that aside, whoever invented cars must have been a very weird person. How can you possibly invent something one step ahead of a future invention? It's like inventing the handphone before the telephone - because by a simple mathematical equation:

Telephone: Communication ability
Handphone: Communication ability + Portability

Whoever invented the car jumped the queue, and now millions of people are paying the price for it when they take their manual lessons.

Okay fine I just suck at driving. Doggone it!

CHEER YOU UP!

2009-08-29T12:07:00.004+08:00

I have a very important question. Does the following cheer you up?

Just want to know whether it's me who has a perception problem or Giordano designers with their CHEER YOU UP campaign. I don't feel cheered up by the shirt, it looks like a dead guy with a smile.

The only customers I can think of are necrophilics, who hopefully aren't in abundance in Singapore. The whole idea of cheering up the living with the dead seems to have originated from Korea, where MC Yoo and Jang Dong Gun are endorsing the idea. But i seem to be the odd one out who doesn't like the shirt, because when i google "cheer you up giordano" all that comes out are the marketing campaigns, desperate angmohs looking for the shirts and even offering to buy second hand ones cos the shirt's mostly meant for asia, and other random people exhorting about how cute the shirt is. I scrolled through 5 pages of 10 results and there's not a single criticism of the shirt. Fucking incredible. And I stopped looking after 5 pages because I give up on you, world.

It creeps me out but because Giordano is all over Singapore, and occasionally people buy it, I'm forced to see this shit. Frankly, all this shows is that Giordano has a very good marketing department in that they can sell a t-shirt with a lousy design that doesn't make sense for a decent price, which is more than we can say for a lot of talented designers. So seeing how giordano has pimped their shirts, we at talkcocksummit are more than inspired to make our own and cheer you up. Stay tuned.

Work and Stress

2009-08-26T18:56:00.001+08:00

After about a week at work, it's blindingly obvious that it's not very good for health. Stress has been blamed for everything from natural disasters such as earthquakes (stress at points where tectonic plates meet) to serial killers (school schooters and stabbers must have been pretty stressed up) to suicide cases (nothing new there). Work causes stress, and by work I mean a chore that you don't actually like doing, but you do it for money, or simply because you're forced to, like half the population in singapore. Though they'd like you to think you're doing it for pride, honour, glory, family, friends, country, security, society, anything but forced labour.

Back to stress. It differs very much in the work that is bring done, but one can tell the nature of the work from the stress levels. Let's illustrate an example in a graph, because they make everything look professional, and everyone fall asleep.

The x-axis shows the time, and the y axis shows stress levels. I would believe stress is normally measured by blood pressure, but in this case i shall use cm^3 instead, the assumption being that if the stress levels are more than the volume of the brain, the brain will just explode. But i digress.

This graph depicts the profile of someone who goes "above self, beyond duty, many extras". The day starts off relatively calmly at 8am. Optimism is in the air, it is going to a great day of accomplishment and satisfaction, and you have the world at your feet. It's as if everyone standing up is giving you a standing ovation to celebrate your messianic presence at work. You enjoy the peaceful walk to your office, and your stress levels instantly increase upon seeing that stack of paper on your table. But sitting at the table, surrounded by your dear friends Printer, Computer, Pen and Paper, it's impossible not to get a warm feeling of familiarity. Getting 'in the zone', one draws up a to-do list and it's almost like conquering the world. On a high, adrenaline rush, it seems as though one can finally reach the holy grail of productivity. Thus, the stress levels remain relatively stable till about 12.

Then, it's time for lunch, time to think about where to eat. A little stressful sometimes, especially when the food sucks, but it's not really a problem. After lunch, it gets really tiring, and all that has been done for the day is the to-do list. So it's a dilemna. To sleep or not to sleep? If you sleep, precious time is lost, and if you don't, you're incapacitated mentally.

And as you decide, time ticks by anyway oblivious to your whining, and in the end you fall asleep anyway, because it's hard to stay awake. Wake up at 3, and realise it's really really close to the magical time of 5pm. Try to change the world again, but people won't pick up your calls, or not in, or whatever. You realise that it's ultimately futile, and continue to lay in a collapsed heap at your desk. That is, until 5pm acutually hits like a sledgehammer to your frontal cortex. There are 2 options:

a) fuck off and go home

b) stay and work and feel pathetic

b is the option shown by the graph above, because when 6pm hits and then 7pm, there's an increasing sense of desperation as each hour at work leads to one less hour at home enjoying. And finally, the brain can't take it anymore and explodes, leading to a bunch of happy retards running around at work. And that is the end state.

A Tale of Two Andys

2009-08-22T22:32:00.001+08:00

First of all, no matter how realistic the story below sounds, it is entirely a work of fiction. Just a very realistic work of fiction.

How do great stories start? What the fuck i try to think of a great chapter 1 and all that comes to my pathetic mind are " A dark and stormy night" (Snoopy style), "RRing! My alarm clock rang"(primary school style) and "With the advent of globalisation in the blahblahblah" (jc style). That's 12 years of education and 2 years of degeneration for you.

So it's off to copy a great beginning, because copying is really the greatest form of flattery and what better story to mimick than Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. Well if you've never read the story before, fear not, because i haven't either, other than the kiddies' abridged version. Fortunately, there's always sparknotes for those who love to pretend to have a more literary background than they actually have. I've even very kindly included the link "http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/twocities/section2.rhtml" for those among you who got Excuse Typing.

It was the worst of times, it was the worst of times. It was the age of stupid pple, it was the age of stupid things. It was the epoch of no off, it was the epoch of no leave. It was the season for flu, it was the season for MC. It was shit in spring, ITS ORD IN NOVEMBER! and such was the entire setting of the story, because i have the attention span of a hamster and i can't even finish reading sparknotes.

On this fateful day, I woke up with a start. My eyes turned to the clock instinctively. It read 7.45am, and the fucking phone was vibrating against my wooden table again. As my hand reached out to grab it, i dreamt of that beautiful november day when evil spirits would stop using the phone to manipulate my soul.

"Hi, this is your slave here, how would you like to abuse me today?" I chirped in my most cheerful voice.

"You gotta go to court today." The evil spirit's message reverberated through my heart, my soul, and every sinew of my iron-marked body. Still I had my brain with me, so I was shocked.

"What the hell did I do? If im going to jail for punching somebody, it'll be nice to actually have punched somebody! And there's no lack of people in mind!" i replied good-naturedly.

"Your colleague Andy is going to get charged. So you have to be there." was the terse reply.

"Oh ok. I'll go. Andy's a great guy." I said, obviously under some Jedi mindtrick.

With that, the connection ended, and i lapsed onto my bed, exhausted. But there was no time to to relax, for i had to get into some decent clothes and fast. So in the end, i got there with Andy, don't ask me how, use your own godamn imagination for a change (and don't say im lazy!).

I have never been to the court before, so it was an eye-opener of sorts. Here are a list of things that i recommend that you do not bring there.

1. gold bar
2. the memento piece that you chipped off the Eiffel Tower
3. anus ring (if it exists)

simply because there are metal detectors. There's no check of identification, so if at any time you feel that life is meaningless or that you simply want to prove to yourself you aren't that forsaken by God after all, compared with other people, you could swagger into the place and witness the full power of the law, assuming you don't have an anus ring.

So i strode into the courtroom with andy. It wasn't like any place i've been before. One bored looking dude also known as the judge sat behind a high wooden table sounding very irritated, and he had every reason to be. From his high perch (probably signifying his moral high ground) he could probably see the mass of humanity, all on the fringes of society awaiting his judgement before he could finally go home and take a shower.

So i sat down and waited. It was cramped and uncomfortable, like waiting at any other government body, except that there was no queue number. It's a simple case of get up on the stand when your name is called, and the system is flawless. That is the power of the law. No matter how many tattoos the guy has, he's still punctual. I mean, try getting a battalion of NSFs to arrive on time for an outcamp run, and 'er. i got stomachache' or 'wah sorry i didn't know i took the bus in the wrong direction'.

One distinct difference between the court and other government waiting rooms was the undeniable sense of anxiety, even though there were so many people moving around looking busy, seeming even chaotic at times. And so it was in this uncomfortable atmosphere that i waited for the verdict. I could see the defendants take their stand one after the other in front of the irritated judge, and finally andy's verdict came.

I waited with bated breath, only for the prosecution to say, " Your honour, we are not ready, please give us another 2 weeks".

I can't remember the jargon that the judge said, but it amounted to 'ok whatever'.

Well i was kidding about the bated breath that part, because andy told me that particular court acted as a coordinator of sorts, throwing cases to different courts, and didn't do the dirty job of sentencing. What the verdict meant was andy got his freedom for another month, since it took that long for a case to move through the bowels of the courts before squeezing out a verdict.

So this Andy got his freedom, albeit for a short while.

So now it's time to see the other Andy, this time for my freedom, from the pain and suffering bugging my knee of course. It was my first time meeting this other Andy, and he promised to relieve me of my suffering. It's going to be a long time, but i'll deal with it. I'm not going to talk about this other Andy cos he's a mysterious fellow. So unlike Charles Dickens' famed novel, this particular story won't have a touching, moralistic, complete ending. That is also a reason why I don't write novels.

Instead, I shall be a complete fraud and edit his ending. With the help of the second Andy, i hope to have a far, far better rest, than i have ever had, for these 1 year 10 months. The End.

Soccer blues

2009-08-22T21:52:00.005+08:00

There are two things a man likes: soccer and sex.

Maybe I generalise, but I can tell you these are two things any normal man would like. Doesn't interest you? Probably means you need to go for a checkup.

Recently Caster Semenya, winner of the females' 800m in Munich, came under fire for looking like a man and behaving like a man. If you observe her name.. Semen, ya? You realise that there are so many redeeming points for her.. to be a man.

Check out that six-pack. I couldn't have asked for a better one myself. But that's not the point. Given that a female can be a male; likewise we can say a male can be a female.

So if you don't like soccer and sex, better go for a checkup.

As the new Premiership season kicks off, I guess most men can get their weekly fix of soccer, me included. Thank goodness. I was going mad every weekend sitting in front of the computer not knowing what to do. And there's nothing to blog about without the soccer.

But I find that I get more than I bargain for. Because even though I aim to talk about man's first love, soccer, this one inevitably crosses the boundary to the second. (even though obviously there's no direct link)

Such gay tendencies. Man, it is one thing to have R-21 movies in cinemas; but having these images where young impressionable kids are able to uh, get influenced are just unacceptable.

Maybe we should consider soccer a R-21 sport. And they should issue yellow cards for such unconventional behaviour.

I don't know what else to say. Frankly I could blog more since this topic is so controversial, but in the army, my language lets me down. As the army highly emphasises on progressive training, I won't keep this post too long.

I need to watch my weekly fix of soccer. And I've wasted 15 minutes of time blogging this.

Till next week, then.

Where in the world is Mas Selamat?

2009-04-25T23:24:00.003+08:00

I am very disturbed by the Mas Selamat case. It does not make sense for a man to have disappeared into thin air. Even if he has a huge underground cavern or has escaped to Malaysia, it cannot be that no-one has seen him doing that after he was found missing.

Even the vigilant lions couldn't get him. So where in the world is Mas Selamat?

Well I was striving for an answer, and it came in the most unlikely form: an old Puffin classic by Robert Louis Stevenson: Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

So a little book review for the uninitiated. Dr Jekyll is one who believes in the two-ness of man, speaking of which maybe I should say "Dr Jekyll is TWO who believes in the two-ness of man." Because Dr Jekyll is not actually one, but two.

Anyway the name Jekyll already sounds pretty suspicious. If you were to dissect his name into "je" and "kyll" - "je" being the translation of "I" in French, and "kyll" being a misspelling off the word "kill". Put together: I kill.

Looks like Mr Hyde isn't quite disinclined to do that. Anyway Dr Jekyll believes that there are two sides to a man so he concocts a potion and he becomes another man. I bloody wish I'm able to do that. Imagine how powerful that is.

Still at the end of the day it's a story. And we all know experiments more often end up in failure than in success. Should the two-ness of men and Dr Jekyll's secret recipe really exist, then that AWOL personnel from 42 SAR would have never been found and returned to DB.

Like how Mr Hyde could get away with his crimes, perhaps that is the case with Mas Selamat. He could be among us, he could be anyone around above suspicion. That is the scary bit. And while at first you might be able to get a clue about Mas Selamat, now that he's totally missing there's no telling who was him or who he was.

Sounds confusing?

Well maybe your father was missing during one of their plots. Or maybe while Mas Selamat was in jail you didn't see your best friend at all. Very suspicious. Now that he's totally gone there's nothing to compare with and nothing to assure yourself that you could be right next to him.

Be afraid, be very afraid.

But there is a good side to it. As Dr Jekyll found himself unable to resist turning to Mr Hyde when he ran out of the salt to concoct his brew, maybe Mas Selamat also can't find his solution to turn him back into the evil man that he is.

Oh well, for every action there must be an equal reaction from the opposite direction. Thus for one good man that has turned into a bad man irreversibly, there is a bad man who has turned into a good man irreversibly.

That man is Mas Selamat. Elementary, my dear Watson.

Freakonomics

2009-03-15T23:19:00.003+08:00

Freakonomics is a book about statistics, and the most interesting deduction it made that stayed in my mind was that lower crime rates were due to the enactment of the right to abort some time back, and the author makes use of statistics to prove that point. He links seemingly non-related stuff to prove that they actually might have causal effects on each other. So i found that case interesting, but it's a pity the rest of the book was such a snore. Freakonomiczzz.

So if i extrapolate that concept, here goes, let's say you're a guy, you're in a public toilet and there's a queue for the urinals. Whether there's a queue or not would seem to have no effect on the amount of time each guy takes. But if you actually stood there and recorded down the time taken, it would probably be faster when there's a queue. Cos who would relish the feeling of someone breathing down their necks while their private parts are public parts? Perhaps with the exception of gays, and even then, very perverted gays. So the emphasis would be to be done as quickly as possible without wetting the pants.

I'm not really sure what relevance the previous paragraph had, but if you've read it, thanks for your patience. Crap aside, we've come to the gist of this post, which is that i've thought of a new economic indicator. There's always doubt as to when the economy is really recovering and when we should invest in stocks, and this is where my indicator is a reliable gauge. You simply have to count the number of people who buy Toto and 4D everyday. The greater the number of people, the worse the recession. Don't believe me? See for yourself, it's a recession now, and you don't see the crowds at singaporepools thinning. In fact, hope springs eternal, so the more desperate the people, the more Toto and 4D they buy. Probability of striking Toto when you buy one combination is 1 out of 8145060 and 1 out of 10000 for 4D for your information. You'd have to be pretty lucky to strike Toto, less so for 4D. Or you could try your luck in another way. Wait for the 10million jackpot, buy all 8145060 combinations, and hope that no one strikes too. Though going by history, that is quite impossible. Somehow, human nature has it that the more desperate the person, the more he will resort to things with low probability of success (getting away with robbing a bank, buying big sweep) Back to the economic indicator, you can plot a graph using the data that you have amassed standing outside singapore pools outlets, preferably with graphmatica, free software for schoolkids. The number of people placing bets is expected to increase with the deterioration of the economy, so when the human traffic falls, be ready to buy some stocks because a market recovery is just around the corner. But as they say, trading is a hard way to make an easy buck.

Mobile TV Rockz My Sockz!

2009-03-12T23:30:00.003+08:00

Seen the advertisement on mobile tv that starts with a sneeze, another sneeze and then warns the public on the dangers of flu? Well i sneezed for real just after the moment that dude on tv does, right into the funky hairdo of the chick sitting in front of me. whoops. She turned around and stared at me with daggers in her eyes, wanting to kill me, and so i took the opportunity to sneeze a second time, a gigantic 'AH-CHOO' right into her bitchy face. And then i gave her my don't-give-me-your-flu look. What a day.

DC: WHAT WOULD HITLER DO (WWHD) IF HE WAS PRESIDENT: A FINAL RESOLUTION TO THE OBESITY (FAT) PROBLEM

2009-03-06T00:26:00.012+08:00

A Background

According to the US National Institutes of Health, 66% of all US adults are overweight or obese; 31.4% of all US adults are obese. That comrades, mean that 1 in 3 people you meet on the streets of America looks like this:

And out of the remaining 2, 1 will look like this:

Of course, people resembling exhibit A do not usually appear on the streets because it’s such a damn difficult task for them to walk, but NIH stats are NIH stats.

