Milking It For All Its Worth

Today I sent a number of Tweets about Ris Low. And then I Googled. Get this:
- Ris Low is mentioned 166,000 times on the web
- Zoe Tay is mentioned 32,500 times, 5 times less than the reigning Miss Singapore
- "Fsnn Wong marriage" has 11,800 mentions, more than 10 times fewer than Ris.
- She's not far behind Xiaxue which has 205,000 mentions.

It's amazing how much media attention has gone into portraying Ris first as a bimbo with bad grammar and enunciation, then as a criminal. In a month, she has managed to capture our imagination, change the way we speak, change the way we make fun of each other. Newspapers have mentioned her to varying degrees and she been on the front cover more times than any other Miss Singapore. The radio stations, from the noisy Class 95 DJs to the hilarious Radio 913 crew, have taken the piss out of the Youtube video countless times. Radio 913 is even running a 'Beat The Boomz' contest. I am just waiting for her to appear on CNA.

I feel that Miss Ris should take her fame, in whatever form it exists now, to the max. Do radio, do TV, make TV commercials, write memoirs on how bitchy the Miss Singapore competition is all about and what it took to swipe someone else's credit card. Go all the way man. It's not very often that fame like this comes around, albeit accidental and slightly negative. As long as she doesn't resort to porn, she's better than Paris. And she's almost gonna beat Xiaxue on Google, who's spent years being herself to get endorsements and popularity. Go Ris go, I say. Squeeze sloppy media sponge for every last drop.

India On TV

In particular Zee TV. I have that addition to the my cable TV subscription plan for $8.56 a month. It's a Hindi channel that one new bulletin a day, a guy who does yoga, a guy who does a cooking show, some movies on the weekends, Sikh sermons on Sunday morning and the rest of the precious on air time is chock-a-block with dramas.

There is a variety of dramas to entertain viewers. Most are set in modern times but not many are in cities, lots of suburban and rural locales. There is a tragic one about a girl from a lower caste who's got to survive being married off to odd village headman's family far away. Lots of women in all the shows. There was one about five daughters-in-law. One that ended recently was about a lady who had twins and gave one away to her sister because her sis couldn't have kids and later there was drama about family fortunes and luck linked to the little girl given away. Goodness.

The reason why I am bringing all this up is so that I can make sweeping generalization about life in India and how it has come to be portrayed on TV.

1. Women are at the mercy of men. My mother that's what happens in villages. Most of the Indian women I know are vocal, no chance of getting them to keep those lips pursed when the sun is up. In a lot of these dramas, women accused of a wrongdoing often keep slient and don't stand up for themselves. Kinda dumb. They also make very good 'bad guys' in these dramas. There will be a lead evil lady and her accomplice. They will plot and plan to destroy another woman in the household.

2. Somehow all the characters in Zee TV dramas are Hindu. There was one Sikh family somewhere. There are no Muslims anywhere. I find that disturbing since TV is best form of promoting harmony. Kinds sad.

3. I don't get all the wearing of shoes into the house thing. It happens on TV, not in real life. Not when one could step into the poo of many roaming cows that swarm India.

4. Facts don't matter to a mob, only the opinion of the richest or most powerful man. What the man says, goes. Even if it's not quite right. Or is it that people get conned easily.

5. People are embarassed easily. Whether it's about the amount of food on a plate, the offerings at a temple or the size of one's car/bicycle, size-based comparisons riddle these soap operas. Also, there is great potential for misunderstandings with almost no recourse or chance to explain e.g. a lady talking to a man is accused of adultery very quickly and punished.

6. The caste system is alive and well on TV even though the Indian gahmen banned any practices related to caste in the 70s. Sad that TV perpetuates this crap.

7. When dramatic situations erupt, the TV camera manages to capture the aptly contorted faces of all the actors in a shot. It lasts 1 minute and there used to be a lot of zooming in and out. Drove me nuts. Let's not forget the music.

