One a.m. at Hiong Gong

It sure doesn't rock to learn physics in overseas trips. Um.. Murphy's law is categorised as physics, no?


"I'm sorry if you're screwed, but my name is Murphy"

The trip began on friday night. But the night before, thursday night, i was tapping away in front of my computer in the office up til midnight just to get the software ready for the hiong gong project. Yet another of those unappreciated, i deserved it for being the scrub of the universe, OTs @#$%^&*

22nd Thu Sep One a.m.
I was still packing my bags trying to ensure that i had enough underwear for half the trip keeping an optimistic mind that i could always turn them inside out to reuse buy more should the need arise.

Friday morning, i went to office to work plus pick up the office's lap top so i could surf net do programming while i am over in hiong gong. Evening came a little quickly and i boarded an aircon-less Cathay Pacific aeroplane. The stewardess assured us (passengers who complained) that everything was normal and that these things are quite normal and that they couldn't turn on the aircon until they started the engines and just maybe this was the very first i am taking aeroplanes.

What was worse was that the take off was delayed, probably due to the intensive airport security, which Nogum insists on it taking place at the boarding gates. Thus the majority who came to board 20 minutes before the boarding time as per instruction, so they won't be "refused to be boarded", end up having to cook in the aeroplane shaped oven. And when the plane finally flew away, the cooking had already done its damage. The stuffy heat simply won't clear away.

And reaching hiong gong, meeting with our customer at twelve midnight, and discovering that Value Air had aircon the whole time, and discussing with our customer til 1am, and having to be at breakfast by 6:30am the next day, it simply didn't seem like it was going to be an easy trip.

I shall digress. My colleague tried calling for the stewardess by pressing the call lights. The stewardess came quickly, and without batting an eye, told my colleague that he must have mistakenly pressed the call lights and promptly turned it off for him. There must have been some other combination of signalling in addition to the call lights to call for some service. Doh!

23rd Fri Sep One a.m.
Finishing the dicussion with the customer, i was taking a shower before going to bed.

Saturday, met up with the customer's other vendors, the thai guys. The thai guys were kind of a fun bunch. Lunch was at the hotel's restaurant, throughout lunch, the thai guys pointed out the window across the street at a Sunny Massage and Sauna parlour and suggested that if the project was a success, we should have *cough*lunch*cough* over there. And that was it, my first landmark to help me locate where my hotel was.

And later on during lunch, the thai guys said that there was one night where there was a girl who came knocking on their hotel door asking if they ordered massage. I'm presuming that the girl came from across the street...

Anyway, later on, it was discovered that communication is a skill that can ever be acquired, and that the hardware cosiderations which our company had, was not informed onto the thai guys before hand. Being the only software guy there, i had to scribble up something for them to work around the problem.

And it was a fateful night, Murphy had a deal with whatever powers that be, and the laptop i brought died the moment i tried to click save after doing some programming. Which explains why i didn't blog the whole time i was in hiong gong. Coz i didn't know where to find internet access and the laptop had dieth.

24th Sat Sep One a.m.
Waited fruitfully for a knock on the door asking if i ordered massage.

I shall digress. In an attempt to defend my innocence, ahem. I shall emphasize that i would have said, "No, i did not order massage". The point about talking about it is that i thought there would be some eye candy given the chance to say no to the massage girl.

Sun was kind of like a half day. After having the laptop die on me, i had to redo whatever i did so the thai guys could leave that night. Lunch was over quickly and i managed to get Yinyin out to meet me, just as it was howling typhoon number three. I have no idea how harsh number three is, but there was some wind and rain.

You could say we were mad, we tried strolling Kowloon Park in typhoon 3, but was beaten down by the rain. Later at night, almost went out to the Avenue of Stars but the thought walking the coast with typhoon overhead turned us away. Oh well... 貴人出門招風雨.

25th Sun Sep One a.m.
Waited fruitfully for a knock on the door but not quite expecting it.

Monday was kind of boring. Took an entire day to find out that my reader couldn't work with desktop PCs, only laptops, the voltage levels being the suspect of the whole problem. Not only that, our customer was having problems with their customer. Their customer was rather unwilling to cut the tiled floor to lay the required cables until proper documentation was supplied. And they didn't want us to touch the gates which we supplied, preferring to let them stay wrapped up in the storeroom. So all in all, there was nothing we could do or show on monday. The trip was turning out to be a wasted trip, in terms of work. Atleast i got to meet up with Yinyin.

