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there isn't really any great exigence for this post and it sure is untimely but i was just browsing the blog page of a certain naomi liu whom i read about on today's papers and this came to mind. this girl is one of the nominees for the singapore blog awards 2009 under the best modelling blog category. but marketing her is not the purpose of this. while mostly being a lingerie model, she also happens to be a race queen and it certainly brought to mind the few motor shows i've been to. and which i've since stopped going.

every year, a huge number of men swarm into the exhibition halls jamming up the area around the expo just to catch a glimpse of the latest machines. really?

not really.

to be frank, there are only that many new vehicles a year that are really worth the trip down to the expo where finding a decent meal is really tough. even the number of new concept cars are really only that many. put in the size of each machine, there really isn't much room to display enough for men to stay there for a few hours. not to forget, year after year, we can still see the same old models on display probably furnished with new decals.

but the surprising thing is, men can stay there for hours and even turn up 2 consecutive days. at one station, you can see a few guys snapping photos of a rotating car. you move off to another station, and another, and another. as you made a complete round and exit the exhibition hall, you turn back and notice the same few guys still snapping away at the same vehicle. some of their cameras probably aren't even snapping but are at maximal optical zoom. and some aren't even holding cameras!

think about it, genuine car lovers aren't that many. most of the guys are just there to spend 30 seconds staring at the first car they encounter near the entrance, look genuinely awed and the rest of the 1 hour 59 min 30sec are used to oogle at the race queens. in fact, after the first 20 sec, the eyes start drifting away to the side of the machines already. and these are the ones who have greater self-control.

let's be honest. it really isn't a motor show.


i'm a compulsive blogder, i admit. i love to read others' blogs but at the same time, i am very selective of what blogs i read. it's not as simple as, you are my friend therefore i read your blog. the correlation just does not exist.

but if you are my friend, i would occasionally browse your entries to see if there's any interesting stuff to read and i'll selectively read them. if i really like them, i'll make sure i finish the entire chunk religiously even if they span a million pages. and also, since i do not know many people who update their blogs frequently, my addiction is often left unsatiated. it's always a pity when the good writers throw a two-liner and publish it for the week. it's like giving me half a dosage of heroine when i've already gone through detox for a week.

interestingly, in spite of the hype over celebrity bloggers, i do not and did not try reading any. ok, at least not many. the only valuable read i found is one of sheylara's. i recall seeing her on tv during my pre-pubescent years. alright, maybe not that long ago. many years later, she joined star-search as the oldest contestant and it was only when she became a star blogger on stomp, that i found out she has been a regular blogger. a few entries later, i fell in love with her writing. maybe not that exaggerating, but she is one of the few and rare interesting and good writers.

i've also been reading the blog of a certain friend of a friend. through her, i found that i enjoy good writers as much as bad writers. the in-betweens are usually boring stuff. that's why they're called the average. the notion that god made so many average people because they are special is flawed. it's also an extremely loser mentality. whoever came up with that probably suck at statistics. it's a pretty simple mathematical concept.

i'm not saying being average is bad. but if you are average, so be it. coming up with reasons to claim that you are special is a pathetic attempt at justifying your existence to yourself. and there really isn't a need to. why must some people always be more special than others? the truth is, everyone is special to different people.

whether you think i'm a good writer or not is of lesser importance. what is more important is, if you are not an average writer, please write more because i have too little things to read at work. i need time off the videos!


i'm not a person who gambles. well, at least not usually. the only time i used to gamble was during chinese new year or very rarely during christmas, where all our relatives gather together and had nothing else better to do. but we no longer gamble as much since we no longer gather as often.

i remember the very first time i bought toto was some 3-4 years ago when i won over $50. since that amount of money was sort of "extra" (it wasn't mine to begin with), i decided to use it for the $10 million toto jackpot that very same year with guang forking out another $50 to share. so yes, it's a hundred dollar worth of ordinary quickpicks and guess what? we didn't even manage to match 4 numbers. the site says it's one out of over 8 million chances to match all 6 numbers.

the 2nd time i bought toto was, well, i didn't actually pay mum to buy it. when she asked her colleague to buy, i merely said to buy one for me too. it was a $1 bet and i didn't pay mum for it. haha... the 3rd time was when my office colleagues decided to pitch in some money to bet the $10 million jackpot during this year's cny. the 4th was when i asked guang to help me buy $1 ordinary quickpick. and the 5th was last wednesday for the $3 million and last one i bought was for yesterday's $5 million anniversary draw. no luck at all.

all-in-all, i've "donated" $72 to the singapore pools over a span of 4 years. to many compulsive gamblers, this amount is nothing. they can easily donate it in a day's draw. but i have this fear that i may fast become a gambling addict. i didn't believe in gambling before. the odds are so crazy, the thought of stepping into a singapore pools outlet makes me want to puke. and now, without even trying, i've overcome the phobia. this is scary.

i swear i will never involve myself in gambling again!

wanna bet?