8. Young Indian people say 'Mom' funny.

I don't really follow these dramas. I come home from work and there they are, my mum's evening routine. Come the weekend, I'm gonna get another India channel to watch - Sony Entertainment Television. A SET for the set. I think that's more current - they have a version of Moment of Truth on that channel. Indians being probed in public, now that's a first. I'll report more.

Revised iPhone Price To Value Ratios

Hello folks. I have to apologize as I got the ratios a little wrong. I had multiplied by an extra factor of 100. Here's the thing, I decided to keep the extra x100 because it made the numbers more palatable.

And I have also put the Singtel iPhone plans versus phone capacity PTV ratios neatly in Table 1.

Additionally, I put have calculated the ratios for non-iPhone plans with Broadband On Mobile additions in Table 2. These do not take into consideration the discount and are also based on 24-month subscriptions. Enjoy.

What's noteworthy that a Singtel customer on an ordinary iTwo Value plan taking on a BBOM New Platinum plan with a 16gb iPhone can better the most expensive iFlexi premium plan PTV, 0.218 vs 0.228.

Bookworm Evening

I was at Harris bookstore earlier to make use of a discount voucher. Expires 30 Apr so I'd better make use of it. With no intention of what to get, I simply enter the store and keep my eyes open. Sisilia, and later Nana, came along to influence my decisions.

It was a fun adventure that unfolded as such:

• Upon entry, we were overwhelmed with books on the financial crisis, and some books on Obama.
• A cool title was "What Would Google Do?". Interesting way to run a business I guess.
• Tin Tin is categorised under Humour. I have only ever read one Tin Tin book. I have also only read one Hardy Boys novel - I got that for Christmas 2 years ago.
  
• I nearly bought The Ways Of The Weasel by Scott Adams - more hilarious takes on corporate culture.
  
• There were many different books in the Humour section, some mostly about nothing. Seriously. There are many books that are about crap. One book was titled 1001 Ways To Die, a compilation of strange ways people died. I remember that one Vietnamese man fell into a vat of fish sauce and the four people who tried to save him were overcome by the fumes of fermented fish, fell him and drowned too. How not to laugh? There was another sketch book with loads of dark humour stick figures. One page had a stick figure with a stick figure knife, and black splotches on other stick figures laying slain. The speech bubble read "I think I misplaced my medicine." Good eh. It's not good I appreciate this.
  
• There was only one shelf of Humour books and three shelves for Self Improvement. A sign of the times? Are we really in need of much help? If I didn't up there, would I know I needed help? Goodness.
• Sisilia picked up a self help book with a byline that read "How To Be A Person" or something to that effect. I think a dog wrote that book.
• Nana said that this section makes her feel useless. There was a title staring back that read "How To Not Have A Life That Sucks" or something like that. Horrible isn't it? All these problems you never knew you had that you now had to buy a book or 27 books to solve.
• There was a Dummies' Guide to Work-Life Balance.
• There was a book for husbands to stop beating up their wives. Imagine getting that for Christmas.
• There was a pair of books by two faces I felt compelled to slap. A man, his perfect teeth and his wife with much hair. Too happy, slap slap. They also wanted to make my life better. Slap slap.
• In autobiographies section, it seems like anyone can write. I remember many books about Obama, one from Steven Gerrard.
• We crossed over to Cooking and I discovered anyone who's been on Discovery Travel and Living has got a book out. My dear Nigella had several. That ass Ramsey had a few too.
• Sisilia then pondered submitting reports in a pink folder.
• Nana next confessed to plastic wrapping her books a few years earlier to prevent them from damage.
• I confessed to buying The Book Of Ingredients which is a picture encyclopedia of all foods. And I mean all - from animal parts to jams and pasta. So much fun to look at and imagine eating. I use it to identify spices my mother knows only the Punjabi/Malay/Tamil names of.
  
• I went to pay and found a little fact book filled with precious gems like "What does 'Wuthering' mean?" and "What's the origin of cinnamon?". You could know all this for $12.30.

We left for dinner next.

Oh I ended up buying "MBA in 80mins". I'll be a master soon. Woof. At 25% off some more.