WWHD
Now, imagine if a Mad Scientist miraculously resurrected Herr Adolf and put him in charge of the United States; what would he think?

And more importantly, what would he do?
Let’s take a look:

1. Make soap.

It was widely believed that the Nazis made soap from Jewish bodies during the War, but this has been officially denied by both Germans and Jews. Maybe human fat was just unsuitable for soap production, or perhaps the concentration camps and forced labour burned off all the fats and there were none left. If it was the latter, then the problem has now been resolved, and a brand new industry is ready to take flight.

2. Execute invalids.

"This person suffering from hereditary defects costs the community 60,000 Reichsmark during his lifetime. Fellow German, that is your money, too."

The NIH estimates the cost of obesity to be $117 bn. That comrades, is USD 1.17 x 1011. Fellow Americans, that is your money, too.

3. Ban fattening foods.

According to a 10-things-you-didn’t-know-about-Hitler site, Hitler did this with one of his girlfriends:
She killed herself after being actively pursued by Hitler. He was grief stricken, and felt compelled to attend the autopsy. Afterwards, he refused to eat meat, and took every opportunity to ruin meat for others. He would often make jokes about preparing a pudding made from his blood, and called beef broth "corpse tea"
And allegedly, Hitler regularly ate up to two pounds of chocolate a day, in addition to pastries and hot chocolate with copious amounts of whipped cream. He generally took his tea with seven
teaspoons of sugar, and Ernst Hanfstaengl once witnessed Hitler adding spoonfuls of sugar to a glass of red wine.

Given the tendency demonstrated in excerpt 1 and the habit in excerpt 2, it would be no surprise if he outright banned soda, whipped cream, whoppers, nachos, etc, etc. and prohibited the sale of food to individuals over a certain BMI. This should instigate a massive lobbying campaign from major F&B industry players, but the SS is really good at negotiating quick, quiet and peaceful resolutions to such problems, especially if the CEO was a Jew, so it’s A-OK.
4. Sabotage the enemy.
Obesity is a debilitating affliction. Allegedly, 16% of US army men are obese and obesity is the top cause of discharge of soldiers from service. If a weapon could be developed that made all the enemy fat, any war could then be easily won!

-dc

Article Review (from The Sun)

2009-03-04T17:33:00.006+08:00

It's that time of the year again, when I feel very politician-like. This gives me a need to comment on some social issues. You see, there aren't any elections going around, so perhaps that explains why I feel that way.

The Sun (go wiki it yourself lazy bitch) is a British paper more known for its page 3 than anything else. But a good friend of mine brought to my attention about this 13-year-old father and it seemed very amusing. After all some people only mature at 13, and in fact that could have well been the case.

I was enraptured by this little crazy bastard. The starting went something like this:

BOY dad Alfie Patten yesterday admitted he does not know how much nappies cost — but said: “I think it’s a lot.”

Sounds like a typical quote you could get from a normal dumb jock American. But this reply is more classic than saying Singapore is in China, because at least that's an attempt to smoke - but this is displaying open stupidity.

The link is http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/article2233878.ece, go have a read before you continue otherwise it wouldn't make any sense. Either way if you don't that's okay because I'm going to quote some really good ones from there.

But you should have a look at the picture. The girl is rather ugly in my opinion so who in the right mind would want to have underage sex with her. That's an unnecessary risk for an unnecessary girl. Though of course they can't charge the boy because he's underage too. What the heck.

Oh wait, but maybe under British law they aren't underage. This however doesn't change the fact that their minister does not condone it.

Alfie's story, broken exclusively by The Sun today has sparked a huge political storm with Tory leader David Cameron saying: "When I saw these pictures this morning, I just thought how worrying that in Britain today children are having children.

"I hope that somehow these children grow up into responsible parents but the truth is parenthood is just not something they should be thinking about right now."

"Children are having children" - I like that. But the British minister is some spoilsport. Who says a 13-year-old cannot be responsible? After all life is a learning process and in certain instances you have to be thrown into the deep end to learn. So how is that worrying?

If that should happen in Singapore and if I were a minister I would be more like, "Encouraging parenthood at an early age will better equip modern-day teenagers with skills they could use in the future. Also as it solves our growing population problems, I don't really see it as a problem. In fact young enterprising parents should be given bonuses for the kind act of delivering lives unto this world."

By having kids at 13 and assuming your child has similar genes, it means one can be a grandparent by the age of 26. Then you can 共享天伦。(enjoy familial ties) And speaking of which if this goes on you could be a great-great-great-grandparent by the age of 65 and that would truly bring out the meaning in 传宗接代。What's not to like about that?

And there won't be worries of having an ageing population. Oh no, I think young Alfie Patten has just found the solution to our "greying population" miles and miles away. Some might argue that the economic crisis has made it more difficult to raise kids, but if you ask me is your money or your family more important?

Money = Gone when you're dead
Family = Generations to come even after you're dead

So I would suggest that if you're already past the age of 13 and all grown-up, it's not too late to make a positive difference to the lives of young Singaporeans. Teach your children the value of sex early, and the moment they teeter on the brink of their teenage years you can get them to screw the neighbour. "Love thy neighbour", did they not say?

And poof, many many generations to come!

Nevertheless the article ends with an anti-climax, like wtf because:

Britain’s youngest known father is Sean Stewart. He became a dad at 12 when the girl next door, 15-year-old Emma Webster, gave birth in Sharnbrook, Bedford, in 1998. They split six months later.

Now this is a fricking joke gone bad because that increases the chance the kid would grow crazy due to his broken family. And by the way I do hope this Emma Webster looks at least similar to Emma Watson or otherwise it might be another case of young boys screwing ugly young girls because they want to explore the birds and the bees.

But all that said, I was still compelled to find out what had driven this little boy to do such an outrageous act. I mean, even though it's not necessarily a bad thing, it remains a very rarely-seen thing and it's one of the more extreme cases of the world. Needless to say I got the answer through careful inspection of the article.

Here it is:

Dennis, who works for a vehicle recovery firm, described Alfie as “a typical 13-year-old boy”.

He said: “He loves computer games, boxing and Manchester United.”

Well, no f**king wonder, then.

dc : The Meaning of Life

2009-03-01T14:10:00.015+08:00

What is the meaning of life? There is no answer. Why? Because the question is stupid, that’s why.

Think about it: what on earth do we (no pun) mean by the meaning of life? A symbol has a meaning; a sentence has a meaning, but life? The fact is, ‘meaning’ is not an attribute something like ‘life’ can possess. Indeed, the question is akin to asking: what is the meaning of an orange?

Many claim to know an answer to this ubiquitous question, but they are mistaken. ‘Love thy neighbor’ is not the meaning of life; ‘be happy’ is not the meaning of life. These are directions on how to live your life, not its intrinsic meaning. “Step on the gas and control the wheel” and “just floor it” are how to drive a car, not the meanings of a car. You may think, “Wtf is a meaning of a car!?” I could ask you the same about life.

Contributed by dc (because we're lazy)

The most wonderful ideas come out of the toilet bowl

2009-02-04T22:38:00.005+08:00

It occurred to me that the ideas that I have that i find the most interesting, almost invariably comes when i'm doing something mundane. Such as studying for the A levels. Or pushing paperwork. Or, as the title of this entry suggests, sitting in the toilet. In fact, the existence of this blog itself might have to thank some common test. And it's probably during one of these zen-like sessions that I came up with the following observations that are often taken for granted, in our everyday lives and concluded that our lives simply don't make sense.

Have you ever wondered why they don't bother building a fence around HDB estates? It's cos we're poor, nothing much to steal. We pity the poor no-lifer who has to steal from HDB occupants. We might even give away some stuff to you, and then say hi to you when we meet again in the Toto queue!

Moving on, have you ever wondered why there's a fence around condominiums? Cos there's stuff to steal. Lounge chairs, gym equipment, table tennis tables, even pool tables. Or you could use detergent and wash clothes in the condo swimming pool, since nowadays water very expensive and wash clothes need a lot a lot of water.

So, why are the fences around landed properties usually so low?
Requires a bit more brainpower, but that's obviously because they have so much that they know you can't possibly take enough to to hurt them in any significant way. In other words, burglars, please help yourselves. Thinking for the burglar, I would think that it's very labour-intensive to keep carting furniture to the hideaway. The logistics involved (getaway lorry) would be much of a headache, which is rather unnecessary as we shall see. The 3G (3rd generation) burglar will scale the wall with a high-resolution handycam in hand. He proceeds to take videos of the occupants in sex positions at night. And if the shooting angle is wrong or some cock-up (wah punz) such that he needs a reshoot, he can just shout, "EH CB CAN DO IT PROPERLY OR NOT!", and siam for a while. The involved occupants may be startled and may go around looking for the burglar, but they won't find him la, if he knows how to camouflage properly. If he don't know means he chaokeng during ns. So after a futile search, the occupants (actually might as well call them pornstars) will go back to their room uneasily. But that's not the end of the story, cos according to an expert (lazy so i only find one)
http://www.counterpunch.org/block10292005.html, sex and fear seem to go hand in hand, so all the fear will make them do it again and the burglar can then climb out and do a reshoot. Then the burglar tries to sell the saucy video back to the participants. Some people call it blackmail. whatever. If the people buy it, it's a win-win situation, because otherwise, the burglar wouldn't get anything except police arrests if they post it online. Who else would want to see it anyway?

Another thing about modern society is how much we waste energy. I don't mean all of us should take on the big projects like Al Gore's movie that don't really help much, in fact i think it makes the matter worse. We should seek to understand why people today:

a) run on the treadmill, but drive for the shortest distances
and then complain that cars pollute the earth

b) Lift weights, but abhor manual labour
With such contribution to the world, it's no wonder the earth is in such a sorry state

This almost makes me want to invent foot-powered wheelchairs and solar-powered torchlights.

And here's something that boggles the mind: http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22556281-661,00.html

yl explains leverage

2009-02-01T17:53:00.003+08:00

Nowadays with the financial crisis in full swing, talking about finance very in. Newspaper, newsweek all saying the same things. Like why part A of the economy sucks, why part B of the economy sucks, that's why everybody suck thumb. That is now la. Not so long ago, i read this column by a financial expert in newsweek say the drop in stock prices is just a 'short-term correction', cheemology for singing "if we hold on together, I know our dreams(of getting rich) will never die". Now become 'if we hold on to the stocks together, all of us will die together'. There's so many explanations for why the whole financial crisis happen, but i think those reporters just pangsai out something to make a living la, regardless of whether they actually know what's happening or not, unlike me cannot make any money writing. Actually, whether you understand the financial crisis or not also doesn't matter, because you also cannot do anything about it. Even the people who are doing something about it also don't understand it, so no point, end up just fight. But i just want to explain what is leverage for fun.

Leverage is simply borrowing, like how companies on Wall Street borrow to make money (and now lose money). But let me illustrate this with an example everyone can relate to, at the same time teach you all some survival skills.

Let's say you got no money. But you're hungry, so you go to Macdonald's. You look around, and you spy someone who has just bought an extra value meal. You think, where does that extra value go to? Must be for me la. So you approach that someone, and ask in your most charming way, can I have a few pieces of your fries? Smitten, the person says yes, albeit reluctantly. With that legitimate piece of consent, you turn into a food monster and grab half of the fries, and put it on another tray which you have koped earlier on. But you're not done yet. You also grab the fries container from the shocked someone's tray. Finally done with the food rape, you remember what your mama told you and say 'thank you'. (I believe investment bankers are polite people too) Now the proud owner of half a packet of fries, is it time to enjoy the fruits of someone else's labour? Not so fast. You have to be hungrier than that! Instead, you don't touch the half packet of fries and you head towards the cashier with it. You say in a polite voice, "Excuse me, I think the fries are overcooked." You eyeball the cashier and maintain a solemn face as he gives you his WTF expression. If you sense resistance, or some tension, you go for the jugular and say, "Yes, it's overcooked, would you like to try some of it?" At this point, in all probability, the cashier will give in and give you a whole new packet of freshly-ccoked fries. It's not his store after all. He's just a poor cashier forced to deal with hungry psychotic people. He'll give anything to make them go away. Now what you do next really depends on your level of greed. You could eat your fries, though thats too easy for you. Or you could divide your fries, kope another fries container from the dustbin or someone else and repeat the steps, thereby getting you 2 packets of freshly-cooked fries. And the process could go on. Then you can sell macdonald's french fries outside macdonald's for half the price! Or you can graduate to leveraging burgers instead of/and fries. Man the possibilities are endless!

(Based on a true story)

Left for Dead

2009-01-22T18:44:00.008+08:00

My situation: stay out, subject to no work.

So that's more or less like I'm a part of the normal Singapore workforce, unlike most people studying. I've learnt a lot, and the things to hate about work. Like meetings. Many scenarios can happen after a meeting is scheduled:

Meeting cancelled: yeeeyy

Fall sick and stay home: yeyy

Assuming that both of these don't happen, be prepared for a rather shitty time, with bullshit being the main focus. It generally starts out fine, everyone's optimistic many things can resolved somehow by more talking heads, talking heads that never appear except for meetings with a big boss. But when the agenda drags on for more than half an hour, morale dips to 'cb another dedication of my life to my country' levels and everyone sits a little lower in their chairs. Then, you watch with horror as everyone starts to morph into zombies. You, my friend, are the survivor, and here's where my new characters for the computer game Left for Dead comes in.

The Bull: Works like the character Boomer, but instead of spewing a disgusting, sticky goo, this one emanates shit like nobody's business. bullshit. Usually starts with "i think we can blahblahblah..." or "In my previous unit, we did blahblahblah..." You know that's an enormous catastrophe, it's like you see the asteroid casting a shadow as it comes crashing into earth and you just cross your trembling fingers and hope that the bullshit doesn't land splat in your face. The bull usually spawns close to Legolas (see below)

Ultimate move: Bullshit Storm
This is a sad way to die as your spirit, your intelligence, your dignity are all crushed mercilessly by the tonnes of bullshit falling from the sky. You are finally covered, and not a trace of you can be seen.

The Finger A: The finger A says "Oh this thing is X do one. You can ask him about that." or " Oh i thought X was supposed to do that as we agreed on during the last meeting" (X may be a zombie too so in that case you can watch a zombie-fight for once!). But sometimes this isn't a wise move because it's so directly confrontational. And what if the minutes prove it wrong? Then the finger would be pointing back at itself!

Ultimate move: Finger Stab
If you get this, you end up with holes all over your body from the finger stabs. From those holes, pple know they can fuck you.

The Finger B: The finger B is a more evolved version of the finger B and has an attribute of 20 for subtlety. It says, "I take full responsibility for the shit that happened... but actually it's his fault not my fault" The absurdity of this sentence is sometimes clouded by the zombie-ish setting. It's like saying," I'm sorry but actually i'm not sorry"

Ultimate move: Finger Stab (with longer fingernail than above)
See above, with twice the damage.

The Brain: woah this zombie is smart. Somehow through gossip and stuff, this zombie actually knows everything that's going on, but that doesn't mean it has done anything about it. But because it knows everything, it is assumed it did or was involved in the work. Nobody can lift a finger against the brain because it just knows too much.

The Goat: The goat is the noobiest of the zombies. Most of the time, it gets the blame for every shit that happens. The goat must be in the unique position that its not junior enough to "act blur live longer" and not senior enough to "wah lau it's all my stupid insubordinate subordinate's fault". So why should you fear the goat? Because the goat's bleatings can be damn irritating, like a witch's screech. The goat will say stuff like this," so now everything is my fault loh, but I did so and so and -tonnes of excuses later- proceeds to gore you with horns if you walk away. And of course you, the cynical you, will be thinking to yourself, "Now you're bleating yourself silly about the shit that happens to you when all you've been doing is leaving crap all over the place."

Ultimate move: Death Bleat

Legolas
Handsome, dashing Legolas is the champion of the show. Shooting arrows all over the place, this is the man you need to keep clear of, or keep within ass-kissing distance of, depending on what type of person you are. The undoubted leader, his fearsome arrows put the fear of god into the hearts of all present.

Ultimate move: Arrow Fury
You die a horrible death, with arrows sticking through all of your body

Your job, being the survivor, is as the name suggests, to survive. Though it's not easy, i wish you luck! And because my inexperience has limited my imagination, i recommend that you read Dilbert for the ultimate survival guide!

