tell me about it

For the first time I actually pondered if bringing someone else to our 老地方would help me reclaim that place for myself, but seconds later I dismissed the thought.  That place is sacred to me.  I can’t do that.

Just yet.

My friend is looking for this emoticon which he was kind enough to draw (in full color) on MSN!

HEE HEE it’s so cute :P

If anyone has it please MSN me :D

I recall a day - was it really two years ago already? - when we were in Tony’s car driving home from the Equatorial Cameron Highlands Scrabble tournament, and we teased Hubert about being hot on the GMs’ heels.

I don’t remember exactly what we said, but I remember Hubert’s reply exactly: “Start the countdown strike.”

The gong has finally sounded! Congratulations on becoming Singapore’s sixth and newest (and youngest!) Scrabble Grandmaster.

And then there were six.

Edit: Fine, I didn’t remember it exactly after all :P  What Hubert said was: “Let the countdown begin.” :)

One cannot expect to get a decent grade for midterm exam when one is watching football and playing Scrabble the night before exams.

One cannot expect to approach studying with a graceful attitude when Liverpool has just lost 1-0 to @#$@#Chelsea.

One cannot expect to concentrate when temptations have been dangled in front of one’s nose - and then swiftly snatched away.

Still, one cannot help but contemplate how deliciously fun it could be, even though talk is better than action.

I am a naughty girl.

Today I was tipped S$20 on a S$35 bill.

By a local.

By a local woman.

I take back everything I ever said about local women never tipping. Evidently some do; and some tip very well.

Simply amazing.

Far East Economic Review’s editor, Hugh Restall, wrote an article that appeared in the July/August issue. The article covered an interview with Singaporean opposition politician, Chee Soon Juan, and described the political situation in Singapore in unforgiving terms.

I will not reprint the article here to avoid running afoul of any sort of law (after attending Media Law class, I’m developing a very wary, cynical attitude) so I will simply provide the link to the FEER article.

Here it is, entitled: “Singapore’s ‘Martyr’, Chee Soon Juan”.

While reading the article I was overcome with a sort of delicious scandalized shock. Here was everything everyone always whispers about Singapore in hushed tones, while looking around surreptitiously as if an MP were hiding behind the next table. And they used such terms! Such daring! Such absolute disregard for the libel suit they had to know was coming.

Which is telling, too; because FEER has themselves run afoul of local libel law before and there’s no way they published this article without expecting at the very least some sort of legal repercussion from the men who rule this country. What with the IMF brouhaha about the ban on protesters during the conference, the timing couldn’t have been worse (or better, depending whose side you’re on). Singapore is getting attack after attack on its issues on freedom (or lack of) and I feel it’s time to take a proper stand and answer for it.

The article itself perhaps makes too much of a martyr of Chee, as the title already presumes; and perhaps the language might be a tad harsh (perhaps they thought ’screw it, we’re going to get sued anyway, might as well go the whole hog’) but essentially with their bluntness and tactlessness, they bring up issues that everyone knows exist. Issues that should be addressed sooner rather than later and which solutions will result in the best outcome for this country - economically, politically, and for the individual freedoms of each and every Singaporean citizen.

What will it be, MM Lee? PM Lee? What will it be?

This libel case is going to play out very interestingly because there is no local representative of FEER who can be served the papers, and the lawsuit might well have to be settled in Hong Kong; in which case the outcome of the suit will be pivotal in the case for or against Singapore’s judicial impartiality. It is of note that no foreign publication has ever won a libel suit filed by the Government here. If the Lee family’s lawyers can reproduce their success overseas, it will be one up for their stance on libel and defamation. If not - well. We’ll see.

Hady and Taufik have done a great deal in improving the image of ‘mats’ in Singapore.  They’re now my two most favorite Malay boys :P  Maybe they should just change the name of Singapore Idol to ‘Singaporean Malay Boys Singing In English Idol’.  It would be a lot more appropriate since it appears that the best English language singers in Singapore are (a bit ironically) Malay guys.  Heh heh.

Chinese guys just sound better singing Chinese songs I suppose; also since that’s the market in which they would excel a lot better in Asia.  You can’t produce English CDs in Asia and expect to do reasonably well.  Just won’t work.

This is the embarrassing moment in which I will admit that I bought Taufik’s debut CD last year to show my determined support for him.  His is the only CD I’ve bought in the last four years I think; plus the only local singer’s CD I own.  Yay Taufik!

I will buy Hady’s CD too if he wins.  I hope he wins!  Go Hady!  Thrash the long-haired Chinese boy (not literally please)!