Stuff That Happens At The Office

"What's the use of having power?" - Danko

"So that you can screw with people." - Sylar

That's from Heroes season 3.

I was talking to a friend about office politics and how some people are asses. They talk a lot, do little, schmooze with the right people, stick their feet out so other can trip (figuratively of course), go around with daggers to stab people they can't get along with (figuratively of course), taiji and other shenanigans. Oh yes, not much gets done in terms of work. Yeah you met them.

I thought about our conversation from another perspective - why are some people like that? Maybe it's the way we are brought up, especially in Singapore where the need to be number one starts early. Kids have tests when they are in kindergarten. They get tuition classes in primary 1, not because they need it but because every other kid is getting some help on the side. The assessment book industry thrives on this madness. They rush into trains to plonk asses on seats and concurrently scream "I win" as brother or sister or cousin comes in second. Whatever it takes to be number one. Moving forward a couple of decades, kids might turn into conniving adults who wield power at the boardroom. Well, office. From the cube in the corner.

It could also have been the army. Rank has a powerful influence over how maladjusted one's perceptions become about social hierarchy. The discovery that someone has to do what you order them to do opens up the ego for further expansion. Yes, power is nothing without control - line from a tyre ad. Self-control perhaps is lacking in these asses.

So with the winner, there must be losers. Someone's got to pay the price. I blame our need for social acceptance. Sometimes it is like high school at work. Being part of the gang takes you further. In fact, more companies are putting relationships with peers as appraisal criteria. If you can't make the right friends, your career might not go as far as you imagine with the effort you put in. And perhaps not opening your mouth at the right time. A lot of credibility can be lost in mere minutes when one chooses to remain silent. Stand up and hold your ground, even if people don't want to eat lunch with you no more. Hopefully the right people are listening.

Someone told me that in a big organisation, it's important that what you do is seen by the right people, not necessarily just my boss. The human brain is programmed to remember the bad things more than the good, a matter of self-preservation. So if you fark up at work, people are more likely to remember that than when you saved the company $100K with a little initiative for example. So blowing one's trumpet could have its place in corporate culture. It might even save your job.

So work isn't all about getting things done no more. It's a complex, dynamic social experience. Makes you wanna be a farmer sometimes.

Fit As A Fiddle

I had a medical check up done last month. It was the second medical I had ever done in my 34 years. The first was about 5 years ago? I had been thinking about doing a full medical in a while but I took the step my HR sent an email about an offer from SATA (what to do, I am Singaporean), and I would be able to claim the amount from my company medical plan (what to do, I am Singaporean).

So medical tests require you to give/deposit things - pee, blood and crap. The last item presents several unique trials to those intending to pass a sample to a stranger. As part of the first medical I did, the passed me a plastic test tube with a screwcap. Undoing the screwcap, one finds it is attached to a thin plastic tube with a screw thread design. "When you collect your stool, just plunge this screw into different areas into the stool, ok" - words that will register with you for life. 'Collect my stool'? Goodness. The sales lady said "don't let it touch the water ah". That would contaminate the sample wouldn't it?

This time around I had to go to the SATA office to get the receptacle. Same test tube design but no screw thread. I had a little scoop at the end. Alrighty time to collect some samples.

The most difficult bit was trying to get a sample having starved for the past 12 hours.

I have friends who were physically violated to obtain this very personal sample. The nurse/doctor/stranger stuck an implement into their asses to do the job. Yikes!

Anyways, all went ok. That is until I got my results a few weeks later.

The doctor, seemingly nice lady that she is, passed me a folder with sheets of papers with names of tests and meaningless numbers next to them. She told me my bad cholesterol was a high but not high enough for medication; my BMI was high and I needed to lose weight; and last but not least, my uric acid was high and increased my tendency for gout.

