no fight, no vote

the people's action party is unopposed in the west coast GRC i belong to, and thus a walkover by the men in white. there was a fight between the workers' party and the PAP in 1997, but the PAP won with slightly over 70 percent of the valid votes (which my dad voted for the ** and my mum for the ***). because the opposition is not contesting over here in peaceful telok blangah, my 06may06 is freed up. well if anyone asks, i'll just answer tat i'm not of age yet :)

my people, my people

okay so there're many different breeds of the CHN people. you have the banana-ish kentangs, the lao-tu cheenas, and the well balanced in-betweens like me, rooted yet exposed. hahaha.

here's a story of a cheena chinese couple:

boy meets girl at the china black discotheque.
boy has a chipped front tooth, slightly stained with hun-ki smoke and too much kopi-o.
girl has a really deep dimple on her right cheek, and very thick black hair parted at the middle.

boy and girl pak-tor by going to the movies and collecting popcorn boxes every weekend. they have enough to fill up an entire shelf now. boy loves to croon love song duets and romantic mandopop hits to girl at karaoke clubs. girl loves to buy matching qing lu zhuang couple tee-shirts for the both of them and then pose in front of the camera with a ke ai hand sign.

after many years of petty breakups and patchbacks soon after, they finally decide to jie hun and hold their wedding banquet at a chinese restaurant known as New Treasure City. Music from shi er nu sheng fills the atmosphere; aunties with shiny plastic bra straps holding up saggy boobs and dainty sweet-looking malaysian accented girls fill the seats. everyone seems happy with salted peanuts on the lazy susan, and bio at the cheongsam clad waitresses with visible loose threads at their dress hems and obvious skin-coloured stockings showing at their dress silts.

the dinner at the hotel royal @ queen was supposed to commence at 7pm but the first dish fanfare did not begin until 9pm. the chinese suck big time at punctuality.

so you ask, how's the food?
atypical of chinese drama serials, the story will continue at the next episode. (because i'm tired lah :p)
/xia ci zai jian.

yellow card for a purple company

at the le meridien business review this noon, the big brown bear of my managing director stepped up onto the hotel function room's stage riser and started churning out numbers related to how much money / how much value we've achieved for the past financial year.


his proud list:

full renovation of retail stores - check. (even though 2 of our branches are still flashing the old birdy logo at the branch entrance)

enhancement of product merchandise and music accessories - check. (even though our competitor has more popular brands than us)

dedicated instructors for the club keyboard course - check. (even though the keyboard lessons were thinly disguised as a sales tactic for clavinovas)

opening of the ydacc (y*m*h* digital audio creative center) giving good support to the commercial audio business - check. (even though it's located in the most unlikely ulu semi-industrial area unbefitting of its digital status)

musical instrument display space inside stores of mass merchandisers - check. (even though space for only the width of 2 portable keyboards were given)

drum teacher's training by y*m*h* music foundation - check. (even though nobody could understand clearly what the japanese trainer was trying to say)

database of 20,000 (!) members holding the y*m*h* music card - check. (even though the guy in charge does nothing much to bank on this database)

reduction of inventory level from $5 mil to $3mil - check. (even though it saves on warehouse costs but customers are complaining why their stock takes ages to arrive)

one-to-one marketing strategy - check. (even though the budget allocated was barely enough to achieve the effective media reach)

investment in IT for long-term growth - check. (even though the company website looks like shit and the in-house system is so user-unfriendly)


my post title says it. period.

sliding doors, choices galore

Have you wondered about this? What if one split decision you made sent your life in two completely different directions?

Between the multitude of blogging tools available (blogspot, livejournal, pitas, xanga, multiply, myspace), what shall i choose?

Between loving myself and turning into a self-centred airhead, and hating myself and staying melancholic cum depressed, what shall i choose?

Between the carnal sins of the world, and the holy legalism of the church, what shall i choose?

Between a night spent at the superband quarterfinal recording 5 km away, and a night spent at the neighbourhood carnival 5 floors down, what shall i choose?

Between a trip to the middleeast (lebanon, jordan, syria) and a trip to hong kong both departing on 31 july 2006, what shall i choose?

