The strange affair of blue starfish shower sponge

I am a slight fan of spongebob square pants and patrick. V and I call patrick pinkturd cause that is what he looks like. A pink pile of shit.

No point denying it, they are gay. closet maybe. but obviously gay.

Guess what? V got a blue starfish shaped sponge for me recently when I told her I feel dirty (not the christina aguilera type of dirrty). I have been sailing a fair bit so that is the real reason.

I used it tonight.

Blue star was all smiles before being subjected to the shower foam treatment

I don't know about the rest of you. But I think to put an object with facial features (the sponge has two black beads and two strings functioning as eyes and mouth respectively) onto my body feels wrong. It's especially bad when I am cleaning there. Yes, there, down there. I can imagine the starfish making muffled sounds when I scrub my armpits.

mmfff...mmfff....mfffff

I think it is equally weird for towels to have faces too. Or animal-shaped-sponges. It's just wrong. And you might not understand me, but I urge you to try using such sponges. Tell me if you start imagine them making noises.

Anyways, I worked up a lather.....

blue sponge didn't smile so much after this....

I reckoned it wasn't easy to keep the smile after all that moving about.
Looks a little worse for wear. But, hell, this is its station in life.

A little worse for wear but will feel much better soon. Check out the darker hue of blue.

So ends the little adventure of Blue sponge.

Heard this from my sister on Sunday and just made me flipped:

Doraemon and Hello Kitty bumped into each other one day......
(this is actually real hard cause Hello Kitty lives in London but Doraemon lives in suburban Tokyo)

So Doraemon, being the more gregarious cat (he is a futuristic - 22nd century to be exact - robot cat afterall) said a friendly "Hello!" to Hello Kitty.

Hello!

...........










Hello Kitty did not reciprocate Doraemon's Hello. Why?
I suppose it's the robotic voice that Doraemon might have. But damn, if in another 100 years we still cannot master digital voices, human or animal....we kinda suck. Ain't it? We just have to remember that both are cats (difference in age but "hello" ranks low on the hierarchy of feline vocabulary difficulty level)

The reason is rather simple:

Hello Kitty has no mouth.







So if Hello Kitty does have a mouth and happen to greet Doraemon with a Hello first, why wouldn't Doraemon answer?





Doraemon don't have any ears.





Where do people find so much time for so much crap?

There is nothing to read here

The Singapore economy grew by 2.5% in the 1st qtr of 2005, signalling a moderation in growth compared with 2004. In view of the weaker than expected economic performance, MTI has made a downward revision of its full year GDP growth forecast, from 3-5% to 2.5-4.5%. Against a backdrop of cautious optimism, Civil Service has announced the payment of 0.4 month mid-year Annual Variable Component (AVC) and a one-off dollar quantum of $200 will form a larger proportion of the salaries of the lower division staff and is intended to narrow the wage differential between the higher and lower divisions.

Similarly, SAF regulars and DXOs will receive 0.4 month of AVC and a one-time lump sum payment of $200 in Jul 2005. This one-time lump sum payment is not to be regarded as part of the AVC.

Full Moon Housewarming BBQ Zouk Party

It was a long workweek and and short weekend kind of a week.

Had a BBQ with my primary school mates at East Coast Park on Friday and the turn out was pretty impressive. There were almost twenty of us and including our form teacher Mrs Tan (formerly Ms Emily Wong), her daughter Tamara and an unknown Sunny (chauffeur of some sorts), it was a sizable party. Funny quote was how Emily said she was shocked the first time Mr Yeow, our pock-marked discipline master, used the word bloody on us students in her presence. She now admits that bloody is an English word that can be found in a dictionary.

I was late for the bbq cause I had sailing prior to that. The 8-hour sailing plus the week's worth of bustling must have taken it's toll on me however, with people I grew up with, the tiredness gave way to a genuine sense of enormous well-being when you feel comforted that friends you made 19 years ago still care to find out how you are doing and before the night ended, were already making plans for the next gathering.

It's funny how memories speed through your mind, sometimes back and forth, often choosing to linger when you least expect it. At the BBQ, we were going through the 6 years we shared together, from the the time we were 7 years old right to the brink of our pubescent years. Well, actually, I think amongst us, some hit puberty way earlier than others.