Gout, that was a new one. The cholesterol thing I heard before. Gout, goodness. I was concerned and research was necessary. The uric acid forms crystals between the joints and that's why it hurts. It's a form of arthritis. So it boils to the food I eat. I can't take too much purine. Turns out I need to watch my intake of nuts, legumes, meat and seafood. Now I must cast an evil eye on that big bottle of Skippy in the kitchen. But how do I not succumb to sambal goreng and kacang with ikan bilis at a Malay food stall? Chialat. Indians eat a lot of dahl aka legumes. And it turns out sardines are not good for gout sufferers too. My life is over.

No lah I ain't all miserable. I just have to watch that I don't over do it. At the same time, I realise it's hard to avoid nuts. People with nut allergies in Asia would have died many times over already.

Alrighty then.

Wikipedia on Gout >>

Thank God I Have A Job

Bank of America out in the US announced today it's gonna cut 30,000 jobs over 3 years. Citibank announced last month that it was gonna shed 52,000 jobs. HSBC is dropping 1,100 people from its payroll. Nomura is saying goodbye to 1,000; Credit Suisse 5,300; JP Morgan 9,200. At home, we all know about DBS shedding 900 people and NOL 150 staff in heartless moves before Xmas and CNY.

That's about 100,000 people. Or Clementi New Town.

The big question is who's employing? And what are these people gonna do?

Here's the other thing. The employed folks are supposed to keep spending to keep the economy running. Well that's gonna make things interesting. Did you know people are actually putting cash into the US government debt system at ZERO return? Sort of like hiding cash under the mattress. That means people would rather get nothing for their savings than put any money with a bank, any bank.

Isn't it amazing the world's ended up this way? Haha.

Humble Scotch Tape No More!

Scientists have found that the peeling action of scotch tape generates enough X-rays to scan of a human finger. Shock! Horror! Radiation poisoning! Before you run off screaming and strangling your admin lady or concreting your stationery cupboard, the X-rays are released only in certain hard-to-achieve-in-the-office conditions. You need an airless chamber (no, not your boss) and a contraption to peel the tape at a constant speed (no, not your colleagues).


(images from NY Times)

But creepy eh? X-rays from plain old tape. We find new sources of energy every day. Someone should take a closer look at fart.

Intro Shots

Resistance is futile when faced with such odds. $1 for a hotdog in a soft bun in this day and age is an ok deal. Many people now solely go to Ikea to eat and not to buy furniture. They generally attest to the scrumptiousness of the chicken wings. I also fall victim to the kid's fish and chips.













Stars in a star. It's the little touches that make the difference eh. Maybe they should get Ikea to decorate Orchard Road one year for Xmas.

















How can I resist such pretty stackage? The colours are joyous if not a little Mardi Gras. They are stacks of plastic watering kettles (they are not cans, and containers would not do justice, and there's a long spout!) from Ikea.





Well, well, well, some people must have had a good time in Ikea. It's the season after all.

















I know this is a very boring looking picture. But can you tell me what's so combined about dental surgery? Is this a case of badly transliterated Chinese? Maybe the dentist does Botox on the side. Check out Wilhem Tell too.




You really have to maintain appearances to keep up a certain image. The drooping E, not so high-tech, and so might be low-down.

















Inadvertent nstallation art. I call this piece Woman, Her Needs, With Protection. I got rave reviews among 2 people. Of course, the piece was dismantled once we left the Collectors Gallery.

Rain-Induced Food Squeeze

Rain, it has been coming down in the buckets of late. And people don't like the downpour. It's like a disease or an infection when droplets hits clothes and people start to shriek at the fear of melting away into gullyholes and drains. Especially well-dressed, well-heeled (literally) folks of the city.

I experienced my first excursion into Raffles Place at lunchtime during storm time on Monday. It was a step into madness. To avoid the rain, the office crowd succumbs to the underground. Raffles Place MRT links 6-7 high-rise buildings filled with thousands of office type who get hungry at about the same time each day. The difference on a rainy day is that not a lot of them choose to venture into the wet. That means they scurry into the artificially-lit tunnels that conveniently connect their buildings to the maze of makan places built like burrows in the walls of a bee's hive. There are so many people who need to be fed. And they queue for sustenance. The human lines on Monday were horrendously long. Everywhere, from Sushi Tei to Burger King to Soup Spoon, people were waiting, patient or not.