yes, that's the latest big thing to happen i guess. but kris allen shouldn't feel too happy about winning. if i were adam, i'd be overwhelmed with joy. one can only understand why allison appeared so happy at the finals.

for the past 7 seasons, only kelly clarkson and carrie underwood made it big as winners of the reality show. david cook may be getting there but i'm not so sure yet. as for the rest of the winners?

just look...

i don't even know what happened to ruben studdard. and what was fantasia barrino doing when jennifer hudson collected her grammy? daughtry already performed in singapore and i have yet heard from taylor hicks. jordin sparks didn't leave her mark on us like a tattoo and david archuleta sold more albums than david cook.

and guess what? i'm looking forward to allison iraheta's first album...


back in 2003 when the sars epidemic started, japan seem immuned to the virus. there were virtually zero cases of sars patients in the country.

i remember reading an article where some japanese guy claimed that it is due to the language that sars didn't spread in japan. apparently, unlike the english language, articulation of the characters in the japanese alphabet does not cause saliva to fly between interlocuters and this is alleged to be the reason that prevented the spread of sars in the nation.

today, there are over 200 cases of influenza A (h1n1) in japan and that has debunked the nonsense that language has anything to do with the spread of germs. that is of course unless those who got it spoke anything other than japanese.

being a linguistics graduate and a speaker of the japanese language, i can understand that none of the japanese characters contain aspirated plosives but i do not believe that it is these aspirated plosives that made the difference. afterall, i've personally witnessed japanese speakers fire their saliva at their victims while speaking the language.


singaporeans not queuing to board the train is nothing new. from an empty ground, we had yellow lines and arrows painted to teach us how to queue and allow passengers to alight first. apparently we are all blind to yellow, so now, the lines are much longer and in red at some stations.

for someone who complains like this, i should stand to the side. and yes i do. sounds really civilised. but when i am the one alighting and people block my way by trying to squeeze in before i could alight, i will deliberately knock into them one way or another.

yes, i am 怪懒.


"you're a screen addict!" my now-failing mind shouts into my face. except that it wasn't really out of my skull hovering in front of me.

i came to realise i may already have been one a real long time ago. the only thing distracting me from this fact was me spending all that time trying to get my hands on something with a screen. technology has infiltrated our lives so much, i am no longer able to keep my eyes off something with a screen. each day during work, i have 3 monitors facing me. one is used to view master copy videos for editing, one for accessing emails and typing reports, and the other for msn and surfing.

as soon as i reach home, either the desktop or the laptop comes alive and i'll sit there for some time until i run out of things to do. then, i'll stare at the pathetic shows mediacorp transmits in disbelief and when it bores me enough, i'll start hunting for sis' ndsl or psp.

there's a reason why i made 2 entries today. because sis isn't back to use the desktop yet and her ndsl isn't home. as for the psp... low-batt, lazy to charge. maybe when i get my hands on a dslr, i'll fiddle with it all the time. afterall, it has a screen and there's this thing called novelty. and i'll also be getting an electronic dictionary soon.

oh god tell me this isn't an addiction~ via sms please...


my right ear decided to do an ayumi today while i was on the biggest loser. having been on the headphone for so long, my right ear suddenly shut off and i couldn't hear anything coming from it. the only sound i could hear came from my left ear. i was shocked. i removed the headphone immediately and heard a ringing sound in my right ear.

i think i'm going deaf from this job. maybe i need to see a doctor. maybe i need to quit this job. but don't try giving me suggestions on what to do, it will just fall on deaf ears. especially the right one.


some many years ago, a certain drama of investigative nature put to words yet another abstract idea that many of us know but may not have realised or never really gave it a second thought since it may have come rather naturally. kind of like common sense.

the most believable lie is one that is closest to the truth. perhaps with all else constant and altering only one variable, that would be the strongest lie.

yes, we all know this theory. it makes great sense. but how often do we question things we hear? especially things that appear to have every other evidence supporting the fallacious hypothesis and none that is contrary. how easy is it to create a lie that is based upon the truth to mislead, to wield the sword, don the shining armour yet breathe fire?

someone who warns you to beware of liars could very well be the liar, drifting you further and further away from the truth. but another dilemma occurs. if we do question every single thing we hear, we may become schizophrenic.

so now we're trapped between questioning or not. and we all know there's no definite answer. and because of that, we sink into great depression and cause the economy to fail. at least we're still alive.


some time ago, i heard this somewhere and found it interesting...

the most average people are the most special, that's why god made so many of us.

no, i'm not a follower of christ. that does not necessarily imply that i'm a non-believer. neither does the above statement imply that i am a believer. i like to keep things ambiguous. as long as i know what i am, i don't have to let the rest of the world know.

and i don't think i'm special. =)


fastfood chains such as the big yellow m and the likes have revolutionised stalking to such an extent, it is putting more victims on the line.