May Primary School is no more. Instead, the MOE May Adventure has taken over it's premises.
And May Primary School, which was made up of May North Primary and May South Primary has merged with Boon Keng Primary to become Farrer Park Primary School

Saturday was spent up north. Yishun and Sembawang. First was at Alvin and Yenli's place cause they had a full moon party. I have to explain this a little cause it wasn't a night time party. It wasn't a party in the way we would think of a party. No party music. Party ballons aplenty. But the most important misnomer was that it wasn't full moon that day (or night for that matter).

It has been a month since the both of them became the proud parents of their baby boy and was sharing that joy with us. It was a nice 2 hours there with plenty of food and geniune convival atmosphere that made the warm afternoon a little more pleasant.

I then had to spend a boring 2 plus hours at Sembawang Sun Plaza sipping tropical passion latte and reading Time magazine, reading Sideways, checking out the community library in the Plaza. I actually had to buy a bottle of wine and since I am only good at buying for myself (anybody can find Jacob's Creek 2001 Riesling please give me a call) I thought I could read Sideways and give myself some inspiration. The wine was meant as a gift to Edward (it's bloody Chongyu) and Amelia for their housewarming party.
After the first 20 pages I decided on a red cause it will be chilled to the right temperature faster blah blah....and it was to be a Pinot Noir and not the Merlot. So I called pin who said he'd get a Penfolds Merlot cause it was an "easy choice". I guess it is. I had a really good Australian red before. It was a Shiraz. Penfolds Coonawarra Shiraz 1996 and it was released in 1999. I must have bought it the first time I was back from UK at the Changi DFS. And I brought it along to a Christmas dinner with some York friends. Now I have a bottle of the same wine just different year. 2001. I am saving it for this year end's festivities, if any.

Anyway, back to the pinot and merlot dilemma. It has a name. It is the Sideways Effect.

Californian wines.....I can only think of Ernest and Julio Gallo. And I had a great experience with their White Zinfandel. It's not a complex wine. Which suits my simple palate completely. Which should be plain to all by now what a novice, non-oenophilic I am.

I got a Penfolds Merlot in the end. 2004. Very drinkable.

Merlot: a quintessential blending grape, when left to its own devices almost always - Petrus notwithstanding - results in a bland, characterless wine.

Pinot Noir: The one varietal that truly enchants me, both stills and steals my heart with its elusive loveliness and false promises of transcendence.

Can I tell the difference? Probably not. and that is why the Sideways effect is so important to the vineyards in Russian River Valley.

One thing at the Housewarming: Don't watch R-Point. It's crap.

Saturday Night: Zouk, Phuture, Velvet, Winebar. Hahaha......I'll leave this alone and not try to recollect too much of this.

Get me away from here I'm dying

On days like these.
All I want to do.
Is to wish for something drastic.
Bordering along the lines of
death,
pain,

great pain,
knives,
blood,
gore,
vlah vlah vlah


i want to have another holiday.

8th August looks like splendid Monday that is worthy of a leave application.


A holiday anywhere, as long as it's by flying there I can get there...

i want to have another holiday.

Been spending half a year in a state whereby I am dreading the start of the working week which can sometimes start on a Sunday morning. Which meant that I have to sleep early on a Saturday night. Once the week starts, I can wait for the week to be over. I don't feel the midweek hump on Wednesdays because, sigh, the week can sometimes end only on a Saturday.

I hear my banker/lawyer/auditor friends say they work horrendous hours. I look at my own hours. Mine ain't that bad. But when the sailing can sometimes mean spending more than 3 days away from home.....well, I really shouldn't compare. It's like comparing oranges and apples. They are fruits. That's it.

different as chalk and cheese.

but.

I need a holiday.


I figure if I am at the airport, I'd be nearer to somewhere else.



You are the train driver

There are a couple of things that i want to blog. I have reduced the file size of my spainish photos and put them onto flickr. so i could blog about my spanish holiday with v which i have been trying to for weeks. but i haven't ordered them sequentially and not described them sufficiently so think that will come later. maybe this weekend.

I attended 2 weddings in as many weeks. and in the more recent one, i noticed something which i saw again in a wedding footage found in the movie Mr and Mrs Smith. It's this wedding veil kink that will inadvertably form when the groom unveils the bride. I wanted to blog and name it. like I had previously name certain unsavoury female actions in Singapore Fashion Faux Pas. It'll be a short entry though. will do it soon as well.

I just finished the book Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro and it evoked a couple of emotions and thought that i thought i should blog about it as well....but....i'll need some time to articulate them through words.