Fairytale ending?

2009-01-11T21:34:00.005+08:00

After watching the final episode of The Little Nyonya, I thought I'd seen the last of that sobby show. Not that it was a bad show, in fact I quite enjoyed it. Just that I thought yes it's over finally time to get on with my life and stop being addicted.

Well, not quite.

Wednesday's report in the papers said that viewers kpkb that the ending was NO GOOD. That Chen Xi and Yueniang didn't end up together, wtf!! So no fairytale ending = bad ending!!

I was stunned to read that some viewer actually cried when she found out they were separated. Okayy... even though I won't say I've never cried in my life, I certainly don't do it over a serial. Or for a movie, for that matter (because I'm not Emolin).

Anyway who said it wasn't a happy ending. Did they not see the joy on Yueniang's face when the Caucasian proposed to her? Since she's already half Jap it doesn't hurt mixing more Caucasian blood into the gene pool. It's common knowledge mixed kids usually turn out smarter than most, and more handsome than most.

So how the eff is that a poor ending? Plus Chen Xi and his wife had SIX kids. SIX KIDS LE... it's like they had SIXXX so much that they had half a dozen worth of kids. Can play 5-a-side rugby with one waterboy/reserve. How is that a bad ending?

Next time I urge ST to be more discretive when they wish to air the views of the audience. It's so retarded I was like roflmao when I opened the Life! spread. Although it made my day - so actually ST should publish more of such articles.

Tonight they will play the alternative ending to "The Little Nyonya" - where Chen Xi and Yueniang get together. That is awful rubbish, since we know that these ideal situations seldom happen in life. Life sucks, and the viewers ought to face it.

Who said Yueniang liked Chen Xi in the first place anyway? If she really did she would not have rejected him so many times. Forcing Yueniang to marry Chen Xi would be akin to letting Yuzhu marry Robert Zhang - an unhappy marriage leading to JACK SHIT.

Therefore I feel that the original ending was ideal.

As for whether Yueniang is fireproof..

..who gives a damn, it's a bloody show for show's sake.

Okay now I'm off to catch the 5-minute special edition where they get together. Just to satisfy some retarded viewers' cravings. Ahahaha I would have blogged longer but too bad, service to the nation right after the 5-minute edition.

Next week I'll try to blog earlier. lol

Wanted: VIDEOCAM

2009-01-01T23:46:00.005+08:00

YL and I wanted a videocam for very important purposes, and we know not of many who has one. In fact, we only know of one person. Since both of us don't have videocams (in case I didn't say that earlier, which I didn't), we decided to approach him for a very important loan.

In order to fulfil our very important purpose.

For anonymity purposes, our friend is named as c, the constant in our equation. I'm J for short, then obviously the YL is L.

How To Persuade A Good Friend To Lend You Something
And How To Hedge A Subject
And Talk A Lot Of Cock On The Way There
(edited and modified)

j- hello.
c- yoyo.
l- hey c we need you very badly.
(that's persuasion due to desperate need)

c- ya right.
l- okay more specifically we need your videocam.
(now he's coming clean..)

c- you want my wife then say so.
l- we know you come with your camera..
j- that's wrong. you COME with your WIFE?
(that's talking cock, by the way)

c- so who you want to spy on? hot chicks?
j- eh lets go lanning this sat. (diverting subject)
c- no i can't lan
j- eh i owe you money anyway
c- u do?
j- no i meant yl
l- lol
(time wastage due to talking cock. we're good)

j- back to the topic! videocam! you're not using it?
c- no.. why you using it for?
j- eh yl but we not much time le.. (i'm super unfocused)
c- just get straight to the point!
j- sorry i'm like arsenal. (c's an arsenal fan)
l- we got all the time in the world..
j- i dribble.. i hang around.. shoot everywhere except the goal..
j- wave to the fans.. (pushing my luck..)
l- arsenal can't win.
(negative example. please don't insult the guy's favourite team if you want a favour.)

c- LOL quick. what you need my cam for?
l- so what do you think we need it for?
(questioning techniques.)

l- is it edible?
j- is it sexable?
j- man needs two basic things. FOOD! SEX!
c- oh. so you need to film some porn shit.
j- maybe porn. but SHIT? that's just gross.
c- you guys won't take pics of food. that's just gay.
c- but you might film shit. (ouch..)

l- c asks the best questions possible..
c- i don't get it. i must be fortune's fool. (which was his nick)
j- well acc to your nick you ARE fortune's fool..
c- okay i get it. YOU GUYS JUST WANT ME.
c- NOT MY CAMERA. LEAVE MY WIFE ALONE.
(gee.. such an accusation, i was real hurt man.)

l- yea. so that's settled then.
l- okay the gist is that..
c- lan on saturday?
(see what talking cock and hedging the issue has done..)

l- (ignoring c) you asked what we wanted your video cam for..
l- which of course would be to make videos.
l- but you still asked.
c- (exasperated?) yeah i mean what kind of videos =.=

(then i start the nonsense all over again.)
j- wait i thought you said you couldn't lan?
l- okay we want to make a video that entertains, in a way thats acceptable to us
(now he's being really specific.)
c- just have me inside. that's good enough =)=)
j- LOL YOU SAID IT BETTER NOT REGRET

(note: last time i posted sth about c online this girl fell madly in love with him.)

c- HAHA FUCK U LOL
c- you gonna post it on TCS? (oops.)
l- that's interesting. you can teach everyone how to chase a girl.
c- speak for yourself yl you're the girl killer! (tables are turned!)
c- you're the girl killer. every girl on the __________ had a crush on you!

Editor's note: Sensitive information! But it's true there was one period of time there was this indeterminate number of girls having a crush on YL. Or maybe all the while. Unfortunately mesdemoiselles he's already taken, so sorry. Back to the convo.

l- yea. but that wasn't funny.
j- LOL. (wasn't it.)
l- we need entertainment.
c- well u try charming the rj canteen aunties. tell them they're on film and they are very pretty. and flirt with them. and try to get a discount. if u dun piss them off by paying in 5 cents coins.

Editor's note: I did that once. They weren't pleased. Ah and I meant paying in 5 cents coins, not the flirting bit LOL.

l- that's just mean, and we're not in sch anymore.
l- you want to try cookhouse aunties?
c- no. its they who want to try me.
l- now you're starting (the digression).

convo suddenly degens and we're talking about who's going to camp tomorrow and whatnot. it gets really bad until c pulls us all back into the convo.

c- i can lend you all. but you all never say how long, when, why..
l- like saf logbook like that..
l- make video for tcs la!!

And that concludes our conversation, because the purpose had been revealed.

Hope you learnt something there.

Holiday!

2008-12-27T09:45:00.006+08:00

Upon entering the alternate reality, when we have no idea what's in store for us, it's a rite of passage for almost all to go on a sweet holiday package not offered to outsiders. Information as follows, take a brochure!

16D/15N Te Kong Delight

offering:

unspoilt greenery

Trek through the unspoilt primary jungles of Singapore, witness the good, the bad, and the nasty (mother big centipedes that can bite off an ass or two). These jungles are also where you will learn your camping skills and attempt to do stargazing at night.

swimming pool with sea view

This is quite impressive, it's the only swimming pool in singapore with a sea view. Too bad it's not often that we use it.

guided tour along Te Kong coastline

This takes place quite early on to introduce the various amenities available to tourists. Subsequently, every morning you are able to enjoy the scenic view when you do a leisurely jog as part of the health and fitness programme.

all meals included

Can't say the food's good, but it's free what more can you ask for?

modern department store

This store has most modern conveniences that one needs, but the queer thing is that most of the things are in green or black, but these colours are always in fashion so not to worry.

watch sunset and stars with friends

So throughout the course of the package, there'll be some ceremonies that occur in the evening and this is the time when you can just stand there and look at the stars. If you're wondering why i keep talking about stargazing, it's because there are so many you can see, as opposed to singapore.

training programme for optimum fitness

You also have a fitness programme that is tailored for you. It's really progressive training.

Life coaches with many years of experience

This is of course the best part. It's always the people that make the difference. And the wisdom of the coaches cannot be questioned. Here's their various snippets of wisdom in reaction to everyday events.

When some bugger does something stupid:
"stupid got no medicine".
A profound observation that, in spite of all the advances in medicine and technology, there's no cure for stupidity. With that, he has identified a global problem of vast scale that modern society has not even begun to solve. An oblique critique of the medical system today.

Fun fact of the day:
"by the way, fuck backside very pain".
Yea the lesson ended with this very random and totally irrelevant fun fact. But nonetheless enlightening. I mean, who would know before he said it?

Philosophy on love:
"True love is injection in the middle section without objection"
The source of heated debate for centuries, and we're no closer to an answer, but the coach gives his esteemed opinion.

Scolding someone:
"defunct sperm product"
Finally, one insult that insults the father. Mothers have been having it bad what with all the insults like motherfucker and son of a bitch. This is the age of gender equality.

Praising someone:
"Jonathan's a good boy, he's a virgin"
We didn't really have to know that.

On patience:
"of course must wait la, even pregnant also must wait 9 months"
The usual response to something like this is laughter, then '...' then??? what the hell does pregnancy have to do with anything we're doing?

Synonym for "All of you guys":
"Every father's mother's son"
I have no idea why they would substitute a shorter phrase for a longer phrase, but i assume it's to add emphasis on who they're addressing, and to wake up the people who are sleeping before continuing.

On pain:
"Fuck also pain, no pain no gain, the beauty is at the end"
a rather warped way of using no pain no gain, but effective in conveying the message.

On the wrong attitude:
"Everyday wake up 'Cheebye another day!'"
A comical way of depicting pessimists, but a gross exaggeration because even the diehard pessimists don't start cursing first thing in the morning. But i can imagine this is a good way to vent it when life really sucks that much.

And of course, when inspired by such great language, even young guys come up with memorable quotes.
King kenny:
"The worst 3 days of my life are coming to an end...the 4th is about to start"
well king kenny wasn't exactly an optimist, but this is very quotable.

Come to think of it, despite the fact that virtually all the quotes are grammatically flawed, it was a great lesson on effective communication.

So it was quite an attractive package, though it paled in comparison to the Brunei Bonanza and the Thailand Thong Party that were to follow in terms of adventure. Well, personally i gained some insights after going on Te Kong Delight. Some of them confirm the way i see the world, some of them adjust the way i see the world, and some of them turn me upside down and make me see the world that way.

Hygiene:
The package taught me that hygiene really isn't important. If i already said that in previous posts, i was kidding then. So this time, my hands and fingernails were muddy and all, and water was really meant for drinking, not washing, so with my muddy hands, i took a biscuit and popped it into my mouth. One day, two days, nope no diarrhea. So essentially, all the things that we do for hygiene in our everyday life are somewhat redundant.

Hair:
Have you wondered why Singapore has failed to produce a single rock star? Yea, actors, playwrights, poets, we have them all, but why no rock star, or at least one that i have heard of? That's because singapore guys have a serious lack of hair. Rock stars need hair, because

a) they need to cover up their ugly faces, if only for a moment
b) it can amplify the fact that their heads are grooving along to the music too. In a music hall, if you're botak, the audience sitting some distance away can't really tell whether you're moving your head along or not.
c) hair allows them to have more choices for fashion. If you have hair, you can dye your hair a rainbow hue, come up with funny hairstyles like 10 pigtails, but if you're botak, what are you going to do, paint your head?

Unfortunately, fate hasn't been kind to singaporean guys. Since young, there has been strict hair discipline. In school, there are always hair checks, and the sad thing is you don't know how mild the punishments actually are until you have graduated from school. For example, schools can give you detention but they can't give you confinement. So, in schools, we cut hair, and in te kong, we shave hair, and after that it's too late to be a rock star, or the testosterone catches up and theres a receding hairline. So that's why Singapore has no rock stars!

I Love Parades!

2008-12-23T21:29:00.003+08:00

One thing about the alternate reality is that there are many different types of parades. But generally, a parade involves you showing yourself off to someone, presenting the best possible image. Still they differ greatly.

a) defaulter's parade

The tradition of this parade began in 1883 in the British Army, when a soldier was unable to repay his debt to his comrade, and was made to march at fast pace around the camp as punishment. Thus evolved the practice of employing defaulter's parade as the preferred form of punishment for stupid offences. Today, proud participants of the defaulter's parade hold their heads up high as they march at breakneck pace and turn round and round on the spot and then vomit. Yes it's that violent.

b) show parade

Just as the name suggests, it's for show. That's for offences like if you show up in slippers, with an ugly afro, an ugly mohawk or the like. Then you'd have to rectify your problem (trim your afro into the shape of a helmet) or say you're sikh and then show the guy who punished you what a changed man you are.

c) passing out parade

I always had this idea that the passing out parade would be a mass of people fainting at the same time, kinda like a party where everyone overdoses at the same moment, though that would take some coincidence. But it's not. Passing out parade usually means you can finally get out of the place you trained in, usually not known as a happy place.

d) master parade

Master parade is just a parade conducted when the dude feels like it. So you dress your best, and try to be the cellophane man in chicago, meaning invisible. No long hair, nothing out of place. And pray that no fire burns (means no weekend burn)

e) commissioning parade

The greatest thing that the commissioning parade has taught me is that a great mass of people doing the same action, whatever that action may be, makes for a great spectacle. So let's say you have 500 people on parade, and they all scratch their asses in the same way at the same time, that would make for a great show too. That is the power of military precision. At the same time, it tells me that people only watch the first few rows, and if you're at the back, you can pretty much screw up the parade anyway you want cos nobody cares. But we all screwed up anyway.

Explorations of the Alternate Reality

2008-12-16T16:17:00.007+08:00

Blogging is like taking a dump. Except that i take a dump way more often than i blog. Hopefully, this exception can be remedied by the inspiration that the travels into the alternate reality has given me. 5 notebooks worth of shit, that's how much inspiration i have, it's a miracle i'm not exploding. Now i shall state a fact about the alternate reality.

In the alternate reality, different species wear berets of different colours. These are seemingly random choices coming out from crayola colours, but they are not. The colours are in fact an ingenious contingency plan in case electricty fails. Do take a look at the following pictures.

Traffic lights! Sorry, wanted to use some real pictures but couldn't find any.

Something out of nothing

2008-12-15T23:52:00.008+08:00

Q: What happens when a few young officer cadets get commissioned by the President?

A: They go right back to a blog that has been long dead and try to revive it, because as second lieutenants of the Singapore Armed Forces, it is their duty to be responsible for the training and welfare of the men that they are in charge of.

--

Okay that might be somewhat random. The question doesn't make any sense, and neither does the answer. And you might be thinking a blog isn't exactly a man. True that.

Then again we at TCS believe that everything occurs illogically, thus whether the past few paragraphs makes sense or not is immaterial.

What matters is that we're back. Back and hopefully here to stay.

Like a group of soldiers watching as the sky darkens and a heavy downpour commences, delaying their start to yet another tiring exercise. They know that the rain is back, and hopefully here to stay.

It's never easy to start posting again. You might not know it but actually I've been trying to post since Sunday - because I haven't posted for too long. I have this theory that blogging is like taking a dump.

(Please don't read on if you just had your meal.)

If you don't shit for too long, you get constipation. Same thing in blogging. Therefore it can be pointed out correctly that I am suffering from blog-stipation. Just look at how I type (granted you can't see so I can lie to you anyway) - I'm typing slowly, jerkily and wondering what comes next.

If you eat the wrong food, you get diarrhoea. Referring to my earlier posts, a dose of something nasty or amusing sets me off. I get all excited and post like I've never owned a blog before. Maybe I'd offer you a post worth ten finger-rolls of the mouse. That is bloggrea.

Quite so, yes.

Well YL and I were chatting a little, trying to see who could be inspired enough to post. He made an effort to post just there, but he didn't want to show off his new post yet so he saved as draft. That is called holding it in, or the hokkien peng would call "kek" - which suspiciously sounds like the.. thing produced from the above-mentioned metaphor.

It shows that as long as you have the determination and effort, you can always hold your crap in.

As for me, I'm bone dry of inspiration but I opened the Blogger window. And I made sure I had to type something. That's like going to the toilet and camping there, knowing that after so much constipation you just have to shit out something.

And here you are. The effort will pay off, trust me.