I got separated with my colleague during 'work' and had to take dinner on my own. Went to walk the Avenue of Stars on my own... twice...

26th Mon Sep One a.m.
No longer waiting for any knocks, too tired to stay awake. I think it showed Cast Away on Tv. Kind of liked that show personally.

Tuesday was supposed to be an off day. But ended up having to teach the customers how to setup the gates since we weren't going to be there when they do finally get the approval to dig the tiled floor to lay the cables in.

After the 'lessons', which took up most part of the day, i asked my colleague if he wanted to join me and Yinyin for dinner. Afterall, it wasn't so nice to ditch him to let him have dinner on his own. We went Sogo (Not the one a Tsi Sha Tsui, not opened yet at that time, opens on 30th same month), then went to Mong Kok 女人街 to meet Yinyin.

So after dinner, i asked him in canto, "Do you need to go off on your own to do some shopping?"

He replied in canto, "I don't mind going with you guys."

Some people just don't get it...

27th Tue Sep One a.m.
Still no knock on the door.

Wednesday, i went off on my own to Lantau Island to look at the big buddha. Walked around quite abit and even off into the less travelled paths and managed to find sites which my auntie herself hadn't seen, and she's quite well-versed with hiong gong tourist attractions. I'll pin up pictures in another post.

Met up with Yinyin for my last night in hiong gong and went up 山頂. But it was too dark for non-couples to walk around, and areas where it wouldn't have been too dark to walk around was under renovation. The trip up and down the mountain was rather quick. Took a boat from Hong Kong Island to Kowloon and went to watch some Tv instead. I think watching Tv with Yinyin in Gippy was more fun as she didn't have to work the next day.

28th Wed Sep One a.m.
My last night in hiong gong. Maybe i should have put a big welcome sign on the door...

Thursday, my last day in hiong gong. I decided to get some roast goose rice and hot lemon water (um... ya, lemon water, its kind of a fad). The place was kind of busy with customers, the waitress showed me to a seat opposite a lady. I decided to mind my own business and eat my own roast goose rice, but the lady decided to chat with me, switching between canto and pinyin trying to figure out what language i spoke. Basically, being deaf and not very keen on more difficult words, i just sputtered yahs and nos.

Turn out that she works in massage and sauna parlour. And over lunch, she asked if i wanted a massage. Doh... Smiled at her weakly and said no need, then she did what i assume to be the usual negotiation procedure saying, "You so leng zei, i give you discount lah."

Oh well...


And no, i didn't get any massage or any acompanying services. Truth.

I'm back, yippee. I'll blog more later. And oh.. the bandit is back in town, hear me roar!


Um.. yes, the loudest roar i can manage is still just "meow".

Umm... Meow?

Yippee, it's twelve midnight, and i'm blogging. Nothing special about midnight, except that i'm still in the office!! Ugh... these overseas thingy come with a price... Oh well..

My flight to Hong Kong is confirmed. I'll be leaving tomorrow and and returning on 29th of this month. Hao hui yao kei. Hao yat hei hiong gong blog, yik wai tin yat dou gor dou dou yi geng sup tim gei. Chong yiu hui dou hotel, yin goi mo meh xi gang blog.

Pareidolia

Excerpt
"Morpheus is the son of Hypnos, the god of sleep...Morpheus had the capacity to assume the form of any and every human being. His father Hypnos sent him out into the night to appear as a loved one in mortal dreams."

Interestingly, the drug morphine is named after Morpheus. Pictures and excerpt from link.

~~~~~~~


Now, this Morpheus is beginning to look familiar huh?

Morpheus : "Tonight is not an accident. There are no accidents. We have not come here by chance. I do not believe in chance. When I see three objectives, three captains, three ships. I do not see coincidence, I see providence. I see purpose. I believe it our fate to be here. It is our destiny. I believe this night holds for each and every one of us, the very meaning of our lives."

~~~~~~~

Pareidolia, definition from Pareidolia : "payr-eye-DOH-lee-uh: the erroneous or fanciful perception of a pattern or meaning in something that is actually ambiguous or random."