And so I shall blog about this discussion I had had with my ceo, weo, xo and v throughout different periods of time today.

was having lunch today at the wardroom. overlooking the balcony. looking into temasek fairway.

was talking about child sex tours and paedophiles and questions on the function of law and governance. should law be a function system to protect the innoncent or to punish the wrongdoers?

pretty heavy stuff for lunch.

then it got even more interesting.........

weo: imagine you are a train driver. you come to this junction. to the left is an abandoned track and there's a kid playing by himself on it.

ceo/me: uh huh. (bored look)

weo: and to the right is the track you are suppose to take and there's a group of kids playing on it. which way would you turn?

me: so is the abandoned track still safe for use? cause if it isn't, i will turn right cause i cannot put the rest of the passengers in the train in jeopardy. there are passengers in the train right?

weo: the abandoned track is safe and it will get you to your destination.

me: ok. i'll turn left.

ceo: yah, left too. save more lives.

me: yah, save more lives.

weo: ok. so both of you turn left. but did you realise that by turning left and killing the lone kid, you would have killed the lone kid who was doing no wrong by playing on the abandoned track. it was abandoned anyway. but the group of kids were in the wrong cause they were playing on the track to the right which was a track that was in service.

me: woah.....I never thought of that. but then, I would still have turn left. my bottomline doesn't change. to save more lives.

ceo: In this case i might use the right track. (i cannot for the life of me remember what he said. i better put this disclaimer in cause he reads this some of the time. so this is not verbatim)

me: this is actually a very interesting parable. can we apply it to any real world situation? where we kill off the lone person who is right to save the majority who are wrong? or vice versa, kill the wrong majority to save the lone person who is right? so weo, which would you choose?

weo: the right track. cause i will not want to kill the innocent kid who was probably disciplined enough to not play on a railway track. the other kids shouldn't playing on the operational railway track.

ceo: if there are passengers on the train and the disused track was unsafe, the question would have an easier and more obvious answer. but turning left, i could put the passengers in danger. but then the question would not longer be as challenging.

weo: so would you still go left then?

me: my bottomline remains the same. save more lives. if the disused track is safe, i will kill the lone child. but if the disused track is unsafe or i am unsure about it, the passengers come into play (pun not intended) and I will choose right. so depending on the situation and information that i have, my decision changes although my bottomline remains the same. save more lives.

weo: i will keep right no matter what because it is the right way and the route I was suppose to take anyway. the passengers will not be put into harm's way.

xo joins in and we ask him the same question.

xo: turn left. shocking bad luck for the lone kid. (we can tell xo is a realist)

weo: but the kid wasn't doing anything wrong.

xo: shocking bad luck.

weo: i would go right cause that is what i was told to do. it's the taught way.

xo: so you will follow an SOP even if it will obviously harm more people because it is " the taught way"? You will not be fliexible enough to exercise your judgment?

(we, being military people, were very much into SOP/directives/commander's instructions)

I think in the end we agree that there is not right or wrong. the lives were all innocent no matter which track they were playing on and no kid or kids were more deserving to die than another.

which was a chicken shit way out.

in the real world, there isn't a chicken shit way out. you choose one of the track and you pray like hell you got it right. you stick by your decision and never waver.

we tried putting this parable into our workplace and this was what we came up with.

currently the specs have some form of ranking assessment and those who are deemed worthy will see their contracts being lengthened. (i am simplifying things here) and those who get their contracts lengthened usually excel in their secondary job appointments. meaning, if we get one lone person who thoroughly ensure that his primary job is completed to the required level, we migth not lengthened his contract simply because he was performing in the wrong sphere. we would rather promote and offer longer contracts to those who may not be shit hot in their primary job scope but are often in the limelight or take on alot of secondary jobs, hence neglecting their primary job.

i discussed with v over dinner. she heard of this story before. apparently it is on the net and was passed around as an email attachment as well. what's right isn't always popular
v choose to kill the group of kids because they were in the wrong.
v described this as a reflection of a case where pilots were sacked from their jobs because they were following the control tower instructions as well as the directional lights that were guiding them. the 2 pilots were sacked although they were doing the right thing. i pushed my rational of "bottomlines" which was to "save more lives". what the airline did was to curb the possible image loss and repurcussions could be loss of revenue and loss of the precious image of being a safe premier airline. these twin losses could trigger a chain reaction that eventually lead to a crumbling airline and possibly retrenchment etc etc...I knew I was pushing it.....

again the answer was terrible to find.
there cannot be a case where we should be happy either ways because we would have skirted the conundrum of being in a "damn if you do and damn if you don't" situation. which can never be right in the real world.

this blog entry sounds rather morbid.

i dunno why i thought so much about this. wonder what is the common answer to this question.