I walked around for 15mins, then queued for another 15mins for hurriedly served nasi padang. I tarpau-ed and went back to the office to wallow in my trauma.

Yeah, I know should have a taken a picture.

Doom And Gloom Be Gone!

These last few months have been kind of a mess eh. Stock market crashes, banks collapse, old people losing their life savings, plastic in our food, people being told to leave their jobs, white tigers getting live food etc. Today the gahmen announced that they're bringing the next year's budget announcement forward so that we won't be guessing what they'll do to alleviate our concerns about the economy. Which is in recession by the way. Depressing?

Well folks, here's the good news. Inflation numbers will come down. Oil and food prices will come down. In fact oil is cheaper now that it was a year ago. Your kopi and teh should cost less soon, hopefully. Rents and prices of homes will come down. Depends on whether you're looking to buy or have a home to sell, that could be bad news. Some important guy out there said 'Asia is the answer to the global recession'. Well hey, that's news for you to think positive right? If we kept to our guns, put in our hours, have fun when we can, not worry so much about the future, think about how we can help our fellow man instead of retrenching the poor guy, we'll all be fine.

They should get radio deejays to be funnier.

Here's a joke: A girl I know said "I thought offside was when the ball went outside the field".

Here's a funny youtube video: Indian Spiderman

Buy a friend an ice-cream. It's still 50cents at McDonalds. If we all did that, I think we'd be happier.

Under Rugs Swept

I am cow. Not because I have udders and eat grass and lie on Indian highways and give milk and moo. (Wow, cows do some many things.)

I ruminate. Yes, again not like the cow. Someone tells me something and I think about it, and think about it. Over and over again. Digging out that hole in my brain that once held my normal thought processes and replacing the void with a cacophony of voices that stop from sleeping. I have to consciously tell myself to stop thinking, like what Dean Sluyter wrote in The Zen Commandments and what half of the yoga teachers in class tell us to do. Then I slowly let the Sandman take over.

Don't you just hate it when some people know you better that you do yourself? Make you feel like crap. But it's true, no denying some truths and worse still, knowing you are denying the excuses you came up with. Yup, it's one of those weeks that keep you thinking. On Monday, I had a cider though. That was someone else's fault.

I actually sigh at this point. Let's see what gives. I sigh again. Somehow I don't believe myself. I think I get this from my mother. Hmmm. Ok, this is gonna be one of those posts only a few will get. Sorry.

90210 Episode 1 - Come On, I Had To

Ok I had to. I try not to knock it till I've tried it. Well I did knock it earlier but that was a pre-emptive strike upon the Hollywood gods.