Flashing Drivers

Took a taxi home just now, and noticed something unusual about the driver. Whenever he went into the blindspot of another car, he would flash the highbeam a couple of times. Never having been flashed at all my life, from the side that is doing the flashes, i think it was kind of responsible of the driver to do that. Its like saying "Look out, i'm in your blind spot, be careful."

That is until i realised that the driver was flashing his high beam even when there were no other cars near us... OCD (Obssesive Compulsive Disorder), my mum would have concluded. But there was a noticeable increase in the frequency of flashes when there are cars around as compared to when there are no cars.

And he was a squeeze in between cars pretty fast driver. If he drove any faster, i would have thought he looked like Jay Chou : D Not that i am complaining, i like fast taxi drivers.. So long as they don't get me killed along the way that is..

I'll be off to hong kong for a few days for work. Might not be blogging. Cya : )

Are atheists seditious?

The recent racists, charged for sedition (what does the sedition act charge?), has generated a huge amount of hee hur hoo har. Rather than saying that there are two sides, because the key to the whole thing is not to speak in absolutes, two of the many sides are gathering many troops.

Basically one of those sides says those racist deserves it and no one should speak up for them for they have sprouted intolerant speech, covering violence as one of its aspects. And one of the other sides are saying that Nogum city does not have adequate laws for these racists and that using seditious act is um... doing something to free speech.

If you look at both sides of the argument distantly enough, you'll realise that it is basically a chicken and a duck trying to talk in penguin speak. Chicken speaking penguin in its own chicky way and duck speaking in its own ducky way, both not really speaking the penguin way, and communication while effective, but not really penguin.. if u get what i mean.

It seems the stifling of speech (free or no) is going to send tremors to anyone who has anything to say, and it didn't matter whether what they were saying were seditious anot. Self-censorship becomes a priority to healthy lifestyle. And self-censorship in this case, is applied to the mouth rather than the eyes or ears.

Many bloggers are taking an absolutist view on speech, either a person is saying seditious stuff or he/she is not. That such stuff are always a clear cut. And speaking in gray areas is not going to get one persecuted, given the fact that the current racists did not speak in grey areas, which is a logical fallacy. What is of concern, is the possbility of shrinking grey areas in the future.

The main point of the issue is about intolerance. Intolerance is bad for social animals (humans) and bad for evolution. Intolerance stifles economy too. But what about religion. A belief works by the act of believing. I have no idea how to better explain the word "believe", but to "believe", would come with it, a very strong bias and a very different concept of intolerance. Intolerance would degenerate into disagreeing with said belief.

What is going to happen is an empowerment of 'free' speech to religious people of generally accepted religions. These people could promote their religion, because they are saying what they believe in. Atheists, on the other hand, cannot tell people not to believe in religion, because telling others that their religious beliefs are irrational would make the theist angry and possibly call the police at 3am and haul the atheist in for sedition. So its ok to tell people not to believe in their religion so long as you're telling them to believe in your religion...

Just in case anyone thinks to say otherwise... atheism is a lack of belief in any gods, not a belief that there are absolutely no gods.

Not only do atheists have to go to every hell of many religion, they could possibly have to go to jail. Oh well...

I'm v *tired* : ( Too much OT.. oh, dun misunderstand, i'm blogging this from home. I left early, at eight plus O_o

Mooncake Day

Gosh... i shouldn't work so late, i'm having sleepless dreams. I'm like waking up every hour and wondering if it is time to wake up yet? Then i went on to sleep for another hour. Today is mooncake day, i'm still waiting for some fated accident that would take me out and make me miss mooncake day at my auntie's house. Didn't go for the mooncake gathering for four years liao.

Couple days ago, yinyin told me through msn that i should get a girlfriend before mooncake day. Which raises the question of why specifically mooncake day and not any other day? "That's the meaning of mid autumn festival". She does not succumb to the singlish, now what's that word... Whatever.. she does not get influenced by my "lah"s and "loh"s.