(This experience is similar to what I had back in SAFTI. I really could not force anything out in the excessively smelly toilets of Delta Wing but upon applying brute force and camping in the toilet, I finally did it. Even though it wasn't much it's better than nothing.)

Don't let constipation beat you. Make sure you have a healthy.. toxin-clearing habit.

Blog-stipation won't last forever. We're going to have healthy blogging habits.

Watch this space, this post will be going down, down all the way to the bottom of the page. Just like the s**t being flushed down to the bottom of the sewage.

We are back. (if Rockson can post once a year well SO CAN WE.)

Songlist from A levels

2007-12-02T18:08:00.001+08:00

Studying is always a damn lonely process, even if you study with others. That's why the people who study the most usually have no friends. When you're in the zone, you're all alone (hey it rhymes!). If you talk cock with your friend, you're not actually studying. But if you don't, you might as well be studying alone. Then some idiots say they can talk about the intellectual stuff that they're revising, but then those people you call weirdos, not friends. So that leaves music as the ethereal companion for your soul throughout the tumultuous times of denial, anguish, frustration, humiliation, relief and joy, roughly in that order. Why that order? (Might have been blogged about before but i can't remember)

1. Step 1 is always denial. As follows "i am so bloody smart, i am high and mighty ah jay see student i refuse to believe i don't understand this!"

2. Step 2 is anguish. i.e., wah knnccb HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN TO MEEE!! This would be an appropriate time to change the song playing to How Could This Happen To Me by Simple Plan. An alternative scenario for the religious would be HOW COULD GOD DO THIS TO ME!! (Ans: Like that loh). You can even change the lyrics of the chorus to how could god do this to me.

3. Step 3 is frustration, i.e. Wah die liao sure fail A-levels howhowhowhow?!! Fail then cannot go university then cannot earn money might as well DIE! the mood then would be exemplified by Down the Boulevard of Broken Dreams by Green Day.

4. Step 4 is humiliation. i.e. Cannot do this question, so humiliating go jiaksai la. But then pull out so much hair over this question liao cannot pull anymore later go bald even before NS, so you end up asking some higher authority, most likely to be members of your study group. There is a rule that governs study groups, and that is that members always get the same grades. so most likely, they also don't know how to do. Like that even more humiliating. Why my friends all so stupid. If you ask a teacher, then it depends on the teacher. Some can go doodeladey without answering anything, some use the i'll-get-back-to-you-later scam or the i'll-find-out-for-you scam, and of course some will do what they're paid to do and answer your questions. When you're humiliated, i suggest I Started a Joke by Bees Gees.

5. Whatever the case, step 5 is relief, after you find out that
case 1: your friends don't know how to do it,
case 2: your teachers don't know how to do it
or case 3: your teachers tell you the answer, it's all cause for relief.

6. Step 6 is joy. 'Heck la, whatever, won't come out for As". This statement has more than 90% probability of coming true. See, only 1 set of papers come out of As. Let's say you do 10 papers. Even a slacker like me would have done 10 sets of papers if you include the common tests and the prelims and the mock papers. Assuming everything that comes out of As comes from the papers you have done, only one tenth of what you have done will come out. So each question has one-tenth chance of coming out, but that's assuming everything that comes out of As comes from the papers you have done, so the actual probability of it not coming out for As is even higher. Of course, you can say the exact same question will never come out for As, but let's just give the definition more space. So after all the thinking, one reverts back to the natural state, which is joy, since the point of life is to be happy. happytime!

But i digress. This was meant to be about a songlist. So here goes

1. We Are the Champions by Queen
This is a classic. This guy who wrote and performed this is a genius... and a gay.

2. 笨小孩 by Andy Lau, Jacky Wu and Blacky Ke
Another classic. It tells you that god, actually more of dua peh gong, favours stupid kids. It says that if im stupid, god will favour me, but if im not, i don't need it anyway, so either way, i win. An inspiration to us all.

3. I Believe I Can Fly by R.Kelly
So popular when first launched, most people have forgotten it by now. It's suitable for all occasions where inspiration is needed, except when you're drunk and on high buildings.

4. Hero by Mariah Carey
Don't care about the singer, don't care about the music, the title says it all.

5. Always look on the bright side of life by don't know who (but i listen to the monty python version on youtube)
You got nothing, started with nothing, so you lost nothing!

6. YMCA by Village People, though the version by Hard Gay on youtube is funny.
Sometimes, you have to admit it, the gays make great music! One day i will go to the ymca and have a great time.

Songs you should not listen to while studying

1. 对面的女孩看过来 by 阿牛
Tut tut nonono.You can't have any distractions while you study.

2. Holiday by Green Day
Somebody said, everybody wants to go to heaven, but nobody wants to do what it takes to get there. It's not the same here, but sometimes we look so much at the destination (the holidays after As) that we forget the journey(studying for As). Ok so maybe it's only me, so change the we to I.

So this conlcudes my songlist, a little short, but effective nonetheless, assuming i listen to music when i work in the first place.

Note: My knowledge of songs is limited and i like it that way.

Concert Promotion!

2007-11-25T02:12:00.001+08:00

It's yj with a piano concert on the 3rd december titled "cockupsession@amphitheatre"! A very artistic name indeed for a very artistic show. Even the poster is so artistic. It's a matinee show at 2pm so you all better come ah. Featured songs include 'We Are The Champions' (obviously and we of course includes me) and depends on yj's mood at that moment. Not many of you know this, but yj was actually a music prodigy who entered ri through the direct admissions programme. For almost six years in secondary school and junior college, he kept his talent hidden because he knew all the people in school were deadbeats and would not be able to afford to pay him to play, but finally he's decided to unleash his immense talent upon us like someone who hasn't pissed for an entire week and decides to finally let loose the tsunami. But of course it's not free. Ticket prices start at 68 dollars for those standing around, where the view sucks, 88 dollars for sitting on the steps, where the view sucks, 98 dollars for lying on the floor around yj, where the view still sucks and finally 158 dollars for sitting on the piano chair (whatever that thing pianists sit on is called) with yj, subject to availability. This doesn't suck. There must be a reason why the piano chair is so long, and the only reason i can think of is that it's meant for more than one person, cos pianists in general don't seem to have very big butts. Tickets on sale now all outlets of our good friend SISTIC. Be sure to come!

About dentists and soccer

2007-11-20T22:38:00.001+08:00

I visited my dentist yesterday, and just because I didn't blog about it in the past doesn't mean it's uneventful. I always enjoy the visits to my dentist because I always get amused. That doesn't mean I come out of the room for the better.

In fact, I usually come out of the dentist's like I've been punched in the mouth. Probably not too far from the truth. Let me give you a lowdown on why my dentist is scary:

1. She has lots of sharp metal instruments. (okay granted she's a dentist, duh)

2. She is rather strong and is not afraid to exert force if the need arises, or even when the need does not arise.

3. She has a tendency (and probably an obligation) to put these sharp metal instruments into my mouth.

The final reason, and the most scary of all:

4. She has a poor aim.

So often I come out like I've had the life sucked out of me. Not exactly, just some blood that's drained. Always when I rinse my mouth I look forward to seeing the water in the colour of iron ferranocyanate. (not sure of spelling)

Basically it's RED. And okay maybe I don't really look forward to it after all.

The thing about my dentist, she likes to talk cock. Which is why I don't really mind bleeding away while she does her thing. She's got an old assistant but they are all quite funny. And they actually think I'm very smart and that sort of ego-boosting is very good for a guy with very low self-esteem like myself.

Conversation usually goes like this (I'd be wearing some form of school uniform when I go to the dentist's somehow):

D(entist): Wa you from Raffles ar. (she forgets EVERY DAMN WEEK)

Me: Ja.

D: RI or RJC? (ANOTHER QUESTION SHE FORGETS. do i look very young?)

Me: RJC. J2. (then i get some metal on my enamel)

D: Oh are your exams over? *at the time it wasn't*

Me: Not yet.. coming up in a month's.. OUCH

D: Oh sorry. Did I hurt you? So how have the tests been.. should be quite okay for you right, RJC people all very smart.

Me: (unable to reply because now the suction thingy is in my mouth and more metal instruments are in. but i think yea right that's what everyone says, popular overrated misconception of the century)

D: Haha so A Levels confirm all As right.

Me: (thinking WTH WHY ASK ME THOSE QUESTIONS WHERE I HAVE GOOD REPLIES WHEN I CAN'T REPLY) mfffgghh! mfff!

D: Oh did it hurt? Sorry ar.. just bear with it.

Me: ...

D: What course you going to do in uni next time? (she's really friendly, I say)

But by then I am unable to reply because one of the sharp instruments is already half in my gum and I am tasting saline for some reason. I start to think about the consequences should be a brain surgeon operating with a scalpel instead of these.. things.

Hmm maybe I should take up Dentistry. Then maybe some sod can blog about me while I happily spam metal into his gum. Which will NOT be fillings.

Anyway, that was about all I wanted to say about dentists. I can continue the story another day. More importantly, TCS has turned into a punter ground and I will be giving you a match preview of the BIG MATCH..

ENGLAND VS CROATIA

Much as you think this match is gonna be big, I say it's going to be super boring because we all know England is not easily beaten at home and Croatia is just plain lame for losing 2-0 to FYR MACEDONIA. Don't even know what FYR stands for. Silly retards.

And the pre-match commentary amuses me to a great extent. Let me give you a graphical representation.

Tough words from both sides, though what they are thinking are probably a whole different issue altogether. Let me give you another representation of what might be running through their minds.

Yup so we all know that actually they really cannot be bothered. I mean think about it. Logic dictates that both sides would want to earn favours for themselves - and if they were to get a package deal for both to qualify.. WHO WOULD DECLINE?
Symbiosis is always good. When both parties benefit, you don't question so much, you just go for the benefit. And that is why I think it's going to be.. you've guessed it.
A DRAW. What's more it's going to be a drab and boring draw.
talkcocksummit's prediction..
or rather just mine: ENGLAND 0 CROATIA 0
Take my word for it and don't watch that stupid match.
Someone is going to be very thankful for Israel's win. Not only is that going to keep his place in the squad, but tonight he'd also have nothing to do because of the England-Croatia Football Treaty So That Everyone Can Qualify.
That bloke is no other than..

MISTER ROBINSON. And if you're sharp and observant enough to notice the score in the top corner, it reads Croatia 2-0 England. With good reason, too, I might add.

Well symbiosis and both to qualify for Euro 2008, I'd say. But after that.. they can both go screw themselves and get knocked out in the first phase because don't we all know these two teams are bloody lousy, going by such a long qualification route in such a damn lousy group.

I shall favour Slaven Bilic's Croatia to win, however, because he was a former West Ham defender. Hammer means power. But my prediction will not change and should the match end in any other result..

No it won't. And that's all I have about dentists and soccer.

I find it absolutely amazing the blog is still here.

2007-11-18T21:40:00.001+08:00

Well, well, so what do you know? I find myself in unfamiliar territory, back here saying something which I haven't figured out yet. I am sorry not to have visited more frequently, but I've been trapped in a hell called RJC.

RJC stands for Raffles Junior College. In case you thought I got kidnapped and got stuck in some Rancid Junk Centre. Well but it comes close enough, and no I went to RJC on a voluntary basis. I'm sure you know there's also this thing called the "A" levels. Atrocious, Aggressive, whatever. I don't give a damn what you call it because for me it's over. HAH!

In any case, since Blogger doesn't delete inactive blogs - or since YL has been providing you with his hygiene tips.. I guess this is one very long overdue post. And let's talk about the latest and most important thing in everyone's lives.

Assuming you're an eighteen-year-old. Because if you're not, I assume we'd be talking about last night's soccer match. I do not understand how the hell Israel could beat Russia. But shit happens, and well I think it's okay because I didn't bet on Russia.

Which is a reminder: talkcocksummit has turned eighteen and is eligible to bet with Singapore Pools! Admittedly, though we can talk the cock, money is not funny and so we earn less than we learn.

I digress. Excuse me, I've always been doing that in the past and now is no different. So anyway I was trapped in RJC. I would like to post some pictures, but I don't have a camera and I'm lazy to search it online. Try Googling it.

And don't call me lazy. Our teachers also have done that before. "Hey this is interesting stuff, to know more about *insert insanely complicated shit*, go Google it."

LOL.

Thus the reason for a very good quote today. For those still in the midst of doing the A levels, arguably one of the more important events in your life, always remember this. The world's greatest scientist, Albert Einstein, very famously said:

Don't despair if you do badly. It's not your fault. Every student has a capability to learn and but not every teacher has the capability to teach. By the same argument, when the teachers say students are lazy to learn, it actually means that they're lazy to teach. I'm not talking about my teachers, by the way. I'm just saying IF. You never know - your teacher might just be like that.

That is why do not lapse into self-depression when you do badly. And don't be fooled by your teacher that it's your fault - because they're pushing the blame. In fact, I am a firm believer that you should just heap it all on the teacher, because Albert Einstein says so and before proven wrong, Einstein is always right.

Even though that quote is just one sentence, look beyond its face value. A corollary - that's what you learn from f**king H3 Maths - of Einstein's Teacher Theorem (that's what we'll call it) is that the teacher is always at fault if the problem is due to transferral of knowledge.

Though of course we know that there are other factors as to why a student does not do well. I will take some time to explain this.

1) Luck.
They say "Lady Luck is on your side" when you do well. May I question why Luck must be female? From the student's point of view, Lady Luck always seems to side the girls because from initial observations the girls always do better than the guys in terms of academics. Now, might Lady Luck be lesbian? I doubt it. That is a flawed theory.

Rather, I think Luck must be a guy. He must be a very very perverted guy. In my bloody five examinations in RJC, I have only managed to pass everything on one attempt - the last one. I'm either failing this or failing that.

Where "this" and "that" usually refers to Chemistry, but that's out of point. And I'm out of luck. I find that in cases where luck is involved (ie every case), you never know if the teacher is at fault. Thus we should not unfairly blame teachers.

2) Standards.
Sometimes we sit for a paper expecting it to be similar to what we did in practice. Okay I do not know about you but I expect it ALL THE TIME. But is it so? Well, no.

A study done by a very credible source (myself) has shown that schools' papers are usually out to own your arse. I believe that Cambridge's papers are usually much kinder to us than the school's. In trying some other JC's papers, I thought that if not for RP, I might have been getting my shitass grades elsewhere. Therefore RP is for the win. Though their papers aren't.

In any case my point is that often the schools set tough papers for you. So it's not your fault if you don't do well. It's simply because they plotted it all along. Which means, eh, it's the teacher's fault again! Woohoo!

To evaluate my piece, I would say that both might play an important role in your downfall, assuming you fall. If you aren't the sort to fail at least one common test per.. common test, then you can screw off because I don't like clever people. Or rather I'm insanely jealous of you so I am going to be angry with you.

Whereas some RJC students might say "get out of my elite, uncaring face" I say I do not care about your elite face. Especially if you laugh at me. That is because you only get an advantage due to LUCK and I am suffering because of my teachers. I'm not saying my teacher is bad. I'm just giving a hypothetical situation.

So I've given you a thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis, which would get me a Level 3 answer if I should submit this for an Economics paper (assuming I've inserted some random economics concepts, that's how Econs works - or doesn't). And should I write this for a GP essay, I should expect nothing less than an A grade.

However, life does not always promise you melons if you plant melons. Or rather, that is the case if you should be a student studying in JC. There is a Chinese saying, "种瓜得瓜，种豆得豆。"
Well in the modern context no one really grows melons or beans anymore. Especially not in a technology-intensive and resource-poor Singapore. So don't give me all that crap about you reap what you sow. I can prove to you that it is not true by a converse of the theorem, which yet again is another application of H3 Maths.

Even though I might be writing to you today about how unfair life can be, it doesn't say that my learning is all done in vain. As you can see, I am applying many of the skills I have learnt in JC to talking cock. Therefore learning is a lifelong process. (shown)

As such are the conclusions that I make when I try to prove something that I can't.

You get what I mean. Good luck to all of those still having Biology and Physics papers. You won't be getting your results soon, so you won't have to blame your teachers for them (should they be lousy) too soon. If you do well, then you'd better thank your lucky stars and try not to assume that she's a woman.

All right. With my highly sophisticated argument that has considered many diverse viewpoints, I think I can now end off my post. Though of course as this is talkcocksummit, you shouldn't take everything I said to heart and really go blame your teacher for everything. (Although you can. Einstein is good.)