What do you do?

I wonder how many sunsets does it take before you get bored with it.

For me, I am always looking for one better than another. I remember a number of sunsets that I saw while drinking corona and gin tonic on the rocky outcrop just outside cafe del mar. it was marred (pun!) by this bikini clad blondie being carried by a parachute that was carried up by a speed boat. The parachute had advertising. damn. the resident dj dropped appa by badmarsh and shri. how wicked is that? I leave it to you.

but after my studies, the best sunsets were had out at sea.


this was taken somewhere in south china sea

cafe del mar is actually right next to cafe mambo. i guess when you are actually along the sunset strip of san antonio, you'll flock to cafe del mar, simply because it is cafe del mar. it's largely the same view. how does it compare with the sunset above? i guess it's the state of mind, that is largely influenced by the fact that you are at cafe del mar, soaking in the famous sunset (nevermind the pesky parachuting blonde), chilling out on the rocks.

then when the sun just goes under (evening civil twilight), the music builds to a climax. and when it is fully dark, firer twirlers appear on the beach and begin performing. all the while you are sipping your drink. you think every day should end this way. at the back of your mind, you didn't have uncompleted projects, unfinished papers, lingering regrets or wavering beliefs.

sunsets these days are alot more different.


this was also taken somewhere in south china sea

and alot more dramatic.


this was also taken somewhere in south china sea (surprise surprise!)

sometimes you think some being from above will actually come down and grab you.


this time, no being reached down


I dunno when will I, if ever again, see another sunset outside cafe del mar. but i sure know there will be more sunsets out at sea.

How Do You Keep Love Alive?

Lord, I miss that girl

On the day we met
The sun was shining down
Down on the valley
Riddled with horses running
Crushing them flowers
I would have picked for her
On the day she was born

She runs through my veins like a long black river
And rattles my cage like a thunderstorm

Oh my soul

What does it mean?
What does it mean?
What does it mean to be so sad?
When someone you love
Someone you love is supposed to make you happy
What do you do
How do you keep love alive?

When it won't
What, what are the words they use
When they know it's over

"We need to talk," or
"I'm confused, maybe later you can come over"

I would've held your mother's hand
On the day you was born

She runs through my veins Like a long black river
and rattles my cage Like a thunderstorm

Oh my soul

What does it mean?
What does it mean?
What does it mean to be so sad?
When someone you love
Someone you love is supposed to make you happy

What do you do
How do you keep love alive?
When it won't
How do you keep love alive?

An English Genius I Am Too.

English Genius You scored 92% Beginner, 100% Intermediate, 100% Advanced, and 86% Expert!

You did so extremely well, even I can't find a word to describe your excellence! You have the uncommon intelligence necessary to understand things that most people don't. You have an extensive vocabulary, and you're not afraid to use it properly! Way to go! Thank you so much for taking my test. I hope you enjoyed it! My test tracked 4 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender: You scored higher than 32% on Beginner You scored higher than 61% on Intermediate You scored higher than 79% on Advanced You scored higher than 84% on Expert Everyone should try this and feel good about themselves. It is certainly easier than the most English language quizes and I am certain many will score higher. Talking about English brings to mind this recent article. A 13 year old won the spelling competition. His winning word? Appoggiatura. Have a go at this other spelling test.

no more walks

There used to be a time when weekends were stuff I would look forward to. Right from primary school through to JC, fridays were much cherished because they right after that comes the weekend.

National Service soon followed. Weekends were even more precious then.

Then I had to sign on.

So I kinda manage to trap myself in a permanent conundrum. another three years. at least.

university wasn't so bad. being in the outdoor society meant that sundays were for galivanting in the yorkshire dales and the north york moors. I always wondered how the amk felt about having a asian guy bringing them through the english countryside. I had been through to most walks in my first year in uni. Since I was so into the whole english tradition of sunday walks, with a sunday pub lunch in between, I decided to join the society as a walk leader and very soon found myself being drafted in as the quartermaster (read: storeman) as well as the merchandise rep (read: salesman). The training was conducted by a mature student (not that we were immature, it's just what they'd call folks who return to study after working for some time) who was once a SAS serviceman. It was really easy to learn the first-aid techniques, basic/intermediate orienteering/map reading methods and other rudimentary skills. It's easier than BMT.