Then i was like "Wasn't mooncake day supposed to commemorate the time where some rebels/patriots (i don't remember which) put rolled up messages into mooncakes and passed it around to coordinate an attack?". Apparently, i'm missing the full mid-autumn mooncake festival concept. I guessed if you brought this festival to the other side of the world, it'll become mid-spring festival : D

Someone said i deserved to do OT : (

Well title says it all, here i am on a saturday night, doing unpaid OT, and i deserve it for working slowly in the days earlier. What kind of a vengeful statement that is. Frankly, i don't mind doing OT on a non-working saturday night, but the working conditions are simply brutal... JTC does not provide aircon during non-working hours unless someone pays for it.

And i stuck, sweating in a non-ventilated office, doing programming, microwaved by RFID antennaes, slowly but surely ensuring that i would only ever have daughters, or so i was told, not that i'm getting any children anytime soon, not because i don't like children, but because there's no one to have children with, and JTC is aircon ventilating the corridor outside the office!!

Helloooo, the corridor's ghost say they very hot is it? Or the vending machine is very expensive. I'm sure all companies would like it very much if their equipement is cooled by the aircon overnight, but instead, some wise guy actually thought of aircon ventilating the corridors overnight. Wa... value added service wor... Ka pui..

This is sooooo dissappointing. Either i have only six blogders who actually read what i write, or i have six blogders who actually care enough about what i write in this blog to vote in my poll, which merely involves a total of two simple clicks (one on radio button and one on 'vote' button). *stunned*

Gender Poll

Just some survey for me to know my blogders better. Also for trying out polls in my blog, second attempt.

Your (blogder) gender is __
male
female
... i (blogger) don't really want to know

  
Free polls from Pollhost.com

speak up, i'm death... i mean deaf

Ever received calls from overseas financial companies? They call up and asks about everything, your name, boss name, company strength, right down to the intimate deails of whether my right butt cheek is bigger than my left butt cheek... Sorry, i haven't got boobs.

And worst of all, they speak in their [censored seeing how people are getting jumpy with recent incidents; see cowboy caleb's post's comments by E@L, even say "ang moh" have to go to jail] funny accent. And when moi tell the guy "i can't hear what you're is saying", that @#$%! guy actually had the audacity to try and correct me and say, "Yes, you CAN hear what i am saying.".

Hellooooo? If you wanna do business in another country, learn that country's language ok. And in Nogum City, multi-syllable speech demands a very high level of eloquence. We don't say things like, "I'm sorry, i can't understand what you're saying because of your accent, could try repeating while doing away with the accent?". Instead, we just say "Huh?"

A little about the word angmo. Why use angmo instead of another word? Frankly, i have absolutely no idea what the equivalent of angmo is in english. We could say westerners instead of angmo. But if you read 三字經, you'll find the following: 曰南北　曰西東　此四方　應乎中

So you see, west or east, left or right, depends largely on where you take your center of reference. Westerners could well be Easterners. And you can't say Europeans or Americans, coz angmo not only includes both but also the Australians.

I think it just a tad bit of extreme to call people who uses the grouping word "angmo" as racist and put them in jail.

Sedition Act

Ok, you know what i am gonna talk about today. The same infantile stuff, i wanna marry Jolin Cai Yi Lin! She's so hot in her reddish long hair in her MTV... um.. seriously..

Saw the news last night about two bloggers being charged under Sedition Act for making racist remarks online. Which got me ambling to the front of the Tv to watch the piece of news, coz i thought one of them might be the author of the recent thirdholocaust racist blog. The ages were 25 and 27 or something like that, so it wasn't him.

If you randomly follow the trackbacks of this tomorrow.sg's post, and trackbacks of those trackbacks, you'll find that plenty people readily cheer at the um... predicament of those two racist. And it didn't matter that any and all of them are totally oblivious to what exactly the remarks were. But would it matter, those two have recieved the branding iron and are racists. But isn't it equally to find out what exactly, maybe not the exact words, but what kind of ideas would expose oneself to the branding iron?

It seems that these two are making much more sensational headlines than the holocaust guy. And the holocaust guy spoke of genocide, which anyone can readily identify as racism. So does the bigger headlines mean that these two spoke of things worse than genocide? I would think that the answer is tending more towards the differences in age. The holocaust guy is 17, i think.

Of course, one could take an absolutist view, either one's a racist or one's not and that it is impossible for a non-racist to say something which might be interpreted by another as racist. Makes sense? no? Take a look at Cowboy Caleb's post, one of the comments by E@L. Anyone who says "f*cking ang moh" should go to jail. I think the emphasis was more on "ang moh" than "f*cking". Woah, suddenly it seems more people than you think should go to jail huh?