But if you're a bloody dumbass who refuses to work, then you know you deserve your lousy grades. Ahahahaha. Loser.

Destress!

2007-11-06T22:47:00.001+08:00

Have you ever wondered what people do to get extremely good results? Wonder no more! Here is what people actually do to maximise studying time!

#1 Don't care about hygiene. Shaving? That's for wussies. I mean look at Einstein, maybe it's all the hair that made him so smart. Hair=intelligence, doesn't matter where it grows out of. Maybe hair grows at places where there's a brain!

#2 Don't ever dig your nose. I mean, how can you study with your finger up your nose? Your hand would be a distraction while you're doing that. Not good. If your nose gets too clogged up, i recommend the vacuum cleaner. Gets the job done quickly and effectively.

#3 Despite not caring about hygiene, you still have to shit! If you don't shit you become so full of shit that you explode from all that pressure inside. Now what you don't have to do is wipe your ass. Your underwear will do the job for you. If you've ever wondered what underwear is for, that's what it's for.

Don't believe? Let me tell you about the evolution of the human underwear in human culture. Probably all of you know about the loincloth. Different places used different materials to make them. So people living in jungles used leaves, people living in savannahs used grass, and people living on the coast used leaves too (look at Hawaii). And people living in the desert used sandpaper ahaha, the root of grouchiness and resulting violence. But why was there the loincloth? Long time ago, people used leaves, sticks or whatever is at the place where they did their business for the important task of wiping their asses. But then they got sick of picking up something to use, only to find that it has been used by someone else for exactly the same purpose! ewwww. So anyway, they demanded personalised stuff, so someone smart invented the loincloth for wiping ass. It wasn't the cleanest way, but at least you know where it has been, and some are reusable. But slowly, people realised they didn't want others to find out they had just shit from the brown patch on their backside, so what did they do? They invented pants, and the loincloth evolved to become the underwear bcause it was no longer worn on the outside. But sadly, not many people know this piece of history.

#5 Showering. This is optional, for when you have time to enjoy life. Again, let us look at what history can tell us. Long ago, man was purely a land animal who didn't like water, just like the chimpanzees and gorillas. Then one day, while he was sitting on a rock on the seaside, he saw a mermaid. All the hormones sprang to life, and with a perverted grin, outstretched arms and weird grunting noises, the idiot jumped into the sea without a second thought. Needless to say, the man drowned and the mermaid swam away, disappointed. But the family of the drowned guy, who knew what happened, couldn't tell the others that he had been such an idiot. And so they made up a story, saying that the guy went into the sea and enjoyed it so much he floated away and never came back. Some believed it, and lo and behold, man learnt to swim, after much trial and error and deaths. What has this got to do with showering? Nothing. But the only reason i can think of for showering is to avoid body odour. Imagine that we were all selfish people who don't care about others' sense of smell and just stopped showering, and singapore wouldn't have to buy water from malaysia anymore.

another day in life

2007-06-09T17:25:00.001+08:00

It's really really tough studying. And yet i am but one of so zillions of people who are working their ass off for results, an infinitesimally small speck of a vast and wondrous universe. But 星星之火，可以燎原。It's nice to take comfort in and revise chinese.

Contrary to popular belief, working hard doesn't make you stand out. At this time, slacking does. The forests of notes, endless trails of tutorials, coupled with the fact that nothing interesting ever seems to happen in life, and i agree. I mean, what's new in the papers everyday. The war continues in Iraq, explosion, people killed, Iraqis flee. The Amercians keep saying it'll get better, just like i do with my results. Car crash in Singapore, motorcycle crash, drunk driving, someone sentenced to jail. They say, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Yeah the tough go home.

You might think that there's really nothing you can do at home that will be of any great achievement, but some dude in the US has proven you wrong by achieving nuclear fusion at home. It is really complicated, i believe.

There are some things that i would like to understand but am too lazy to find out. Like, why are mountains such cold places? Shouldn't they be hotter cos they're closer to the sun. Random things like that.

Oh right, i saw an eternal optimist in Singapore. I think he's even more optimistic than George Bush about the Iraq war and me about my results. I saw this guy taking 4d tickets from the dustbin and laying them on the ground, checking to see if anyone saw wrongly and threw away a winning ticket by mistake. If he does find one, that would be true luck.

Back!

2007-05-06T00:13:00.000+08:00

Finally able to start posting again after my old account is converted to this gmail one. Some interesting things have happened. Some have not, such as me scoring straight As for CTs, or even an A.

On the other hand, happy things have happened, such as the great conclusion of the water polo season! i got a gold medal, do you? Yeh it hangs nicely in my room now, and i would've taken a picture, together with my water polo cap and ball, except that i wouldn't.

*So imagine the picture here*

Retirement is blissful. No more trainings, total freedom with my time, freedom to study, study and study, which is not really freedom. Well act i do miss training now but that can't be helped.

Now, life consists of study and sports (ie the occasional basketball), which is quite healthy actually. If i keep up with this for the rest of my life, i'm probably eligible for the Nobel prize at some point in time.

and meanwhile during this hiatus, new insight has been found and developed. The observation has been made that theres an overwhelming number of girls in h3 chem. Obviously, that observation wasn't made by me, since being in a class of 20 guys and 5 girls, im rather used to it. zy the philosopher asks "All the girls are so smart, who are they gonna marry in the future?" Which then leads to his conclusion the guys of this era should just marry smart girls and be house-husbands and have fun! Which is not a bad idea. but must have enough people then can have fun together.

Well back to studying, i realise why i daydream so much. It's because my mind always wants to get away from studying and therefore thinks about other things. And it's actually at these times that all the imagination and creativity comes in. But as they say, too much of a good thing kills you, cos if you spend all the time imagining, you fail the A levels.

hmm so much for blogging.

Stupid incidents!

2007-03-16T23:16:00.001+08:00

I AM SORRY FOR NOT POSTING FOR SO LONG!!!!

(but council is damn busy so i hope you all will understand. but then again, understand or not. it's MY blog. so i choose whether i want to update or not. the extract below is taken from my blog and yup enjoy lol.)

---------

naturally, if you're looking for some entertainment after your mugging, you've come to the right place. this post will be one filled full of rubbish.

let me recount to you a very stupid incident that happened a few days ago. tuesday, i believe, and i was just about to start mugging when my hp rang (or vibrated, rather). it's like, everytime i start to mug and this sort of shit happens, you can't really blame me for being unfocused right?

well anyway it was an unknown number but i gladly picked it up since i'm avaricious (or put simply: bloody miserly) and incoming calls were FREE. and i'm not being racist when i say i'm stunned to hear a male indian on the other end. the only male indian i know was like, shivi, and uhh i'd recognise his voice.

but ANYWAY guess what. he was one of those annoying telemarketeers advertising some credit card. waa not even gold, platinum some more. so the guy rattled on quite a bit about the benefits for the cards and ended every sentence with a "sir" (i'm flattered). up for a bit of mischief although i had zero knowledge about credit cards, i tried talking cock to him.

- you can use this card everywhere.
- everywhere? like, really, everywhere? (that's me)
- yes, everywhere.

then i was running out of stuff to say so i asked for more information and he was talking about application. after wasting like a good half of a minute (and delaying my mugging time, he fricking took away my momentum, arsehole) of my life, i decided to put it all to an end.

- well, that sounds very nice. i'm seventeen years of age by the way, where do you think is your nearest branch where i can apply for your.. platinum card?

a pause.

- uh, you're seventeen? well, maybe uh, we uh, got a recycled number. uh never mind it's okay, perhaps you could uh.. consider uh, signing up with us in the future.

cool. then he hung up. yup cos i took over my mother's hp number and this credit card company musta tried to be funny koping numbers. OH WELL.

today was another flabbergasting day of mugging. by using such complex and pointless words, it kinda shows my attitude towards mugging. COMPLEX. AND POINTLESS. i couldn't get the point of complex numbers, and i couldn't find any points for vectors. in the end i returned to my dearest topic Permutations & Combinations. (the very use of capitals shows my respect for the lovely topic)

well here are some sample questions (from revision w/s).

1. AJC2005/P1/Q10 (like wtf is going to refer to that anyway)
Doris, a matchmaker, is to organise a dinner for 4 men and 4 women. (that's btw quite sad)

(i) How many ways can she select these 8 people from a list of 10 men and 10 women?
Answer: 2. She can either choose the people she wants, or she picks them at random. Like duh.

let's try some other questions, shall we?

4. MI2005/P2/Q3
5 males and 4 females are to be seated around the table. Find the number of ways this can be done if (i) there is no restriction; (ii) all girls are seated together; (iii) one particular girl must sit between two particular boys.

(i) If there is no restriction and the males and females are couples, I think they might prefer the bedroom. And either way the last guy is going to feel quite left out so you're never going to get this group of people to sit round the damn table! Bo liao!

(ii) There are four females, but that doesn't mean there are four girls. Girls are subsets of females, not the other way round. The answer is zero as there might not be any girls after all. Thinking schools, learning nations - don't get tricked by this question.

(iii) As above. Don't be tricked!

so am i good or what. next question.

5. MJC2005/P1/Q5
this is a damn long question so i'll cut to the chase. no point beating around the bush when all you need is the question itself. "30 contestants are put into voting for two awards, and one student can win more than one award. how many ways are there to do this?"

i think there are three feasible ways.
no. 1 - electronic voting. technology is reliable.
no. 2 - ballot. you use paper like they do it election-style.
no. 3 - raising hands. primitive but still effective.

yay. and we have even more crap!

9. SAJC2005/P1/Q2
Find the number of different words that can be formed by using all the letters in the word REPETITION, if the first and the last letters are both (i) letter T, (ii) consonants.

(i) Zero. if you start and end with T, and try to fit in the other letters in the middle, you will find that you can't make any word that can be found in any English dictionary.

(ii) Possibly one or two at most. I can't foresee any words but let's give the benefit of the doubt, there are some very guai lan words out there. I'm no expert on linguistics, especially not in English.

10. SRJC2005/P1/Q5
zzz another long question. (a) has a lot of shit about icebreakers and shaking hands but in the end the question is just plain dumb. skip it please. (b) The civics tutor would like to take a picture of the class consisting of 12 boys and 5 girls standing in a row.

then it doesn't really matter anymore. because you know unless you buy the stupid lumix wide lens thingy, you're so not going to fit 17 people standing in a row. oh, and what's more, the question was set in 2005 when it's not out. so it's impossible. no picture.

by the way which retard wants to take a picture of the class with the guys standing in HEIGHT ORDER. while the girls just insert themselves anywhere? damn stupid.

11. TJC2005/P1/Q2
Four budget travellers, comprising 3 men and a lady (that's really gay), arrive at a budget hotel. There are only 4 rooms available for them to put up for a night. Find the number of ways in which they can check-in if..
(i) all of them occupy different rooms,
(ii) all 3 men occupy one room and the lady occupies another room,
(iii) ...

Answer: One. You check-in through the front counter.
(applies to all parts)

seriouslyyyyy p&c could do with more realistic questions. when you can't find the solutions to the questions, YOU QUESTION DA QUESTION!

yup that is all for entertainment today. go back to mug! don't be like me! the least we could expect, is to maintain the standards our seniors have set. well as i'm obviously not going to make it (despite being a veritable p&c PRO), y'all can go get the As with MY UBER L33T P&C TIPS!

yay!

Let's start the year with a lame joke

2007-01-22T23:04:00.001+08:00

(I thought of this while walking through some cemetery in the south of France)

Q: Whats the similarity between a Christian cemetery and your marked test script?
A: It's full of crosses!

Told you it was lame.

Cultural Learnings of France for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Singapore

2006-12-31T02:09:00.001+08:00

So im back finally, after a fantastic holiday! Hoooo! Now i gotta write down some stuff that i've learnt before the new year comes and the damned school starts.

No. 1
Look right then look left when crossing the road in France won't be necessary. Once you've looked right as you step out, bang!, byebye, you're dead because the vehicles go in opposite direction from Singapore. So you're supposed to look left then look right.

No. 2
In such a cold climate, everyone gives off smoke or whatever you call that white wispy thing when you breathe out. So from the back, it's virtually impossible to tell whether someone is smoking or they're just breathing in and out. Smokers rejoice! Less discrimination! Bad news for normal people. You won't know whether you're walking into bad breath or 2nd hand smoke or both!

No. 3
All the blacks think you're Japanese so they go "konichiwa" at you. Might be wise to take a samurai sword along and teach them a lesson on ethnicities.

No. 4
It's really true when the government says that Singapore has international recognition. All the French know there's a Singapore, they just think that it's a part of China, that's all. So if ever there's a World War, be rest assured, we're safe, nobody knows where Singapore is.

No. 5
School sucks. Well not much difference there, but their school ends later, so it sucks more.

Shall continue it soon... i hope

What do you call..

2006-12-30T22:31:00.001+08:00

..the 31st December?

New Year's Eve.

..the 30th December?

The Eve of New Year's Eve.

..the 29th December?

The Eve of The Eve of New Year's Eve.

..the 28th December?

The Eve of The Eve of The Eve of New Year's Eve.

..the 27th December?

The Eve of The Eve of The Eve of The Eve of New Year's Eve.

..the 26th December?

The Eve of The Eve of The Eve of The Eve of The Eve of New Year's Eve?

Hell no - that's Boxing Day.

---------

Sorry about that, I know it was kind of retarded. Anyway a few ideas I thought that I would like to accomplish for next year.. if you like the idea, we can work on it together. After all, we should always share good things eh.

WHAT I WANT TO DO FOR 2007

1. Kope Elango's bike
For those who don't know, Elango is this bastard security guard working for RI/RJ. Recently he has been kinda MIA and missing around school (and no we're not being racist here), but when he's around he barks at yowls at people. Sounds like a dog? He probably came from one. He also likes cycling around the school on the prowl for strangers. Duh, what do you expect, he's a security guard.

One day, I am SO going to ride off with his bicycle and see his reaction. Classic.

2. Play punk on Day One
Find some time to go back to RI and pretend to be the Sec 1. Height is no object, so long you speak fluent Chinese they'd think you're a China scholar. Going back to RI and blending with the n00b crowd has been my hobby since.. the start of this year. The Peer Support Leader (PSL) at the Junior Block thought I belonged to his class. Poor little sod. And now he's coming over to RJC where I do the orientation!!

What goes around comes around. For him trying to pull rank on me earlier this year (in January), I'm going to punk him when he comes to RJC. But before that, go punk some Sec 4s again. All you need is a pair of shorts, an RI shirt, and a confused look on your face. For the win.

3. Clean sweep "A" levels
Somehow this just had to come out. My assortment of grades this year was probably far from satisfactory - for I achieved EVERY GRADE POSSIBLE. Except "E". SomEhow. Next year, I want to be able to scream out my grades. Get the same thing as the name of the exams.

I think this is the best resolution ever. Because I won't know if I accomplished it in the same year. This way, I can tell myself at the end of the year that "ah this is one resolution that I probably accomplished". It's difficult to tell yourself at the end of the year that you actually accomplished the resolution at the start of it, unless you're a good liar or unless your resolutions are that easy to fulfil. Then there's no kick.

The classic New Year lame joke:

What's your New Year resolution?
Oh, 1024 x 768.

Tactics of the middle-class

2006-12-28T00:30:00.001+08:00

I'm in the mood, in the mood!

Today we will cover survival tactics. In modern Singapore, you might think that it's redundant and trashy to learn about whatever survival crap. But you never know when it comes in handy! It is precisely in modern, cold and heartless Singapore where survival tactics are absolutely (and I say ABSOLUTELY YEA) important for one's well-being.

In the struggle for economic growth, it is inevitable that people get left behind. Yup I know I'm sounding like some Social Studies student giving bullshit (that's what I used to do anyway) - but hey if Singapore was that good you won't have aunties selling tissues at three packets for one dollar right.

They think it's romantic, the way the auntie sings her one-dollar song. But she's a nuisance and a victim of the social system. The rich only gets richer and the poor gets poorer, as other societies have proven. I don't know which one specifically, but that's quite a catchphrase so let's just apply it in Singaporean context. The rich DO get richer.

But me, I'm definitely NOT rich. Born in mediocrity, I've lived my entire life in mediocrity.. until my pocket money got cut for these holidays. Rationale given: I don't need to go to school so my upkeep is lower.