So here was a singaporean guy, volunteering to bring his peers who were british, germans, americans, chinese (from china), japanese, norwegians, spaniards, swedes around the english dales and moors. My first walk was conducted under supervision of a senior walker, annie. It pretty much went alright. Made a wrong turn about midway through the walk but was not critical as I was at liberty to change the route on the fly.

My first solo walk was at the lovely coastal town of robin hood's bay. I took the smallest group (it was because the walkers could choose their walk leaders and nobody thought a non-native bloke could take them through an english coastal town). One of my best buddy in outdoor society, lee, took another group and another by someone else, i forgot. perhaps a little bit ironic, when Lee got his group lost and their 12km medium paced walk became a >15km forced march nightmare. Lee, whom I just googled, is working at Stratascan Ltd. I am going to write him an email asking if he remembers this singaporean guy who played badminton with him, hitching a ride in his dad's car up to newcastle to visit a friend before coming back down again in a weekend, drank pints and shared chips with in too few a pub lunch.

I thought about my days in university this weekend because of jammie and eric's wedding. another york alumni pairing. this is the second of such pairing. or at least that i know of. kenneth and jean have already got baby timothy. I am so proud to have been their bestman however much i felt i wasn't up for it. they reassured me that i would be their choice. kenneth will soon be off to seoul as the second secretary. jean and baby tim will join at the end of the year.

went clubbing with yugin last night and before that dinner with him at brewerkz. also such interesting gabbers when with yugin. we can go on. i hope v didn't feel left out.

jammie said "don't just keep in touch during weddings." and proceeded to stretch out her arms to give a hug. it was just like uni again. eric said "wei, why you hug my wife without my permission." I then gave eric a hug as well. Sometimes guys don't have to apologise for burst outs at each other because neither was doing the wrong thing. when eric and i had a tiff in siena, basking in the tuscan sun, it was in 2000. I cannot for the life of me remember what it was about but...

I don't think I want to actually live through my days in uni again. but if given a chance, i certainly wouldn't want to change a single thing. there might have been petty grievances but they only serve to spice up the otherwise dull life in a university town. everyone was gossiping as much as being gossip fodder. yugin was saying our (jammie, yugin and I) holiday to dublin staying at ashfield house was his most stress-free ever. it was indeed great fun for a junior like me to go dublin with yugin who would fill jammie and me up with joyce's information. I can vaguely remember him in his (blue?) waterproof jacket, jammie in her burgundy jacket and me in my khaki, walking along temple bar, trinity college, liffey river, trying to figure out which is the millennium bridge, drinking guiness after visiting the james gate guinness hop store, learning about the book of kells, o'connell road and even going to the location of the road at which boyzone's by request album cover was taken. sigh...

I later had great trips to mallorca and malta as well. pretty stress-free too. =)

sgblogconspiracy

Here is where it all began......

Before I was tomorrow-ed, I hinted to mr brown about "the powers that be" that were watching him. I believe he has finally picked up on the clues and starting to scratch the surface.

Go on, create more traffic. Please go ahead and start all your memes. You can have the super pow ka leow meme by big fuck. It only aids in our collection. There is no immunity. memes are mind viruses and the more you add to your own pow ka leow meme, the easier it will be for "them" to track you.

the lead up was multi-pronged. as would all government espionage operations. there was the musical baton meme which if anyone have noticed, I never did receive. there was then the multifarious forms of meme that started creeping up. the wiser ones started to notice this trend and blogged about it.



These guys found out about it and are obviously jubliant


it was relatively easy to spot the conspiracy once you realise there's one.


He was determined to uncover the sgblogconspiracy


previously, in order to snuff out the more angry ones amongst singapore bloggers, "they" were using a rather ancient method that didn't work as well these recent weeks because the weather had been particularly warm.


The Y-rods were starting to crack due to intense heat


"they" started to use foreign talents who utilised very advance listening devices and traipsed around our island nation trying to suss out the rats.


Professor Whitebeard (R) and his queer assistant, Mr Randy Johnson (L)


but angmohs can't stand our weather as well. after a couple of minutes, they were reduced to this:


The heat caused Professor Whitebeard's beard to combust spontaneously and changed his face

For all of you who continue with this sgblogconspiracy......



*we are watching*