Why not take it further. Arrest any spg who says asian dick is small. Arrest all the old aunties and uncles who only know how to refer to ang mohs as ang mohs. You might think otherwise, but angmohs is a more useful grouping word than westerners. For i would hardly call Australia geographically west. In fact, arrest any employer and hr personnel that has a 'race' field in the forms. Arrest anybody who puts his/her own race in the resume. Oh wait... maybe resumes aren't public spaces.

PS: In case anyone can't read, i am NOT defending the two racists.

*Update*

Read From a Singapore Angle

Food for Thought: Army Half Marathon

The run began with quite a number of rather nice looking girls, their bodies well-toned from frequent training (jogging). So i thought it would be nice to jog with them for the entire distance. But it appears that there is a difference in the capacity for exertion between a blob of fats (me) and a bunch of muscles (them). I was soon left behind. Hmm... i kind of like the phrase "left behind" alot. That single phrase, of itself, holds so much meaning for/to me.

Falling back from somewhere close to the front to somewhere in the middle, i then found out that the girls in the middle, while not as goegeous as the girls in the front, were still pretty gorgeous. So if i couldn't keep up with the best, i could still make do with those in the middle, no? But fate has decreed that blobs of fat have to run last and that i had to take my place in the back of the column of runners.

PS: Ladies in the run, you're all gorgeous, "gorgeous" in this case is just my metaphorical analogy for something else.

I'll shall digress.

I quote myself from the post about my meeting with the poly guys: "And then we came to be talking about women and their desire to find boyfriends as some kind of shelf life (pardon the objectivity). It seems when their shelf life approaches close to expiry, they become more desperate in looking for a partner. But when the girl reaches like thirty plus (cyber nudge to a couple friends) their interest begins to dampen and diminishing returns results."

When the guys said something like that, i went like, "Huh? I'm approaching thirty liao wor..". The guys then reassured me, "Wong, don't worry, that applies to girls only. For guys, our value is only begining to rise."



I shall digress from my digression; I actually detest being called by my surname. I'm not in NS (National Service, conscription), where my identity consists of only rank and surname. I have a given name, and although it is pretty insignificant in the bigger perspective, i like to be called by my name, even if it gets mispronounced by almost everyone else. Or atleast address me as Sensei : p Imagine the frustration when my brother picks up the phone and the person asks, "May i speak with Wong?". Maybe, just maybe my brothers and father have a different surname from me... doh!

I shall point out that more valuable does not equate more desirable. Taps made of peanuts are more valuable, but no one wants them. It doesn't take much to realise the supply demand equation does not quite match. If girls are becoming less interested as time goes on, then demand for guys diminishes with time.



What does this mean?



As you can see, the intersection of demand and value represents the optimal value and demand, in which most pairing off into couples would occur.

So even if the value of guys is increasing, the lack of demand would inevitably push the pricing down to follow the maximum limits of both demand and value.



Taking the scenario further, assuming that this is a non-zero competitive game, which realistically is the case, then it would mean that at the later stages of life, only the more valuable guys gets hitched. Why would anyone pay for an inferior product when you could get a superior product at the same price?

What is omitted from the graphs however, is the value of the other gender. In which, the army half marathon analogy would be more adequate. In out culture, where the males are expected to be the active, while the females take on a passive role, the best girls, the cream of the crop (pardon the objectivity), would be quickly snapped up by those who could keep up with them.

What this means is that the "left behind" guys, not only have their value pushed down by decreasing demand, but also has fewer choices to choose from as more girls (same generation group) gets hitched. And likely there won't be many of the best girls getting "left behind".

And it would appear, that the struggle to not join the ranks of those not interested in the run, would also be a bid against time, to not be left behind.

Sheares Bridge Run

Yippee, i made it through another half-marathon without training or dying. I'm pushing my luck, how much longer can i keep this up?

But the abrasions are bad. Now i'm walking like a penguin : (

Hmm... babes... i'll blog more later, when i've regained sufficient neurons.

I'm not from China

Tomorrow's the army half marathon, and the flag off time is 0545, which means i'm likely going to get only around four hours of sleep. Not very good...