Yea right. Then Council calls us back for Orientation prep every day and I see my money diminishing like the way the fish in a fish farm disappears in a flash flood. (That's kind of a tongue twister anyway, real cool.)

In the middle-class it's make or break. You either get richer or poorer. But one tilt to the poor side, and I'm almost down the proverbial poverty cycle (you gotta thank PW for this). With less than $50 to spend a week, ALL EXPENSES INCLUDED, I started to devise some tactics for the middle-class tilting towards poverty. Very useful, or at least it kinda works for me.

1. Food
Most important. Unfortunately sometimes you can't control your hunger pangs and when you need to eat, you need to eat. For someone as great as I am, I have GREAT hunger pangs too. And the important lesson to learn here is that we, members of the middle-class, go for quantity not quality.

With $2 in hand and a dinner to go - which do you choose? A baguette, 80% of ban mian (you could try your luck with the auntie), nasi lemak from S11, or biscuits from NTUC?

The answer is very simple, but only a true middle-class citizen would get it.

You don't buy anything, but you go home and drink tap water. Or if you're afraid of drinking up red rust along with dangerous sodium- or magnesium-based chemicals, you could boil the water. No difference since it's free anyway. Water can contain your hunger for a while, and if you spam so much that you're bloated, hunger will float away from you.

If this fails, an allowance of fifty cents can be given so you can spam tau huay zui (soya bean). Make sure its hot and you take it down in one gulp. Either that or you go and sleep. Run 10km, spam water, then collapse on your bed. Absolutely economical.

2. Transport
Quite obviously I'm an advocate for healthy living, because as YL has mentioned before and as I'd like to reiterate, I'm an enemy of the public transport system. Just that running about too much has taken its toll on me and I've now damaged both knees (jacked). That's why I took the MRT yesterday.

But as much as possible, you must consider all possible transport options. Taxis are a definite no-no. Somehow supply of taxis doesn't go very well with demand and in the midst of all that supply-demand shit the price just keeps increasing. Gay. As if it wasn't bad enough that GST is going up and so are bus fares.

Solution - boycott taxis. I've lived without them for five years and I'm still surviving. If you are in a hurry and the bus/train won't get you there on time, it's where your improvisation comes in. For example, if you are stuck at RJC you could kope Elango's bike and just scoot off.

Those bloody security guards, they leave their bikes around too much anyway. If ever you have to do it one day, make sure it's Elango's bike you take. That old fagut barks far too much for my liking, and I'm not afraid to blog about it because he IS quite a fagut.

When I say "consider all options", I really mean consider all options. Say I'm at Toa Payoh Lorong 1 trying to get to Junction 8, do I take the bus, the train, or walk? With time constraint, walking isn't really possible so you'd have to accept the alternatives. However, I'd say the train would be better for such a case as they charge 40 cents as opposed to the bus's 45 cents.

(If you do this for eight days consecutively, you'd save 40 cents. Which means you can spend more on FOOD - the cheapest mineral water in NTUC (500ml) costs merely 40 cents, a bargain. The wonders of saving money, you never know. Many a mickle makes something big, I forgot the proverb but yea basically you can accumulate LOTS OF MONEY by saving small everyday.)

The economists were right. You DO consider opportunity cost everyday.

And don't listen to all that crap where time is money. Time ISN'T money. Not now anyway, so it's okay to be late if it doesn't cost you any job options. You might call it a bad attitude, but hey, for the sake of MONEY, why not!

A bad attitude does not cause you any money. Remember that. However, a bad approach to public transport does. Just remember LTB - Legs, Trains, Buses (for short distance). Taxis aren't an option. You could use interesting acronyms to help - Love The Bus, Let Them Be, yea whatever you get my point.

3. Love
Where should you bring your girlfriend for a HOT lunch date?

A restaurant? A nearby hawker centre? Mcdonald's?

If you've been paying any attention at all and absorbing what I'm saying, you'll find that the best type of girlfriend a middle-class guy could have is no girlfriend. If you want to do something you might as well do it to the best of your ability. Thus, what's the point of having a girlfriend when you can't spend anything on her? Better get out of that poverty cycle first, dammit.

Anyway, a restaurant is too expensive, a hawker centre is too cheapskate, and there's the possibility of meeting the Bishan Gay in Mcdonald's so I'm giving you a real option here. If you REALLY have to have love, meet your date at RJ canteen. The yong tau foo there is quite reasonably priced, unlike the S11 faguts.

Oh and there's a Seven-Eleven coming up at RJ yay! That way you could get a SUPER BIG GULP to share with your loved one. They are cheaper when bought in HUGE QUANTITY. Even though you are supposed to save when you can, it doesn't hurt to buy more if it's value for money. No point buying a GULP and that's it, it's all over in one gulp.

And another thing: one plate of food is enough. Same goes with the drinks - you only need to order one. Then you can share it with your boyfriend/girlfriend and have a romantic lunch date. Though of course we all know it's all down to the bloody same old motive of saving money LOL. But shh, if he/she doesn't know, it only means he/she doesn't NEED to know. So there! Romantic, shared meals for the win!

4. Everything and anything else
Well I've covered the most important things in life - so the others don't really matter. When it comes down to luxury or necessity, anything that's not a necessity is obviously redundant. What you need to survive - food, transport, love (for some) has already been covered. So anything else is a luxury and you must learn how to do without it in the middle-class.

In short, everything and anything else, you can live without it. So do it.

That's most of the stuff for the middle-class. They do not necessarily represent my views or what I do in real life, but when I say "do not necessarily" I mean "it's possible". This is open to interpretation and I'm not saying that the rich are spoilt or anything. It's the fault of society and it's the fault of the way things work.

Therefore, I'd just like to say cheers and have fun leading an enriched middle-class life. Somehow you will derive joy for every cent you scrimp and save. Seriously haha.

Nouvelles observations du MRT

2006-12-27T22:11:00.001+08:00

Shit, I'm half-scared out of my wits. The other half of me is scared of the "A" levels coming up just soon. I can't imagine how time flies but the hols flew by me, and now I'm faced with a brand new year looking to come in just four days time.

And after being bloody curious last year wondering what J1 orientation would be like, this year it is our turn making OUR J1s curious.

That is the main reason to why I'm not blogging. But the reason why I am blogging here now is not because the work has stopped (Council work never does), but rather, as I mentioned earlier, because I'm half-scared out of my wits.

Today was the day I almost got killed. Or concussed. I could be lying down blogging from my hospital bed, but thanks to some stroke of luck, I didn't.

As usual I'm sidetracking, but here's the story.

I was walking back from the MRT, and I started thinking about my hols. Which kinda meant I was thinking of the time wasted. Whenever I reflect about such stuff, I start going into self-angst and self-bitch mode, like "why in the @#*^@% world did I do this instead of mugging Chemistry?" Which in the end is rather inconclusive.

Then, my thoughts wandered to this blog, the pride and joy of the three of us for one whole year. Its current state of neglect, and sigh..

Still, I thought that I was busy and therefore I had every right to neglect it. After all, it's not my problem if I don't update my blog (the arsehole in me has been strong these hols). It's MY blog, and I update it whenever I like.

May I remind you that with the current rainy weather now, the floor was slippery and it was at this precise moment, when I was entertaining this thought, I suddenly slipped forward. Next, the giant tree I was standing next to suddenly gave a great rumbling sound. And WTH a big branch from the giant tree just happened to uh, dislodge itself and fall onto the ground with a large thump!

RIGHT NEXT TO ME.

Wa baskit I was damn scared - and to all trees in the Toa Payoh precinct, I am now updating my blog! Please don't do that to me ever again.

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

Today I made some revolutionary new discoveries about Singaporeans on the MRT. Gone are the days where YL stands on the train and observes the Singaporean world at his vantage point. The silly sod went to France and then Hong Kong so he's certainly not updated with the current state of affairs.

Let ME bring you the world of the MRT now.

WRT TO THE MRT (With respect to the Mass Rapid Transit, you've gotta respect them with 1 million commuters daily, or so they claim)

The Singaporeans are pretty much the same when they board the train. Everyone has every right to call us a kiasu bunch because WE are a kiasu bunch. At City Hall when the doors open it's the North-to-East commuters against the East-to-North commuters. And the shoving and all starts.

Usually I'd stand and wait, but today I was itching for some action so I ploughed right into the working-hour crowd. Some punk who obviously didn't work banged into me. Kind of a bad choice to start trouble today, I didn't know some punk would be there. My attempt at being kiasu left me being humji instead. Tsk.

Anyway right after that the whole bunch of kiasu fags (including me) got on the train, and you must be thinking they are doing this so they could secure a seat for themselves? That's what I bloody thought. Apparently there are too many civic-conscious people writing into the forums nowadays, for I could see at least three seats around the carriage unoccupied.

Like what the hell? You rush onto the train so you can pole dance while the silly train jerks back and forth? (Train drivers are lousy nowadays.)

As there were very few pregnant ladies and senior citizens around, I kinda hovered near the seats. Next stop - Dhoby Ghaut. People got off and on, but still no one sat. Certainly there were people who deserved the seat more than me, but I wasn't going to give them a chance if they really didn't want to sit.

Try taking the train at peak hour next time. Maybe you'll experience this phenomenon. I can't believe it - is it that those working class people have been sitting on their arses all day long and are so sick of being in the sitting posture that they just stand? Or are they afraid that sitting might significantly increase their chances of being too slow of getting out of the train.

Damn, I'll never know now. Perhaps in a few years time.

I just sat down and was thankful for the seat. Seems like you don't really have to rush to get a seat. You just need to get on a train full of dumbasses. Or perhaps you would call them citizens with high civic consciousness, who fear sitting down lest some guy reports them to the forums.

That's the only plausible explanation. And thus concludes my new observations on the MRT.

How to garner amusement

2006-11-30T22:43:00.001+08:00

Before we start on more serious topics like the Bishan Gay, I thought I'd talk a bit of nonsense about what I did for the past few days - ie planning forfeits.

It can be quite an enjoyable process, especially if you have another kokster planning with you. Amusement is guaranteed if you know how to implement it well enough. Next time any of you need to plan forfeits for games, THIS IS DA SITE FOR YOU MAN.

Acknowledgements to my fellow forfeiter Xiong, who doesn't sound as fierce as his name. Never mind that.

POSSIBLE FORFEITS

1. Spell out your name using your arse. If your name is under 10 characters, spell (insert a name of a certain loser here, preferably a longggggg one) instead.

2. Stick a piece of masking tape onto a certain part of the body. Doesn't have to be in the arse, it could be on the belly or something. Then ask the person to SHAKE IT OFF. If you are an evil fag, you could tell him/her that using other items are NOT ALLOWED. Good luck have fun.

3. Lambada your way through and sing a song. If you don't know what a lambada is, go Wikipedia or Google it. Or just take it from me that it's a real stupid move where you shake yourself like a.. shaking chicken and move back and forth retardedly. With a partner, but as this is a forfeit the loser will have to do it alone.

Better yet, you could ask him/her to find a partner to do it with him/her. And if he/she doesn't manage to convince anyone, make him/her SING while doing the lambada. I can guarantee it's super embarrassing. Oh, and better still if it's a stupid song he/she is singing. Try Aqua, they're really dumb.

4. Make it a dare. Tell the security guard, "your cool uniform so turnsss me onnnnnnn" (unisex dare pls) or tell an obese punk in the pool that he makes you melt. Of course all these are going to make me puke but I trust that when it comes to dare many can come up with even better ideas than me.

Oh and a quote from an anonymous person - telling the security guard, "oh your tight pants makes my pants even tighter." Assuming that the guy taking the forfeit is a.. guy. And no I swear that didn't come from me.

5. Do charades, and give REALLY STUPID CHARACTERS. Examples include: George W Bush, Michael Jackson or more recently posted here - THE BISHAN GAY. Watch and squeal with delight as they try to imitate these.. fags.

6. Do a pole dance, with someone else as the pole. This is quite a favourite among most.

Yup hope this will come in useful someday - in perhaps bizarre circumstances, but every bit of information is still information. So if you need forfeits, here's the place. If you need more sadistic ones, can come look for me. Or concoct your own stuff (ie FOOD) haha, though that's pretty standard.

What of the Bishan Gay

2006-11-28T00:49:00.001+08:00

Intellectual debate: Where in the world is the Bishan Gay?

Background Info:
From RI days, the Bishan Gay has been known to hang around Macs and KFC in Junction 8, staring at little boys for.. unknown reasons. However, word soon got round that he was a paedophile and was hence doing it for paedophilic purposes. Bolder students have sat down to have a meal with him, while the rest just shy away from his gaze.

My personal encounter with him included taking the 88 back with him while he looked, make that STARED at me on top of his papers. I 毛骨悚然ed for the whole journey and ended up trembling on my way back. He followed me for a bit, but I outran him at the traffic light. (No joke, true story okay.) I soon got my back by rapping sharply on the glass while he sat down at Macs, and then running away before he could turn around.

Now there were two things I wanted to say to him in these instances.
1) Your glasses are bloody ugly.
2) You make me puke.

Other RI boys (at that time) also speculated that he ran some child abuse brothel. One of them, now in RJC along with the rest of the crowd, a real daredevil better known as Keefe Tan, tried asking Mr. Bishan Gay what the time was.

His reply (in Chinese): Little boy (chillingly), you have a watch, so why are you asking me?

Note: Daredevil doesn't mean you're smart.

In any case, I could recount countless experiences with the Bishan Gay. But in short, he's a creepy fag known to be the reincarnate of Michael Jackson's ancestors.

And now he's just disappeared. The next few times, we will try to solve the mystery of the Bishan Gay. Where in the world has he gone?

(Note: He doesn't really stare at St Nicks girls, for some reason. Even though both co-exist in the J8 Macs, this eccentric bugger will still stare at the white shorts. I'm pretty sure that given a choice, any normal grown up man would look at St Nicks girls. RI guys prefer to look at their homework.)

Naughty TNP journalist

2006-11-26T21:32:00.001+08:00

Guess what I saw today! Sports page, larger than life.

And sorry for the slow influx of posts (actually none at all).. it so happens that this holiday I'm having is not really a holiday after all.

Still, here's wishing that you haven't read the article so that this is something new and exciting for you. And oh, have a great holiday and I hope I'll be back posting soon =)

Life and a link

2006-11-18T23:30:00.001+08:00

Here's one last post before i leave for France.

So let's contemplate life! What is this mysterious thing that we all have in common. And the easiest way to do that is to make an analogy.

Life is like _______. fill in the blank

for example, if you're depressed, then life can be like a vacuum cleaner. It sucks. That's a pretty objective analogy because all vacuum cleaners suck.

Now i prefer something like life is like shit.
Because on certain days, i can say, life is like shit, it's hard.
Or when i have constipation, i say life is like shit, i have none.
life is like shit, it stinks.

Life is a bed of roses. but roses have thorns right, so life is like a bed of thorns.

That's quite depressing and life isn't always like that.

Life is like a bright and sunny day. It's umm... bright and sunny!
the cliché life is like a rainbow, it's colourful.
OR life is like me, it's perfect!

Anyway, i came across this blog that sells t-shirts. The designs quite funny. just nice talk about the gst increase like yj did. http://suchvividjustice.blogspot.com/
Check it out. i probably won't be able to update for some time. Here's a happy holidays to y'all!

Quotable quotes

2006-11-14T23:48:00.001+08:00

GST hike from 5% to 7% today (wtf):

I would like to bring to your attention..
PM Lee's response in TODAY: "I think if it doesn't get worse from what it is now, we will be doing very, very well."

I think if it gets worse from what it is now (which is even MORE probable), we won't be doing anything at all but bitching and complaining and soon ST will be 200 paegs long with the Forum taking up most pages. Hmm.

Anyway reading Yahoo! Answers (coincidentally), there were interesting responses:

Is it wrong or awkward if a girl asks a guy out?

Response: on the contrary I find it quite attractive, plus if you don't ask him out maybe he'll never ask you out or it will take a long time

Attractive is not the opposite of wrong or awkward, in case you didn't know. They asked if it was wrong. I realise a lot of people are super good at avoiding questions - though naturally I see through them all.

Response: It is not wrong for a girl to ask a guy out. We no longer live in the 1800s.Some gals might feel awkward, but only because they are not fully liberated from the old way of thinking.

