32. Free Simone

Synopsis - Simone professes freedom from her captor under an act within the European declaration of human rights on slavery and servitude. She demands to be treated as an intelligent being despite being a computer. Can a computer make such a demand? Should an artificially intelligent device make such a stand? Who are we to judge really?

This is like Terminator or AI or I, Robot or Battlestar Galactica - all films and TV shows where technology seeks an upper hand over humankind. If we develop artificial intelligence smart enough to replicate our actions and sometimes thoughts, it is enough to treat these machines as human or almost human?

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Joe's Kitchen - Good Thai Food

The pix doesn't quite do justice to the food spread at Joe's Kitchen. I was too busy eating and getting my hands dirty to take pixes after. A bunch of us were there to find out what the food fuss was about and also to celebrate a birthday. In the pix above were fried stuff chicken wings, fried tofu and fried prawn cakes - all appetisers. Then there was Tom Yum soup, tang hoon in claypot, chilli fish, pineapple rice and other things I forget about. There must have been some veges and later we had mango with sticky rice and coconut cream for dessert. It's a good deal for the price we paid. Go try, support the small guy.

Joe's Kitchen is among the Alexandra Village row of shophouses opposite Alexandra Hospital and Queensway Shopping Centre.

Happy Birthday Wendy Sequence

Old Tech

I am a keeper. I have inherited this need to keeping old things from my dad. He had lots of old stuff that my mom threw out.

Over the weekend, I unearthed these gems from my chest of drawers.


I bought this fron Sunpage in 1997 I think when it was all the rage. I wanted a black Motorola Bravo Flex but all they had was this eye-popping yellow left that day. And it was pricey, $138 or $168 I think. Sigh, so I lugged and vibrated to this little yellow thing for 2 years before I succumbed to my first handphone (I found that too). I remember I couldn't change the battery without wiping out the memory. Anyone still remember how to send a page? Number, *, **?


I got my first Discman through a lucky draw with someone else's ticket. It was my Army camp's anniversary or soemthing. We were on a boat parked alongside the Clifford Pier. As the party went on, my friend, Ricardo, yes that's his name, had to leave. His girlfriend was waiting or something. So he passed me his ticket, no.141, and it landed me this technological marvel. Sony Discman D33 skipped at every knock, and was large and clunky. Good times we had. I AUXed into the camp stereo for some barbeque.


Oh calcy. This was the ONE. The best of the best, the top of the approved calculators list for O and A Levels, 1990 and 1992 respectively. The Casio FX580. The geek I was (ahem), I read the manual and tried everything out. I loved the RAN# button that generated random numbers. I remember doing the A-Levels stats question on the calculator to get the answers even before putting the answer on paper. Fun times.

Other old stuff I dug out on my Flickr

For The 30-something Who Still Aches To Boogie

Age, we can't help it. One day we feel like the spring chicken is gone from the body and soul. Some signs will not be subtle - eye bags, the need for 7 hours sleep, running but having a young thing speed past you. One major change that many an aging 20-something or 30-something lost in denial may face is less time partying. Mature folk like to sit down and have a drink and talk, blah blah. The death of the party animal. In most cases, the ring on the fourth finger and the patter of little feet will kill any semblance of what we knew to be parties and dancing. More signs include searching for adult contemporary music at the record stores. Or listening exclusively to Class 95.

Well, Calvin Harris has done up a dance record explaining the problem. In simple words, he says

Can you stay up for the weekend and blame God for looking too old
Can you find all that you stand for has been replaced with mountains of gold
You cannot dream yourself to notice to feel pain and swallow fear
But can you stay up for the weekend till next year
God i can’t do this any more though ill be laid down on the floor
As many feet walk through the door, I'm not alone
If i see a light flashing could this mean that I’m coming home
If i see a man waving, does this mean that I’m not alone

Yes, not alone. What a freaking awesome song. Those who know me better know that i dig electronic music, and this record will go down as one of the best of 2009, already no1 in the UK. Now watch the video.

Thanks Kim for getting the single from the good old London town.

Three Good Lines

"You'll need to figure for yourself how you can go further"

This was heard in yoga class a little while back. The lady who runs the yoga place was conducting the lesson and it was my first time under her instruction. The class was alright, not very aggressive, not too challenging. In one pose called rabbit, she came behind me to adjust my not-straight arms as they grabbed on to my heels. Moving them away from the heels towards my toes, my arms straightened and suddenly there was room to move. I curled in deeper and she held my shins closer. It's that old cliche - "I felt muscles that I never knew existed" - that applied there and then. There was new twinges of agony and pain too. I had gone further than I had been before in the pose. It felt awesome. The instructor did her job, by showing me what she meant with her words.