I did some OT yesterday and had to take a taxi home. During the journey, the driver decided that i was rather quiet after having drived half of the journey in silence. The taxi driver began his ice-breaker, "You're from China is it?". Doh....

I have absolutely no idea which part of me looks like made in China. I've been getting that alot though. Maybe i should dye my hair blonde, and raise my leg while seated in the taxi, and seeing how my shoes are dirty, spit onto the shoe before wiping it clean. Maybe then i'll look more like a Nogum city ah beng.

Or i should shave my head and wear one of those plastic black spectacles. Everyone would think i'm in NS (National Service, conscription) and went to the technopreneur building vist my girlfriend who had to work OT.

Taximan : "Huh? No, i'm Nogum-ean. I look like i'm from China?"
Chinaman : "Oh.. no lah, you're very quiet mah. China people very quiet one."

...

Taximan : "So... you OT ah?"
Chinaman : "Yah, OT."

Can you believe this? The taximan asked me whether i was from China before asking if i was going home from OT. Well.. you might think that going home so late would surely be OT. But there are factories there, and i assume all factories are twenty-four hours and that i could be going home early from a night shift.

Don't quite remember how the conversation went. But i decided to point it towards foreign talent at some point.

Chinaman : "Haf to OT wat. If not my boss hire foreign talent instead den how? Foreign talent willing to take lower pay than me and work even longer hours leh."

And then the conversation went on to talk about how Nogum citizens have national duty commitments, have to work hard to increase the population, and having to do free OT doesn't really help.

And i'm not from China.

Feeling, Chopsticks and Sporks

This morning, as i was walking to my bus stop to take the bus, i saw a rather pretty babe walk past. Not a very common sight in the wee morning hours and deserted path, considering that there are perverts like me who use the same path to get to the um.. bus stop.

And i was thinking like, won't it be nice to have a girlfriend or wife as pretty as her? Aside from making nights livelier, it would make mornings a tad cheerier. Imagine waking up to gaze at the love of your life who is beautiful. Which of course might be without the makeup. But if she needs to go to work too, then she'll atleast look her best before leaving the house, no?

Which makes me wonder why people like to discriminate against makeup. Ask any of the guys what they think about any particular girl that has makeup on, chances are they'll say, "Wa, so much makeup. Dun like.".

Which doesn't really make sense since the girl would always have lots of make up on the day of marriage. Imagine on the day of ROM (Registration of Marriage), the guy at the desk says, "Do you xxx take yyy ('y's again!) to be your lawful wedded wife? (i have absolutely no idea how these things go...)"

And you go like, i've waited all life for this day and nothing's gonna fudge it. And you take one look at your bride, wife to be, wanting to give her your most innocent boyish smile in anticipation of the beautiful life ahead, and you see her face... full of makeup. What? And then go like, "NOooooo" *runs away*?

Benny, in his sagely enlightenment, would probably tell me as a matter of factly, "It is the character and feeling that is most important.". Well.. i differ. There are indeed two most important things, and looks are one of them wat. How can i live my life with someone whom i cannot tolerate looking at? And in the most wanker style fashion, i'll say nothing beats nookie with a beautiful girl.

And the second most important thing is... nah.. you don't want to hear about it. Suffice to say, a clue is that yinyin calls me SFH (sexually frustrated housemate).

But.. but.. what about the character and feeling. Now, a person's character is his/her own, and thus its not something that can be easily changed even if you want to. Namely because changing involves a person that's not you. Change can only be effected by the self. Otherwise its called manipulation. So on the criteria of character, one can only perform selection but not modification. So character does factor in.

Feeling? Ok, buckle your seat belts. Here's a gem of wisdom deviating from my usual crap. Relationship is not an accident, it is a building effort. Fwoarrr, I'm so intelligent and wise. *loves myself*. Relationship don't just occur, they are built. Liking, love whatever you called it, is a learned behavior, not a discovered behavior. I'm sure there are those whodon't agree with this, but a person can learn/grow to like something which he/she was platonic with to begin with. Let me think of an example.

Think.

Think more.

Ok, its not working. The brain that is. Pass.