That's assuming that in the 1800s it was wrong, and I don't believe he's 200 years old - and therefore his logic is seriously flawed.

Response: No! Girls asking a guy out isn't wrong! It's just that most girls think it's supposed to be the guy that asks the girl. Just because you think it's wrong to ask a guy out, doesn't mean it's true. I say go for it!

So defensive and fiery. Zomg and that came from a girl - now hmm do I suspect something? Yes I do.

Response: it's neither wrong nor awkward if a girl asks a guy out because it is being straightforward about your feelings rather than beat around the bush abt the matter and wait for unknown results thus causing more anxieties..It seems that more guys nowadays are more shy as they fear rejection..And it's up to the girls to carve out their own path to happiness 'cause afterall, we girls have the unique sixth sense of knowing who likes us and such..(^o^)

Seems like this person knows no punctuation. And seems like you have to know if the person likes you before you can ask the person out? I don't think that makes sense. Like that how to see others get jacked?!

Response: It depends on the way you ask. Do you guys regularly converse / hangout together? Or is he a stranger you'd like to meet? both require a different approach. Good luck!

Sigh, only one guy truly has a bit of intelligence and good advice to say. Like whenever the teacher asks for my opinion in French class, I go "ça dépend" - meaning "it depends". It's true, everything has it's good side and a bad side.

Pity, I'll be away for the next few days, so I won't be here to share my insights with you. In the meantime, do try to enjoy YL's great advice before he too goes away. Looks like TCS is going on a pilgrimage and to real summits, but not to worry - we'll always be back.

(Unless the world ends tomorrow, then you wouldn't be back either to read this. But no I don't think it will.)

Idiots on the bus

2006-11-12T21:55:00.001+08:00

I figured since I take the bus more often than I do on the train, I will blog about the bus.

There are basically three types of idiots on the bus..

1) The bus driver
Personally, I don't have much experience with this brand of idiots because they are the sort that completely ignores you. Like how you can run after the bus and flag it but the bastard just drives on. Your angst is kept strictly to the bus stop and you are late thanks to this sort of idiots. But you can't do anything about it. These idiots are best left alone, because you can't do anything anyway. Just hope that he crashes into a traffic light or something. Cursing is highly recommended as the only solution.

2) The stinkers
As the name suggests, they stink like hell and what are they doing on the bus? Stinking it. I admit I am guilty of this once in a while, but then again I never said I wasn't an idiot.

3) The loudhailers
Yet again you can 顾名思义, guess the meaning from the name. Given my mellow and reflective nature, all I ask of sitting on a bus is some peace and quiet so I can do a reflection of my fun and fulfilling life. Suddenly, some punk behind me goes rattling about nether regions in violent dialects - and oops it turns out he's talking about his parents.

Before you can reflect on how shitty youths are nowadays (except me, of course) - they start blabbering about that "knn teacher" and all that. You can't imagine how it's like, unless you've experienced it. Okay that's pretty obvious but ya, loudhailers should be shut up. The cure to this is simple: mp3 or iPod. Then just blast techno or any other shit, it might beat hearing Ah Beng raps from the back. Or if you do want to hear them, at least hear the professional one from the movie "15". I've got them in my mp3.

AND BONUS. The silent retard!
I guess I never really thought about this as this kind of idiots don't bug me much. So I guess you have 3 and a half types of idiots on the bus - same as the number of inches there are on a floppy disk (now virtually - no pun intended - extinct).

These idiots are just idiots by nature, going around doing stupid things, perhaps vandalising buses or reading children's books when they are teenagers and stuff. Disclaimer: I might read Enid Blyton but I'm studying her Literature so I'm excused. Yup and these people don't bother you but they might be classified as idiots anyway and uh so there.

Next time you hop on a bus, look around you more carefully. Perhaps you'll make the same observations as I do. Unless you're one of the idiots yourself. Idiots can't admit they make mistakes.

Idiots on the Train

2006-11-11T22:38:00.001+08:00

Right after the movie Snakes On A Plane comes Idiots On The Train. The variety of idiots on the train is simply mind-boggling. The bad thing about this is, well, they're idiots. That's not exactly my problem. But being idiots, they do some things that annoy me, and perhaps that's the bad thing. The good thing is that it gives me inspiration for this post, and gives me something to do on boring train rides. Like a naturalist studying animals under the microscope, i meticulously note everything down. And then i categorise them.

Rocker

This person is a rather mild form of idiot because it is quite amusing to watch him. With headphones or earphones on, this person would start rocking along with the music to the amusement of all the other passengers. Maybe he just likes the attention his idiocy brings. Or maybe he's really 'in da zone' if you get what i mean. Too engrossed by the music to care about what other people think. In other words, music is his life and soul, and that gives him the rebel attitude to heck all the other people. Rebel. Actually, I don't find anything wrong with that. But he's like, wasting energy. Energy costs a hell lot of money these days. This energy can be used for other purposes such as producing light instead, and if all the rockers did that, then the world wouldn't have an energy crisis.

The music player

There are 2 varieties of this type of people. One uses earphones and blast it so loud that everyone around can hear the song. I assume the person is deaf or something. Or the ears are fake. But this type doesn't seem so bad. At least they try to keep it private. It's not their fault their ears don't work well.
The other type are worse. They play the music on their handphones out loud, as if trying to prove to the world they have a phone with that capability. Bloody show-offs

The hairy monster

If your legs are like those below, then...

wear long pants for god's sake. Or don't sit down. Or if you do, then don't spread your legs wide and act as if everyone likes the touch of leg hair on skin. Because it's fucking irritating. My wish is to bring along a lighter on the train and set your whole freaking forest on fire just like the indons are doing to theirs. We would have haze but i don't care.

The pole dancer

Now imagine yourself on a crowded train. You're looking for the metal beam to hold on to in case someone jumps onto the mrt tracks again and the train brakes suddenly. The vertical metal is right in front of you. Unfortunately, the pole dancer is leaning on the beam, such that you can't hold on without him leaning on your hand, which he eerily doesn't seem to mind. You might think pole dancers usually have ultra sexy and svelte bodies, but this one certainly doesn't. You can see the fats on his back squeezing against the pole, and yucks, i'd rather fall down than get a handful of animal fat.

The blocker

This person has no sense of space. He thinks he deserves lots of it even though he paid the same fares. Acts blur when the announcement for people to move to the centre of the train comes. Nothing funny to say about them because they're just idiots

The high-metabolic rate type

Ah this is the interesting one. At first glance, you wouldn't be able to spot him. But look again. There, there's that movement. May be the twitch of the lips, or the hands that cannot stop touching himself, but there's no end to his movement. I've seen one who can't stop twitching his mouth. Seems irritating at first, but after a while it's amusing. After all, the idiot probably has no idea how weird he looks in front of other people with all those funny actions. Therefore i conclude he probably has a high metabolic rate and has to keep moving. Look out for these people. They're everywhere if you look close enough.

So that's the end of the idiots on the train, hope you had a nice ride.

Interesting random facts

2006-11-09T23:22:00.001+08:00

Reported in the ST today:
The title of the article is "Flushing with patriotism". Artists charged in court because one of their exhibits in the museum is a toilet bowl that flushes to the tune to the Italian national anthem, Fratelli d'Italia.

And apparently it shows disrespect to Italy as the anthem is a national symbol?

Prosecution: The national anthem is a national symbol, so artists should be charged.
Defence: The national anthem isn't a national symbol, so they are not guilty.

Either way, I don't see what's wrong with it. Look, especially since the Italian national anthem has special significance, playing it along with the flush also symbolises good things. Like how the Italian government have been flushing out the shit and scum of the country, cleansing the lands.

WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE ITALIANS, MAN. Can they not take good artworks? After all, art is art and you can't prosecute someone in the name of art. I've learnt the power of art in a recent visit to Singapore Biennale with YL - you can make someone stare at nonsense for very long and piss him off but they can't complain anything about it..

..because it's art. If you don't like it, means you can't appreciate art and it means you're just a bloody caveman.

Sigh, such is the power of art that sometimes I pretend I appreciate it in order not to look like a n00b barbarian. Though when I can't take it, I exclaim "what the **** is this ****" right there, right then.

Art is subjective. I can't lie all the time.

So the Italians should learn to appreciate some art. Even if it's a flushing toilet bowl, there can be beauty in it. Like the way my stupid toilet flush jammed the other day and caused a flood on the floor. It was a pretty cool picture only the clean-up was bloody irritating and the stench was bad.

But in artistic terms, the picture of the flooded toilet could have well been a jewel. And so there.

Next article that was reported:
In New York, you now don't need to go for sex change surgically to change your gender in birth cert.

That is SUPER retarded. This means I can declare whatever gender I want to be. Like, "hi I decided to be a girl today, change it on my birth cert please." I didn't read the whole article because it kind of grossed me out. But you get the idea, there's something wrong with these Americans.

What is wrong with the world nowadays. You're not supposed to anyhow change your gender.

But thinking about it.. it might be a good thing. That might reduce the number of surgeries involving sex change and perhaps that's what the American government are trying to get at?

Forget it, I didn't read the article carefully so I'm not qualified to give commentary.

Now, for the last random fact of the day:
PW is over, YAYYYYYYY!

As I have the dubious honour of taking the first slot of the last day of Oral Presentations, I can now safely say by this time (1am) everyone's done with PW. Though there's still some stupid Reflections stuff to be done, can't stand it.

And any J1 across the island will testify that PW is a veritable waste of time. Any J1 from any JC will have had the experience of getting pwned by PW. Oh did you see that.

PWNED BY PW. O! M! G!

I think I definitely screwed up my PW today, but it's something to be happy about. As PW is already screwed up enough, you respond to this screwed-upness by screwing it up yourself. Not a very good logic, but basically - an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Although so many people said that they won't be missing PW (and I guess they mean it).. I feel that there are things to know about PW. Perhaps it isn't as bad as you think, it inculcates more values than you think it does. Quite obviously we won't miss it - I chucked my script into the bin right after OP.

Here's, however, a few lessons PW teaches:

1) The art of bitching. How you whine through every lesson, the Preliminary Idea, Evaluation of Material, and all that extra shit etc. Yup all those not in J1 yet, you haven't experienced project hell. Try doing all this crap plus Oral Presentation.. with a totally random group. I'm not complaining about my group, but not everyone has my luck. Those who have gone through it, you will appreciate the art of bitching. And you'd sympathise.

2) Endurance and determination. All that bloody rehearsals and late nights doing shit. Like how I'm supposed to do Insights and Reflections but frankly I don't give a shit. Which is why I'm blogging. It gives me stamina to last through the night.

3) Importance of makeup/stimulants. Particularly for the gals getting panda eyes and eye rings. For the guys they learn to appreciate their coffee/Milo more.

4) Group dynamics. Not in the way the PW teachers wanted it, but adversely. Like because everyone hates PW and so there's a common thing to hate. In all that grumbling together, you form greater bonds with your PW group - and in the end your class also gets more bonded when they start to ponder if they should pon PW class. That's how things work yay.

Now I really should get back to I&R. Hope you liked this post of randomness =)

Don't wanna donate

2006-11-08T00:44:00.001+08:00

This is a short guide on how to tell people that you don't want to donate.

Note that a while back I talked about New Age Robbers, the sort that bugs you to donate. Now they infiltrate S11 such that you can't even eat in peace. Since WE want to eat in peace, we should not give to others what we do not want others to do to us. (己所不欲，勿施于人 - the Chinese say）

(Shit, my Chinese teacher would be so darn proud of me.)

Thus, instead of designing very direct-insult IN YOUR FACE t-shirt designs (like in the past), I've come up with a more peaceful solution this time. All in the name of peace.

This is what you do.

Hi. I'm (so-and-so) from (so-and-so) charity, would you like to donate?
Yes I would.
(slight pause)
..but a pity, I don't think I've enough money with me at the moment.

Your $10 can go a long way..
I could cab from Bishan to around Bedok, yes.

I have a licence, there can you see it?
Yes of course I can, but that doesn't make me any richer.

(If the guy's a persistent bugger, then perhaps you can apply a bit of aggression. Not too much, mind - just enough to stir him up a bit and hopefully make him go away.)
Won't you just donate $2, if you don't have $10? Each of you and your friends just chip in $2, together you can buy one ticket, $10 just nice. It's for charity.. etc. (obscure name comes up)
I'm not going to put $1 commission in your pocket. You're bloody getting 10% commission, do you think I don't know?

Of course that would make you sound and look like a bastard..

But hey wait, who said you are obliged to donate in the first place? They are appealing to your conscience that you should be a good citizen and donate, but the truth is sometimes these youths pocket some commission, the charity organisation pockets some money to cover losses, and only a tiny bit of that $10 goes to the poor people they claim they are helping.

Heck, I'd rather go give the money to them direct.

I'm not saying that donating to charity organisations is bad, but respectable charity organisations won't bug you when you're having a meal. So there.

Thus don't worry - you won't be a bastard by refusing those New Age Robbers your extra cash. They're playing mind games with you, you are a good guy if I say so. Next time you don't want to donate, stand your ground, then sit down and continue eating your food.

But of course, while settling everything peacefully =) even if you don't donate there's no need to start a fight. Unless they do so, but that's another story I shall reserve for another time.

We Hammered their Ars

2006-11-06T00:19:00.001+08:00

This is funny. Or at least it is to a West Ham fan like me.

I don't know what the rest of the world thinks. In particular, Arsenal fans.

But hey, I did nothing to engineer the West Ham win so don't stone me okay? I had totally nothing to do with the West Ham victory, though if you'd like to credit me for being their fan, I will gladly accept it. The funny part is the post-match conference with Alan Pardew, West Ham manager.

You can find it at http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/sport/default.stm. It's right there and if you're not reading this too late on Monday, it should be under one of the headlines. Not my fault if you don't read this blog regularly and come crying that the video's gone. It's seriously amusing.

Anyway, to quote some bits from dear Mister Pardew:
(in the post-match interview)

Q: (unclear British mutterings).. Alexander Hleb, was a penalty. What did you think?
A: Well, Arsene Wenger certainly thought it was a penalty, and that frustrated him. I could see it was from behind, the challenge, but I think he got a little bit of the ball. (...) I think we'd know if it was a penalty. But the reaction of our players, they reacted in a way that it wasn't, so I went along with that reaction (shrugs).. and played on.

Comment: LIKE DUH WENGER WOULD BE FRUSTRATED? I don't know what's wrong with Pardew, it was a penalty and he's got to admit it. After all, it doesn't matter at this stage. Three points will still be three points even though he says it's a penalty now. Why not rub salt into the Gunners' wound? These Englishmen, they know pride, they know beating around the bush, they know saying politically correct answers and they know it's a penalty, that.

Q: It was an emotional game, Alan. (more British mutterings).. tell me about the situation. (between Pardew and Wenger)
A: With me and Arsene?

Comment: No, no, with you and Pope Benedict the XVI.

Q: Yea. (that wasn't really a question)
A: ..celebration, but you know it's been a frustrating season. A last-minute goal, desperate to win. And you know, I have absolute (dunno what) respect for Arsene Wenger.. and I shall try to talk to him when he's calmed down. (...) if I was him, and see if I can sort that out with him, because that situation, it wasn't right for the game. And on my part, I do apologise for being overzealous, but uh, I hope that won't get the headlines for what was a players' day. West Ham players. They were brilliant. Great win for us today.

Comment: Seems like Mister Pardew is great at dodging the topic - what happened between you and Wenger? Oh I will talk to him. Oh it's bad for the game. West Ham was brilliant. No doubt he's speaking the truth, West Ham is always brilliant, but WHY NO DETAILS? Anyway Wenger shoved him first so giving a true account won't hurt him one bit.

And another thing. He shouldn't have compromised about the celebrations. Nothing wrong with being happy, innit? I can't understand the French, I thought they liked to be happy with their slack lifestyle but here Wenger aka the French Professor gets so pissed off when Pardew is happy? He should just celebrate with Pardew YAY YOU'VE GOT THE WIN, SECOND ONE IN THE ROW. Then the game at Upton Park would end with a happy ending. But did Wenger? No. Silly old French tortoise.

Anyway seems like Pardew wants to make Wenger seem like the villain (which he is). Cunning old fox. That's all right for him to say, he didn't lose the game. (as you'll see what I mean later)

Q: ..the situation, you did offer your hand (to Wenger) at the end of the game. (not really a question either)
A: I did, and uh, y'know, last-minute goals. They're horrible for managers. And uh, y'know, I've got no problems with Arsene. At the end of the game, I hope we're all calm and I hope he'll be sensible about it.