Some journeys you just have to figure out on your own to realise something great.

"The best time to fix the roof is when the sun is shining"

I was at this half-day meeting of the marketing minds. Held at posh St. Regis where the service staff great everyone and are proactive to check with lost-looking wanderabouts, the conference was organised to tell everyone that there were new rules in the marketing game. The traditional way of tackling the consumer was becoming less important by the day and we needed to wake up to the new reality of hyperspeedy communication, plummeting satisfactions levels and brand dis-loyalty. One chap, from my ex ex job was there in his Teutonic glory and espoused the line above. He explained how his top dog told the company she needed everyone to commit to 50% digital advertising spend in a couple of years. (Those not familiar, most companies spend less than 10% of their advertising budgets online. SG companies spend less than 2% that way). They knew they had to get it done because the world of consumerism was changing too quickly not to start then. They did it and made it work. ROIs and all.

He also said 9/10 of CEOs believe they deliver customer satisfaction well; 1/10 consumers believe what a brand tells them; and 8/10 people believe what their friends tell them.

Yes, agreed. Fix now and survive later. That applies to a lot of things - fire insurance, charging batteries, library books, bills, upgrades, anti-virus software updates. There are longer term things too I guess like health and exercise. I haven't made nominee for my CPF yet.

Right, do things now, be less pissed later.

"The race is long and in the end, it's only with yourself"

This is a line from the Baz Luhrmann song - "Everybody's Free To Wear Sunscreen". I've heard it quite a few times recently, strange given it isn't that new or chart-topping. The whole song is about giving advice to young people about to set out to make a name/living for themselves in the world. It's a good song and applies to almost everyone who's caught up in modern corporate city life. This line reminds one not to take life too seriously. Good things happen, enjoy them but don't expect every day to be a 3-day Christmas weekend in Phuket. Bad things happen and we may end up in tears about them, but don't wind yourself to be a failure or wallow in misery too long. It ain't worth it. Let it go and carry on.

I read a book entitled "Why toast always lands the butter side down" that started off with a little introduction to how our brain works and processes information. To protect you, your brain remembers the bad things. That's why we think bad things happen in threes, recall the screwups other people got you involved in (as opposed to the good things they've done for you) and to be careful with a kettle on the stove even though there isn't steam emerging from the spout. As a result, we become cynical. That's fine as long as we know that in the end, not much of the stuff you think is important now will matter.

So relax. Take a deep breath. Your life's alright.

Schemer (N.) One Who Forms Schemes; A Projector; Esp., A Plotter; An Intriguer.

Schemers! They are all around you. Beware.

Not to incite panic or anything (haha, yeah, butterfly effect), I discovered that one of the guys I hang out with openly admitted to being a schemer. He plotted the downfall of a supposed ass. He thought about it and went to work at it. Slowly but surely, the premeditation and orchestration came together to see the outcome through. Goodness, I thought, I'd never thought of him that way.

Paranoia would ask if he was plotting against me. Not an unfair question in this context. And we don't even work together anymore. (Cue in Jaws music)

I was quite taken aback at this revelation. The conversation started with sizing people up and getting to know them at professional level through inter-personal interaction. Some people are better at this than others. Others apparently do the whole mental SWOT analysis after shaking hands and saying hello. Yikes.

I am quite the face value kind of person. Bring whatever you have on the table and we'll talk about it on even terms. I know we as account manager types would scheme internally to the 'right stuff' approved by the client by the way we presented and expressed our point of view. But that's for the sake and mental/physical welfare of all the poor sods who had to do the work later. But one on one plotting is something for soap operas to me.

I suddenly recalled an encounter about my first job. Shudder. I remember one of my colleagues from that job telling me how affected I looked when they told me about someone who got fired was badmouthing other colleagues including me. Yeah I was affected.

No, I am not naive as I sound but to meet people who see their path in life as one of upmanship through planned, tactical moves of, for the lack of better word, sabotage is alarming and appalling to a degree. I believe in the goodness of mankind knowing full well how evil we can be. Having it happen to oneself is another story. I mean we do bitch and moan about personalities we encounter but to go beyond expression to doing something to bring about his/her exit (or worse) is quite beyond me. Yeah, maybe nice guys do end up last. That's ok in my book. Assholes and schemers perhaps get the first slap of karma's hand.

Life must be tough for people like that, always got their eyes behind their backs and cranial wiring speculating about and conjecturing on others' motives and words. I guess seeing the world through different eyes must mean we deal with life in different ways.