Squee!  Hady!  Hady!  His version of ‘Desperado’ is really lovely.

This season final is turning out to be exactly like last year’s.  Two boys and a girl in the top three; the girl gets kicked out and the final is a Malay boy vs. a long-haired Chinese boy.  I hope the same result comes true and the mat wins!  :D

Unfortch I can’t vote nor even watch the final as I’ll be busy shopping in Bangkok, and I’m not quite crazy enough to vote from Thailand.

Sniff these are so pretty. Selling at v0yage’s LJ shopping site. I really really like the white one with pink flowers and the one with yellow flowers, plus the cherry one which is even prettier cuz of the ribbon ties. Sigh. I want a pair I wants I wants!

I’d love to customise mine - I want the shoes to be painted red with the pink/yellow flowers on them.  Anyone out there owe me a birthday present? *hopeful* I’m a size 39! Hehehe. So shameless.

But here’s a bit of free publicity for v0yage anyhow. Her stuff is really quite pretty, and if any of you want to buy stuff let me know, we can cob together and save on shipping. I’m really longing for a pair of these shoes. :P

So Apple has rolled out the new iPod Shuffle and iPod Nano.

The new Shuffle looks radically different from my first-generation gumstick player.

And I’m not sure if I’m lovin’ it, as the folks from Mickey D’s say.

The clip design is very 1998-Sony-Discman-remote-control-esque; but useful since the theory is that Shuffles will be used by joggers and their like.  Still, I don’t like the brushed silver.  Whatever happened to Apple and their signature white?  I love the old Nano and the Shuffle because of their trademark whiteness (let’s ignore the fact that I covered my Shuffle with a red skin, haha) and I’ve always said that if I were to get a Nano, I’d buy the white one.  It’s classic Apple.  You can’t go wrong.

But now look at their new Nanos.  They’ve gone back to the era of the berry-colored iMacs.  Remember those?  Shudder.  Those came out in my secondary school days too.  I don’t like the candy-colored iPod Nanos.  They look garish and bright and don’t have all the classically Apple clean sleek lines of the older iPods.  I’d thought they’d struck gold with the old Nano design.  It was white!  It had a mirror finish at the back!  It was beautiful.  It was Apple.  I hadn’t liked the iPod Minis because of the same brushed silver finish and the colors.  Unfortunately those happened to be Apple’s biggest sellers and it looks like they’re trying to revive the Mini in the Nano.  Gyarrrrh.  And the colors are getting worse.

Please stop, Apple.  Please.  I was almost saving up for a Nano, but now I don’t think I will.  I’ll stick to my pretty white (red-covered) iPod Shuffle.

And more rants from the Shuffle user: with the new Shuffle, you need a dock before you can connect it to a USB port.  What?!  What I love about my Shuffle is that it doubles up as a very handy thumb drive.  It works exactly like a thumb drive, plug and play into any computer and I’m good to go.  Now I have to carry around a dock before I can utilize the thumb drive function?  Pfffffft.

Plus they didn’t include a ‘repeat one’ function on the player which is what I miss most; I’m the type who can listen to a song ad libitum, ad infinitum, ad nauseam; although I like to put a few songs on my playlist just in case, I find myself constantly pressing the ‘back’ button on my Shuffle to repeat that one song.  Which is mildly annoying.

Although it is nice to see that they have included a portable USB charger in the package this time.

Sorry, I’m not one of those who want Apple products for the sake of their being Apple.  I like a product that makes me happy all-round, and the new Shuffle isn’t it.  Sigh.

This is what I call good product display.

In a local bookstore. I found Vincent Ng’s latest book - showing himself extremely cut and ripped and very half-naked - next to Ng Yi-Sheng’s anthology of stories about gay men in Singapore. I suppose the Vincent Ng will attract the right customers who will then notice the yellow book and hopefully purchase both. Hurhur.

If anyone does buy SQ21 let me know? There are stories in there about personal friends of mine and I’d like to read them.

I’m not sure what my mother would say (after rousing herself from a dead faint) if she could see the way we cook in hall.  I already try my best to be healthy - I use olive oil, and sparingly - but when you’re frying Spam in it, it’s not like my judicious use of oil helps much in the health factor.  Mmmm but fried crunchy cubes of Spam taste so good.

I’m not even going to talk about Xiaomin and how she drowned us in cream pasta loaded with a huge chunk of butter and whipping cream.  Ack my arteries, which I swear I could feel constricting just by looking at her cook.  After awhile I hardened my heart (hurhur, funny pun) and stopped thinking about it because hey, it did taste good :/

Atherosclerosis here I come.