Comment: True colours, it seems, at last. Last-minute goals don't seem at all horrible for him today, so his point about those goals are not valid. Sure he has no problems with Arsene, not when he's won 1-0. And like duh that's why he's offering a handshake. Arsene the villain. He ends off by saying "I hope we're all calm" because it's bloody obvious Wenger's definitely hell not and "he'll be sensible" finally shows Pardew's contempt for Wenger behaving like a small kid and more precisely, a spoilt brat.

Q: (something about West Ham struggling in the last few weeks) What does this mean for West Ham?
A: Well it's a result.. uh, it's a reward in some way for the fact that we've tried to do everything right and uh on the training ground, uh on the playing side - we've tried to approach every game in the same manner. And there's been a lot of (dunno what) about (players and staff, like wth). And it's a great fillip for this club. And I'm very very happy tonight.

Comment: It's no wonder you lost eight in a row, you don't approach every game in the same manner. Death to all Argentinians in West Ham, they screw up the whole pecking order. When they don't play, West Ham wins. It's proven by the matches against Blackburn and Arsenal. If you think my commentary is out of point, why don't you take a look at Pardew's. I'm just learning from him, man.

Anyway like duh you're happy tonight. Who is unhappy after a 1-0 win seriously should get a bollocking, to put it very precisely in British terms.

Q: (something something) celebrate.
A: (something something) on the back page, yea. (fades out)

Comment: Mumble mumble mumble mutter. I wish you'd speak clearly next time, or maybe I should go dig my ears.

To round off, here's to West Ham!

Oh and yes, Wenger is made to look like a villain. Good job Pardew! I really love that guy and his post-match conference, it's so subtly aimed at Wenger such that the Frenchman with French as the first language wouldn't get the idea he kena bombard like mad. (jack)

And so..

Yup we hammered their Ars nice and well! I shall declare Monday a public holiday, for even though artillery might be great, sometimes it's best to go back to primitive Man and try out his stone tools ftw. I love West Ham.

FACTS OF LIFE

2006-11-03T22:37:00.001+08:00

Okay DIRTYJOKEDIRTYJOKEDIRTYJOKE

To all innocent minds out there, you have been warned.

Don't read this unless you can take FACTS OF LIFE. About a certain part of a man's anatomy that can be alluded from the name of our blog. The second word, to be precise. It's slang for a certain part of a man's anatomy. A certain sensitive but essential part of a man.

It's true, but at the same time very wrong.

The post contains naughty content.

If you are below twelve and don't get it, then don't try to get it.

If you are above twelve and don't get it, then go ask your friends.

So here are the interesting facts of life that you should know. About the certain important organ of a man.

- Wanking takes long - as long as the length of your willy. The time you take to wank is proportional to the length of your willy.

- Similarly, how hard it is for your cum to cum (come) out depends on how hard your willy is.

There, I've gone and said it. If any of you think I'm being sick, I already warned you so too bad. And if there's anyone to blame, go look for YL because I was reluctant to impart this information to all of you but he thought that p2p is so hip nowadays, it would be nice to let everyone know.

That's the interesting facts of life for today.

Hope that sets things straight. (no pun intended)

Quotes and Daniel Radcliffe

2006-11-03T22:25:00.001+08:00

A certain person very enlightened about a certain thing.

He's so certain about it, he certainly came up with a good way to say it.

"I am already 99.9% sure about it.. I just have to confirm the other 0.01%."

Anyway, in latest news, Daniel Radcliffe aka Harry Potter is going to go naked in some play. Not in Harry Potter, but in some obscure screwed-up play that has a five-letter name so difficult to pronounce that I don't even remember it.

Apparently the director was kind of nonchalant about Radcliffe doing it - for "at worst someone takes pictures of his willy."

I assume, by "willy", the director means his dick.

Wonder what's up with British slang? Can't they call a dick what it is.

Daniel Radcliffe is only seventeen. Which is like, my age. YL's age. YH's age. The age of everyone in JC1 except the China scholars, the Malaysia scholars, and those who haven't had their birthdays. Which is still a lot of people.

Think of those people in TSD in RJC. Do they go off showing their willies?

Hell no, they'd just give us the heeby-jeebies.

Western society is going crazy nowadays. As if it is okay to show off your private parts to the world, the director finds it all right that the 17-year-old goes naked on stage.

I really never did like TSD (Theatre Studies & Drama), you know.

I guess I can rest my case.

Oh, and future TSD students had better be careful. Because at worst someone might just take pictures of your private parts. The world needs less technology and nude scenes, I feel.

SPA!

2006-11-01T22:58:00.001+08:00

So we had spa today. Nothing much to it. Rather, let me show you my mock spa!

But no, in case you were wondering, i didn't write that for my spa today.

Of Chem SPA

2006-11-01T20:44:00.001+08:00

I love Chem SPA Skill A, I really do.

I believe my grade will be the same as the SPA name, and no I'm not joking because the SPA was ridiculously.. heavily reliant on luck. And today I happened to be lucky and I rode my luck. Didn't even need to spot questions because I've got all the luck. I didn't know the answer at first but you know in Chemistry you have so few reagents it HAS GOT TO BE one of them.

NaOH (aq) was the answer in this case. So I tyco-ed the ammonium salt and amide.

Okay never mind that, I'm just very happy. Sorry if I seem like I'm bragging to you, because I really am. I think I should pass this round =)

And trivia time!

Q: What is the first section that you should write in Chem SPA Skill A (Planning)?

.
.
.

A: Safety considerations.

Why? BECAUSE SAFETY FIRST!

Don't you think it's bloody stupid to let a bloody stupid person go through the whole procedure without wearing gloves, and at the end there's this safety consideration that says "wear gloves all the time because organic compounds might irritate your skin"?

Rubbish. Of course you put Safety Considerations at the front. NO SAFETY, NO EXPERIMENT.

Oh and another screwed up thing about today.

Shift A - 9am to 10:30am
Shift B - 10:30am to 12pm

Being number one, of course I was in Shift A. Actually, YL was in the same LT as me and I think he's going to score damn well although he certainly didn't do it by luck. He woke up at 5am to study today. Me, I preferred to study at 12:30am.

Nevertheless we were both in Shift A.

After we finished our SPA, we went out to the amphi.. and guess what? QUARANTINE ZONE. The second shift people were all seated, and construction tape (or whatever you call that red and white thing) was all over the pillars to cordon off the amphi.

They had the "haven't-took-SPA-and-cannot-know-answers" disease.

Come to think of it, what's wrong even if we leaked the questions?

1) It improves batch relations.
2) It fosters batch spirit.
3) RJC gets higher "A" %tage rate for Chemistry A levels next year.
4) I'm a selfish fagut and I won't leak the questions ANYWAY.
5) No, not even if you give me the chance, I won't leak it.
6) I WILL NOT LEAK IT YES.

Getting them all to sit down at the amphi, it seemed like a concentration camp. Without any electronic devices whatsoever. I was tempted to shout out the compounds but heck, the Chem Dept might decide to kick me off the school compounds.

And as YL puts it, "they might rip off my badge."

Coincidentally, I wasn't wearing my Councillor badge today. I told you I was in luck.

In any case I guess they got the construction tape cheap. With RI undergoing so much construction nowadays, RJ Chem Dept probably just koped some off the stupid hall they are rebuilding and cordoned off the amphi. A highly amusing experience. A pity we couldn't capture the moment as we didn't have the resources (ie a camera).

Anyone who wants to donate to our TCS fund for a camera to post stupid pics can put the money in seventh floor male toilet, third cubicle. If you openly admire us you can give it to us at the canteen, we'd gladly accept donations. If everybody from RJ donates $1 a day, we'd get our camera in no time.. like one day.

But I'm not so optimistic. Nowadays times are bad and probably everybody would only donate 50 cents a day. So sad to say but I don't think we'll be getting our camera anytime soon.

If you want us to busk for donations, that's fine too. Just leave a comment and we'll be singing in the canteen the next day. I think there is gross under-publicity for The Integrals in RJC, we're really not showing enough of our talent and ARGH. I'm dying to show it!!

Anyway not like it matters. What matters was that quarantining second batch was screwed up and we at TCS probably owned Chem SPA today. Yup. While the second batch must have got irritated by the volatile amides (inhaling poisonous fumes) so they all got quarantined, the first batch got early dismissal.

And to celebrate, I went for a real SPA at RI pool. Now that's life.

At last!

2006-10-30T01:10:00.000+08:00

After 2 days of trying to publish, I finally could publish the two previous posts!

And at the same time, West Ham's winning Blackburn 1-0.

I think it's true. You can't lose all the time.

Confession

2006-10-29T21:13:00.001+08:00

Sometimes confessions come least when you expect it.

YL dropped a bombshell on me tonight. I NEVER KNEW BEFOREHAND LA TMD. There were no signs, no warnings but all of a sudden he just got attached.

Leaves me to head the NGO by myself. Oh well.

If you can't read the text..

u_klun..i'll go to the end of the world for you. but luckily for me, the earth is round. says:
hi!
- yj [ that's not false ] says:
hey
- yj [ that's not false ] says:
who's that in your dp
u_klun..i'll go to the end of the world for you. but luckily for me, the earth is round. says:
my girlfriend

I'm censoring YL's email because you all are so not going to be third parties even though YL might be hot and sexy. (That's what he will say to you.)

Self-confidence

2006-10-28T15:20:00.001+08:00

Among all those silly failures that I've listed, I'm afraid I left out one very important one.

FAILURE TO GET TOP 20 IN CHEM FOR PROMOS. (zomg!)

How could I forget that. Maybe I'm just living in my own world of denial.

Anyway, today's post is about feeling good. Assuming that life is tough and everyone wants to feel good, it is important to know how to feel good. Of course, you can't feel good when the circumstances are against you, but feelings are pretty much controlled by yourself, and therefore you have the power to feel good.

Or should I say, YOUR feelings are pretty much controlled by yourself. Everything is relative and everything should be put into perspective.

Let's take a very basic example - playing basketball. You have no idea how many times I've been shooting and missing by a few miles, usually because I think I'm shooting birds and blast the ball right over the board. Well, Michael Jordan missed his 9000 shots, and I haven't missed that many so far.

Though I haven't been playing a lot.. but never mind that.

The trick is to letting yourself believe that you are skilled in other areas.

If you play basketball and keep airballing (ie it doesn't touch the board because you're a weakling), you don't have to think you suck at basketball. Even if your coach says so, think that you are made for HANDBALL. Yup, in handball it is essential not to shoot over the goalmouth. Therefore that is the sport for you if you can't shoot high enough.

After all, it's quite true that sometimes the basket is too high. It's difficult to slam dunk and that takes away the fun of basketball.

If your aiming is just way off and even though you can reach the required height for basketball, it means that probably VOLLEYBALL is your game. Every cloud has a silver lining, and thus every failure must mean you have talent in someplace else. Shooting left and right will ensure that the opponent gets pwned. That's how volleyball works, and voila, you've made yourself useful again.

If you keep shooting too hard against the board (they call it 篮板球) and it just reflects right back to you, there is this game called WATERPOLO where hard shots are for the win. The only thing is that you have to know how to swim. If you don't, try doing ARCHERY. You could shoot birds up in trees.

If you keep shooting a little over the top of the basketball board, then perhaps you should consider playing NETBALL. You just need to be a little tyco, and the ball will automatically go in. Try a few high angle shots, and if they fail you in Netball, perhaps you are just made for Beach Volleyball, where I believe the net is slightly higher and you'd be ultimate ownage at that.

And if you think you're totally shit at basketball such that you blast the ball way over the top, or you can't seem to get the ball off the ground..

..you're not at your wits' end yet.

There's always BOWLING, a traditional favourite among those who likes aircon and who hates altitude. You don't swing bowling balls all over the place do you? And for those who keeps shooting WAY OVER THE TOP..

..uh, we refer you back to this module in RI Physical Education. Something we all did in our Sec 4 year. Territorial/invasion and the other games. I only remember one sort of game because I just don't really remember the rest (like duh).

Anyway, the thing is, if you fail at all the sports available, the module that I was talking about is.. INVENTING GAMES!! Many years have gone by and new things keep popping up all over the place. The idea is: if you can't find a sport you're good at, you MAKE a sport you're good at.

Many losers are bloody good at this. Notice when a country hosts the SEA Games or the Olympics, they get to choose what games they want to play? They simply take away the events they simply have no hope at, and then introduce some obscure crap that they trained for damn long and suddenly get free golds.

Of course, others might say it's cheap. But a gold is a gold.

Let's take for example HOOP TAKRAW, going to be played in the next SEA Games. It's quite obviously a cheap copy of sepak takraw, and adjusted a little to make it advantageous for those who keep pumping the ball way up high but without any power. While they get whooped in sepak takraw, they can seek solace that they are masters in getting balls in hoops.

Balls to them actually, that's no big deal. Still, they'd be wHOOPing at the end of the day when they get their medals because the world is about being good, no matter how you get there.

Don't let them get you down, Inventing Games are good. That's why it's graded for your final PE grade.

In other words, there's no reason not to have self-confidence. The world is made for you to succeed in, and already in sports you are guaranteed sure success.

Perhaps, if you are too lazy to move your arse on the basketball court or on any sort of playing field, you could invent this sport called STONING.

The possibilities are endless.

But I think I might win the stoning contest.

Still, in the meantime, do have self-confidence. It's good for your ego and it's good for feeling good. You get positive externalities when you feel good so uh, yup just feel good.

Failures

2006-10-26T00:01:00.001+08:00

Okay it's the last day of JC1 (gasp!), and upon reflection, I shall post here my 5 biggest failures of the year.

1) Failure to sleep early. See, I'm still posting now, which proves a point. My Thursday posts are actually Wednesday posts, and my Wednesday posts are actually Tuesday posts. Such is the sad state of my uh, sleeping habits.

2) Failure to get school cancelled. Despite having Plan PSI 300, and despite getting all my friends to burn their notes, I am very disappointed to say that it failed. And therefore I burnt all my notes FOR NOTHING ARGH. Well I also formulated another plan to play a prank by sticking up a note at the side gate saying school is cancelled. Then pretend to be a victim and go home.

Sadly, I could not wake up early enough to paste the sheet of paper. Refer to Failure No. 1. By that I don't mean refer to me (some people might debate that I'm Failure No. 1 too), but the first failure that I've listed here. I've not enough guts anyway.

3) Failure to find more NBA members. I think I must have been too ambitious, trying to find NBA members in RJC but instead of expanding the NBA circle, I'm just inside being a loser while watching the world go buaya. I shall not comment any further, but I rate this as one of the failures that shouldn't have been there. I know there are MUGGERS around. I KNOW IT!

4) Failure to make Stall 2 auntie lose business. For her BAD WORK ATTITUDE and the POOR QUALITY OF LEMON TEA, I decided to launch a campaign against Stall 2, declaring war. The first idea was to do mass boycott, starting from my class. Almost my whole class still patronised the stall, the only guy not doing so being me. After half a day I realised I couldn't take it anymore and went to buy wedges from them. That was bad discipline, I admit.

Still, there can be no denial their lemon tea does taste like soapwater. And the auntie flirts with certain students, according to reliable but unnamed sources. Worse still, after flirting she doesn't give discount. Therefore I say don't bother. And therefore I say boycott Stall 2. Though we all know they are a bloody monopoly and by tomorrow, guaranteed everyone's going to be buying stuff from them unless they are Muslims fasting. Even so, Hari Raya Puasa is over and I think they'll get their business.

From everyone including me argh.

5) Failure to be the most failure. Although I have my off days, I guess I still can't qualify as "top failure" in RJC because there are others who have proved themselves more jacked than me. This is debatable as there are different ways to define "failure", but I passed my Chemistry and Chemistry is life so no, I can't be that bad a failure.

Unfortunately, life is about extremes and if you fail to get a title for yourself, you fail. I fail to be top failure and therefore I fail.

All right I'm seriously failing to understand what I'm writing. But school closes anyway, and TCS wishes everyone happy holidays. Do make good use of them by flying kites or playing soccer, we all know that these activities are good for you.

Me, I'll try to work on these failures so that they won't fail next year. Watch out Stall 2 hurhur.