if you've ever made home delivery requests from these outlets, it really is easy for anyone who has your number to find out where you live. it's even faster than searching on yellowpages. one just has to make a call to them, provide your number and WHAMO!~ the other party on the line recites your address obediently.

without your unit number that is. but i don't see how that makes you any safer. maybe just a little. so if you intend to stalk me, drop me a message, i'll provide you with the number i make orders with. =)


3rd post of the morning, or afternoon since i really woke up only at 1130am. yes, tomorrow's vesak day and refusing to be pressured by the norm, my oscar winning company decided to take creativity to another level by closing the office today instead of having one of 2 other options below:

1) off-in-lieu on monday
2) crediting an extra day of leave

honestly, i'd rather have the latter. because for some silly reason, my august trip compelled me to take 3 days of unpaid leave which leaves me with 3 days of leave at the end of the year. i told you it was silly. so now, i have 3 days of leave at the end of the year to spare, and with this leave and deepavali falling on saturday as well, i'd have 5 days of leave in total which would place me in a better position for another trip. kinda like 9 days trip with 5 days leave.

and how often do you see people digressing so much, they nearly forget what the topic was if not for the oh-so-great invention called the "title".

so i've been reading some pages of friends and came across this:



yes, this is from serene's page.

i'm wondering if this is enough evidence of some desperation at seducing the innocence of undergraduates to mortgage 4 years of their lives into teaching. and in usual cases, a company this desperate would put jobseekers in a good stead at fighting for a better remuneration package. except that this isn't a private company. it's a government sector. and more importantly, there is umpteen number of clueless undergraduates who'd jump at any opportunity to snatch a job, especially in this economic climate. and that's not including those who are already clueless even in a better economic climate. moe is a surefire way to get a secured job at least for the next 4 years. and to make it all the more appealing, you get paid while you're studying too!

there's a simple reason why some people go for engineering or business degrees. because they are clueless and if that's where everyone else is going, it must be good.

the oh-so-singaporean mentality.

(on a side note, my apprehension towards teaching probably stemmed from a history lecturer from tpjc who reminded us time-and-again, being bonded sucks. and to make things specifically worse, he was bonded to moe.)

we are so entrenched into the thinking that prospect is important, we have forgotten that there is an alternative called interest, which was what brought me into fass in the first place. i've been brought up the same way most people were but thankfully, i've grown to do what interests me more than what gives me greater prospect. it is from your interests that you begin to search for prospect.

for me, i'll be going to teach in order to pursue my interest. yes, i like to teach but not with moe. hopefully some years down the road, i don't think twice about this and moe happens to read this and decline my application.

thankfully for my friends, i can see the passion to go into teaching in many of them. for those who do not and still have time to think twice, maybe you should.

margaret fuller puts it best: men for the sake of living, forget to live.


i've never been much of a digicam person. afterall, with mobile phones equipped with camera function becoming a tautology, why would i need to whip out that extra cash to get myself something i already have?

many-a-times when i want to get certain things, after some time, i always end up deciding to save that money instead. i've been wanting to get a camcorder for the longest of times until recently i found that digicams can get a matchable quality of video recording that i started to think twice about it. camcorders aren't exactly practical unless you really require the snap-at-every-5s function which sorts of saves your memory and fast forwards a video that takes ridiculously long to record. it's kinda like what you see in concert setups.

and after jeannie passed me her unworkable camcorder to try and having spent $12 on new dvd-rams to confirm that it is not working, i've finally decided to get a camera instead. more so after the pathetic recordings i did in taiwan recently. i can barely see or hear what i recorded. it's so bad, i don't even remember what i was saying.

so i'm currently targetting this:



my virgin camera!

maybe...


after an unknown number of months, mas selamat is finally caught in malaysia debunking the urban legend that he had been tortured to death in prison and that the escape was merely a weak attempt at a coverup.

but until the public sees another footage of him being arrested, or even see the live action of him being escorted to the local prison, i'm not so certain how believable it is.

with the h1n1 virus being the most talked-about topic in recent days, i'm not even certain if people are still interested in his case. it's untimely.


i've done it before but i can't say i understand why people do that.

i recall posting some lyrics on this page, most of which are short excerpts of sentences which i find very well-written. sort of like a literary comment. i do not post entire lyrics... except that i really did it once with iron maiden's revelation. probably coz i thought it was well-written too, but i find it silly to be throwing an entire song into my page.

why the hell would you want to read lyrics on my blog? why the hell would anyone want to read something written by someone else on my page? posting lyrics of entire songs is about the worst entry anyone can do to abuse their weblog. it's vandalism. unless it's written by the blog page owner. at least that's something original.

baa baa black sheep have you any wool
yes sir, yes sir, three bags full
one for my master, one for the dame
and one for the little boy who lives down the lane

that was an original.

i swear.

fuck...


singapore is a pretty confused nation.

our national language is malay but our 1st language is english. malay is one of the 2nd languages here but my 2nd language is mandarin. i don't speak a word of malay, our medium of instruction is english yet i'm not considered a native speaker of english.

what am i?