I'll borrow a concept from a friend whom i hadn't spoken with for months. She has as her msn nick, "**When will we become a pair of chopsticks". Say you're in a one on one combat and the rules of the parlay is to induce death by chopsticks. So you grab one lonely chopstick and wield it like a fencing sword, attempting to poke your opponent's eye, nose, whatever orifice you can find.... The ear lah, dun think so far down ahead..

And your opponent, a grandmaster sensei, who's impression he gives is that of a ancient chinese ah pek in black gongfu shoes. In his fingers, he twirls not a lonely chopstick, but a pair of chopsticks. So who do you think is gonna win.

Inevitably, you'll have to try and poke your opponent between the eyes in your swiftest move because that is the only viable maneuver you can perform to induce death by chopsticks with only one lonely chopstick. And you do it. Only to have ah pek sensei kiap (hold with chopstick) your chopstick with his pair of chopsticks. Then he's gonna twist your chopstick around and poke yourself and that's that. Death by chopsticks.

What has chopsticks got to do with feelings? Um.. nothing, i digressed.

Speaking of chopsticks, runnin 'kid, you can't replace the chopstick analogy with fork and spoon, as in "I'm the fork who has found the spoon.". Because the correct pairing is not with spoon but with knife. Fork and knife. The spoon is used only for soup. After which, the spoon becomes useless and can be taken away by the waitress. And probably you'll get another smaller spoon for tea or ice-cream later. Unless you're having cake for dessert..

So you see, the spoon is a temporary kind of thing, it doesn't even get used in the main course. In a fork and knife scenario, the fork can still do most of the job without the knife, albeit at the expense of graceful-ness. But with chopsticks, the whole process is paralysed when one chopstick goes missing. Unless of course, if you're eating fishballs, then you could conceivably poke them with one chopstick. Imagine trying to eat pasta with one chopstick...

The more appropriate replacement analogy would be, "I'm the fork, he's the spoon, and we're now the spork."

How to get your boyfriends to buy you earrings.

: ( work

I think i have to go prison today. Um.. not KL, the Nogum City one. For work that is... Not very exciting, kind of boring. But what can you expect when a software engineer is asked to go carry stuff?

*update*
Phew, luckily for me, these people are extremely fickle-minded (not always a lucky thing though) and they changed their mind and i didn't need to go. What a beautiful day.

Lost in Suntec

I difficult is it to walk from Suntec Convention Center to Citylink? Couldn't be very difficult right? I found out yesterday that it is not that easy. For non-Nogum citizens, the distance is around less than 50 meters, depending where in the convention center you are, and kind of within sight.

So off i went, and ended up in Marina Square. So i thought, nevermind, Marina Square links into Citylink. After bummering around aimlessly and hopelessly lost, i found a sign that say to Esplanade. Again i went like, nevermind, Esplanade links into Citylink. And off i went again ending up in Millenia Walk. And eventually i made it back to Suntec Convention Center right where i first started. And its not even the seventh month.

Don't ask me how it is possible, its incredible to myself too. It seems even simple walking in a straight line can turn out to be a hazardous affair for me. Ooo... affair.

Gosonggamy

Recently, there was a reader write in to one of the papers that talked about polygamy. The reader had suggested that polygamy be legitimised for all races for... whatever reasons i didn't managed to find out. It seems like a kind of "if you can't beat it, legitimise it."

Then another reader wrote in, saying that if polygamy were legitimised for males, then in a fair and equal society, females should also have the right to polygamy. Bet that guy who wrote the first letter didn't see this coming : D

But i shouldn't really care what absurdity interesting development can arise from these issues. Afterall, it hardly affects me as i'm more like gosonggamy (gosong = zero). Before anyone starts dishing the chinese new year annual handout about how its time for me to find someone, i'm gosonggamy not by choice, but by convenience of external factors.

lalala

Food for Thought: Yesterday

Let's run through some of the stuff which i still remember. The first thing that's constantly churning in my mind is Benny. Last i spoke of him, he had found his true love. But... *sigh*. Anyway, the surprising thing i learned from him about his relationship was that it was absolutely a trial kind of thing, such that they never even held hands *pause for drama*... Benny! HOW CAN??

Now if i were the one in a relationship, not only would i hold her hands and hug her, i would kiss her lots. Kiss when we meet, kiss when we part, and kiss whenever she is close enough. Um.. yeah just kiss, not nookie and stuff. The inside the pants action is kind of low priority in a non-married relationship, despite everyone who hear me saying that would shake their heads in incredulence...