Of course i acknowlege that the extent of some of the more trivial choices are lesser.
But - when the sliding doors of life close on me, what WILL i choose?

metaphorically

Today, yes today. the quagmire finally turns into harder ground, and at least my eyes will be spared from moisture. What a miry mess it becomes when it's all wet.

i am standing on this plateau of land in the middle of nowhere. sometimes it's lost to my counterplotters, sometimes it's mightily conquered. i refuse to yield under the pressure, one that comes from the dark unknown. but i now have xanax to fall back on, and all will be fine. let the past erase itself, and for goodness sake forget the foolishness.

i see you standing there, and i will come to you.

white lies & communism ain't always evil

I just watched Goodbye! Lenin directed by Wolfgang Becker and am posting this for Arex to read because apart from the lead character having the same name as him, i somehow feel it would relate to him in more ways than one.

Happening just 16 years ago, to protect his fragile mother from a fatal shock after a long coma, Alexander Kerner, a young German man, keeps her from learning the truth that her beloved nation of East Germany as she knew it has disappeared. I've always loved foreign films (partly for their arthouse feel and partly for getting a kick out of hearing the foreign language being uttered in such large amounts) and this is another excellent one. I'm rating it 7.8/10. In Germany, it's also known as 79 qm DDR. The runtime of 121 min makes it fit nicely into slightly more than 2 hours of couch-potato bliss and occasional toilet breaks.

I'm amazed at how the lead Alexander makes his own version of television news using random archive footage and how he pieces everything together to make it the non-existent GDR believable for his bedridden mother. He must be a superbly resourceful Political Science student!

Similarity Spot 1: When Christiane (the mother in the film) goes out from her GDR home into the real world, a yellow and blue ad for IKEA is visible. Alex and his mum lives just a few kilometres away from IKEA at Alexandra Road!

It really was a sublimely sophisticated film that educated me about the East Berlin wall and the political background of German history. Oh, perhaps Karen's beau Moritz could further educate me sometime! The contrast of personal re-unification (the children and their father) versus that of the east and west is a wonderfully treated theme throughout.

Now, if anyone can tell me what is the significance of space 'astronauts' and 'cosmonauts' in the film, and also happens to be as suave as the main lead below,

i'll spend a night with you to watch the stars!

HP iPAQ Pocket PC for sale

STANDARD SPECS:
Processor: 206 MHz Intel StrongARM 32-bit RISC Processor
Display Type: Color reflective thin film transistor (TFT) LCD, 64K colors
Touch screen: Yes
Resolution: 240 x 320
Viewable Image Size: 57.6 mm wide x 76.82mm tall (96 mm diagonal)
Memory: RAM 64 MB, ROM 16 MB
Input Method: Handwriting recognition, soft keyboard, voice recorder, inking
Communications port:
Interface with USB/ Serial connectivity that connects to cradle or directly to PC
Memory Slot: Optional expansion pack
Infrared port: Yes (115 Kbps)
Speaker & Microphone: Yes
Operating System: Microsoft Pocket PC
Preinstalled Software: Pocket Word, Pocket Explorer, Pocket Excel, Windows Media Player, and more!
Battery: 1400 mah Lithium Polymer rechargeable
Dimensions (hxwxd): 130 x 15.9 x 83.5 mm
Weight: 170 grams (including battery)

EXTRAS:
- 64MB Sandisk SD card
- Original leather case
- iPAQ USB & Serial cradle
- AC adapter cum iPAQ universal charger
- Screen protecter

NOTES:
- Bought iPAQ on impulse around Oct 2005 and since then only tested it for fun and used it for a grand total of 1 week last year to read some eBooks.
- Buyer and seller can meet up in various locations including: SingPost at Paya Lebar, NUS at Buona Vista, Plaza Sing at Dhoby Ghaut, City Hall / Queenstown / Harbourfront MRTs

PRICE: SGD$150 (negotiable lah)

PAYMENT (in order of preference):
- Internet Banking transfer
- Cash on Delivery
- Personal cheque
- Money order

be a smartie

On this first day of the month of April,
quit making dumb choices like
you did for the past 3 months
and do something very smart:
download this motosensor for your mobile.
it's a proximity sensor for handphones
to beep the hell out of you
if you are walking into obstacles
within 3 metres in your way.
No more smashing your forehead into lamp posts while
you're engrossed in typing that love sms for me.

GO GET IT NOW!