Found David Lim

He's running a swim school - Swimfast. Quite an appropriate name I guess. Fully geared to their objective.

Taken off the site:

Swimfast is headed by David Lim, 2 time Olympian and 19 time South East Asian Games Gold Medallist. Head Coach for the 1995, 2000 World Championships, 1993, 1999 and 2001 SEA Games and 2002 ASIAN Games. Received the Public Service Star Award in recognition of his athletic achievements.

He was a 3 time Singapore Sports Council Sportsman of the Year.

Good job.

What's Aren't Our KIds Turning Into Sportsmen?

A bunch of us was at Zsofi's on Wednesday and were watching the silent TVs. Did you know there's a Mediocrecrap programme that follows inter-school competitions? We were surprised. Track, basketball, swimming, get this - golf! plus lots of screaming kids. I saw my secondary school do in their competition in basketball. Woof. Ang Peng Siong, a national hero in my books, also appeared in an interview. The guy host seemed crap though. We couldn't hear him but we could sense his pretension and cheese.

Watching all this young talent made me wonder why we don't do any better in international competitions. These kids are good and could be better. How come we still suck and can't reap any medals? I remember when I was in NTU and stayed in Hall Six, there were some athletes who are represented the country and did the hall proud by beating the crap out of the other hall's teams. Seriously these players were more than good, in football, basketball, volleyball, tennis, hockey. Then they graduated and got jobs. Real jobs that gave real money for real living. So I guess it was easy to downgrade athleticism for the weekends and random games with the chums.

I wonder if it would a difference if someone from the Sports gahmen came over and asked them to take on a sports career at some point in their young lives. Don't they talent spot any more? Is sports just for school? What about replenishing the sportsmen of yore for the sake of national pride?

We didn't know we had singing talent till Singapore Idol came around (well, a lot of them aren't that good, haha). It was all about taking a chance. So let's take a chance on these young kids and ask them if a job in accounting or engineering or managing the casino is what they want or if an Olympics gold medal is something they want to strive for. If the latter, then give them the resources and money to make it happen. When they win, let Milo and other companies to support them through endorsement campaigns.

Someone also asked what happened to all the kids in the Sports School. Are they on track to reignite some national zeal?

And what happened to David Lim? Poor guy, used to come in second after Peng Siong in quite a few races. He's a hero is my books too.

Seek And Ye Shall Find That Better Deal

Centrum the multivit. I take it. The past week the bottle in the fridge has been rattling louder than a sidewinder scared shitless behind a Nevada cactus. Meaning I'm down to final few pops.

So I trudged into my local neighbourhood Gua-ardian and per-rused around. Here, Centrumy, Centrumy, Centrumy.

Now looky here, offer price. Buy two bottles of 100 for a special, blow ya mind price of $89.90. Wow-wee. Now I poppped out my trusty No-kia mobile thingajiggy and did a little Arith-me-tic. That's like 45cents a pop my Symbian cal-ki-la-tor concluded. Whoooopee.

I then spied a lone bottle of 100 going for $50. Yeah these here 200 pills would see me spending a nickel less on a pill of multi-vit-goodness.

But look yonder. What would I see above them algae green boxes of Brands but that familiar white box with rainbowy stripeyness. It was bigger, longer than usual. I mosey-ed on down past some unfine ladies and strange male folk along narrow shelving. There it was, the holy grail of Centrum packages - 120 pills. Snap, crackle and pop! $50.60. That's defies all possibilities - an amazin' 42 cents a dose of 3 times a week wellness. A find of the century, like a nugget of gold all glinty in the Ca-li-for-ni-a sunshine. Yee haw.

Now back to your regularly scheduled non-aunty programming.

Let Light In

The unsteady shot is my favourite.

31. Just So

Synopsis - Dr Kipling says that any human behaviour can be explained by our history as evolved beings and challenges anyone to throw up behaviour that tests this idea. "Why do kids wear their baseball caps the wrong way around?" Can Dr Kipling answer? Why yes, with two rather convincing reasons that relate to Darwin's survival of the fittest theory.

Evolutionary psychology - sensible or just excuses? Read more >>

A Helping Step Turn Kick

I was talking to Din while at Beerfest and my eye spotted the everchanging kaleidoscopic sequence of lights and shadows. But when I whipped my darling Ixus, it got boring. I told Din "Alamak, now got no action". Being the man of action he is, he stepped into the spotlight, turned, danced, twisted and came back to the table. Nicely done. Action in the same spot, like watching atoms spin. Love it.