But i shall not digress. Sure, someone could say that a relationship is not just about hugging and kissing, and i do agree with that. But putting it that way only masks the lack of intimate, and thus romantic, activity, or lack thereof, in a holier than thou excuse (What a clunky sentence). But let me rephrase it in another way. Sure, a relationship is not all about hugging and kissing, BUT, hugging and kissing is all about a relationship.

The rest of us are... well, the same, single and bachelor. It seems those among us who are not single and therefore married (kind of hard to find a not single and not married these days) are all the ones who signed on with some force. Seems to say something huh?

My suspicions confirmed, omy and haoster, two highly desirable men are still single only because they are picky. Humph, only people like them can afford to choose. Bah.

Jessica said of her hubby, "It seems when he realised that he was settled, it was time to focus on his career.". And then it was four long years of ardous journey. Which is a perspective that has never occured to me. I really need to get out more, talk to all kinds of people to broaden my mind.

And then we came to be talking about women and their desire to find boyfriends as some kind of shelf life (pardon the objectivity). It seems when their shelf life approaches close to expiry, they become more desperate in looking for a partner. But when the girl reaches like thirty plus (cyber nudge to a couple friends) their interest begins to dampen and diminishing returns results. Hmm.. there's something about this that i wanted to explore in thought, but i can't figure out..

Anyway, when it was time to leave Jessica's home, she reiterated what she said the other time, that when we next came, she wanted to see not just four of us, but four plus another four of us. Well.. she did say she won't mind seeing four plus four and plus another little fours. So i figure if Benny had two girlfriends, then i could still be single. Phew, Benny work harder.

Met up with omy and Alvin later. Talked about navy, seasickness, hurricanes, gahmen, nkf and peanuts. Um.. nothing much for me to report here. There might be something, but i've forgotten about it already. Anyway, if people didn't care about logical views about religion, i doubt they want to hear me talk about the gahmen. I'm not the most informed on these matters anyway.

On the way home, Hsinwei post to me a question he was on the receiving end from his boss some time ago. His boss pointed to some indian workers in the company and said to him, "Look at them... they are willing to get less than Nogum citizens and still works even harder. And they don't need to go for re-service or RT. So tell me, why should i hire Nogum citizens over them?". Hsinwei said he had no answer to that question.

Indeed do we have any answers at all? Why should my boss hire me if there are people who would work harder, longer but for less pay? Remind me again, why do i love living in Nogum City?

Growing Pains

Went to Jessica's (poly lecturer) house with a couplepoly friends today. Her daughter is two years old now! Last i saw her was zero years old! Um.. i assume all babies are newly born and thus zero years old. I can't tell the difference between 1 year old and zero year old anyway.. But time really flies, the child walks around on her own. Kind of miraculous, growing together. Growing up (her) and growing old (me) that is.

After that we met up with another couple poly friends for dinner. There are quite abit of interesting points brought up throughout the day which i wanted to talk about. But i'm kind of tired. And i'll probably forget about them by tomorrow, oh well..

No photos coming up yet. I'm still owing the Summit Hotel pictures. Too tired to meddle with pictures.. I'll blog more about today later.

Anyway, speaking of growing up, one of my friends said Alvin's sister has grown up into a really pretty lady. Waaa, i want to marry her liao. You hear that Alvin? I want to marry your sister : p

Just a note to people who misunderstands me. I am NOT anti-Christ. I am only an atheist who finds little evidence or reason to believe in ANY religion and who also happen to know abit more about the religion.

Running Days

If only running days were days in which i was running. Nary was i running but standing still, the days themselves were running away from me. Teachers' Day would have come, had a cup of coffee and gone before i even noticed were it not for blogs i read and friends who speak.

These days i'm just dazed. Or numb. Or care-less. A dangerous routine to get into, wakeup - work - sleep but atleast there is some variation to it than just sleep - sleep - never wakeup everafter.

It seems living life, in Nogum City is nothing more than a well practiced routine. Two years of kindergartern, in which i failed, six plus four years of uniformed schooling, three years polytechnic, two years national service, three years of holiday in Gippy, the years themselves runneth'! All in my bid to struggle against mediocrity.

Oh well...