In episode one of the NEW 90210:
- Jeannie Garth and the guy who ran the coffee shop, Pops or Tony or whoever, reappear as threads to the past.
- New family consist of new guy, new girl, dad and mom. Dad is the principal of high school where new guy and new girl are going to ruin their lives in.
- The brother and sister who move to LA are black and white. The black kid was adopted. The previous set of siblings were twins. Nice twist.
- New girl sees old friend in a car in the school carpark getting a little zipper-down action on way to school. Well, it is LA.
- The new girl is already made fun of. Some angsty girl makes a Jib Jab type video and posts it online, on a blog. It makes 584000 hits. Oh please.
- The brother tries out for lacrosse, impresses the coach and makes the team. One guy in the team gets pissed, smacks him down and gets into a fight. Later, brother loses spot in team because sister's old friend lies to principal about who started the fight.
- New girl makes fake rich girl friend who's boyfriend is the old friend from the car. Getting interesting.
- Fake rich friend has a sweet sixteen birthday aka MTV 'My Sweet 'Sulty' 16' bash coming up but has to write a book report on the Tale Of Two Cities overnight. Guess who had already written such a report back in Kansas and got an A on it? No, not Alice.
- Fake rich girl's richer parents see principal to extend book report deadline. Goodness. Principal stands his ground. He incidentally as the ex-boyfriend of the fake rich girl's mom. What goes around comes around eh.
- New girl gives her TOTC report to fake rich girl. Problem solved.
- New girl goes to listen to school girl band rehearsal. Tries out and gets the part, pissing off the lead girl who incidentally was the giver of the zipperdown action. Ahem, more trouble ahead it seems.
- Lead singing girl is a druggie who owes the dealer money. There is some low-level threats and hounding.
- New girl confronts angsty girl about video. They become friends. Awww.
- Fake rich girl, lead singing girl and friends go to a bar where our lead characters 'lose' their purses. Ok, lead singing girl steals friends purse for the money to pay off dealer. Now that's a lesson about trust.
- Principal finds out about TOTC report and confronts daughter. Fake rich girl scolds new girl and 'disinvites' new girl. Typical. The principal dad of course grounds daughter for such inappropriate behaviour.
- New guy sends anonymous message to fake rich girl about boyfriend's trangressions. Thankfully, the purse was lost.
- New girl goes to fake rich girl's party to apologise or something. She goes with angsty girl who hates fake rich girl. Lead singing girl 'finds' lost purses and returns fake rich girl's Chanel tote to the newly 16 year old. She read sms and asks boyfriend on dancefloor. She fakes it, smiles and cries later.
- Principal goes to party to get daughter and meets the fake rich girl's mom. She sorta confronts him about the past and reveals, get this, they had a kid together! And the kid was given up for adoption! Drama!
- New girl, angsty girl and new guy end up on some beach next to a fairground. They feel better about themselves. Brother and sister run into the surf. The end.

It is amazing how I can remember all this. I'm not shallow am I? What if I do wnana watch episode 2? Damn. I love my TV. What About Brian is on. Looks promising.

Department For Appropriate Behaviour

I was fooled.
Maybe I have been waking up too early in the morning. Department For Appopriate Behaviour! You would believe it too if you lived in Singapore. It would probably sit with Home Affairs with members from Info and the Arts, and report to the PM directly about our trangressions. "Don't read that" and "Don't watch this" and "Smell this because I said so" - that's what I imagine this department would come up with. And of course "Are you wearing clean underwear?".

Smart though, especially with our appetite for risque TV of late. All these shows, Mad Men, Californication and The Riches have had rave reviews. Good job FX. Good thing I have FX.

Are You Trying To Make An Impression?

One thing that may "define" our lives is the ability to leave a mark in/on the world. Well, I could be talking about graffiti, where one's creative use of language and paint could leave an impression worth making the papers with, and landing in jail for a few weeks, rotan lashes thrown in for free.

Perhaps I should have started out softer, more whimsical and romantic. Did you ever dream of making it big? Like when you turned 21 and thought the world was yours for the taking? Ok, that's like crap. (Unless you live in California). We dream of writing books, making a film, buying big houses with (insert name here) Estate on the front gate, playing a piano concerto in front of 2000 tuxedo-ed and gowned snooty people. Others may envision planting a flag on Everest, or replanting the Sahara or making a scientific breakthrough to save the worsening world. That's the really big stuff.

I think, or rather I know, some of us have discovered that one way to put your mark on the world is through our children. I don't have any, yet, but have been looking after my nephew (6 months old) on and off. Beyond the genetics, I can see how a parent would want to shape his/her kids life. To mould this fresh, clean slate into a bright, gleaming human entity. That's a permanent impression, from the ABCs to what your kid does when he/she sees someone steal.

You hear it on TV all the time - parents want to live their dreams through their kids. That's up to you when the time comes.

So are you making an impression with your existence? Or what have you done? More importantly, how important is that to you? I bet some, maybe most of us, don't even care. Or you could just look out for some fresh concrete and take a hands on approach.

God Save The Queensway

It's a throw back in time. I remember my father buying me strawberry Meadow Gold ice cream there when I was a wee kid. I can't remember why we were there. It could have been because we had gone to Alexandra Hospital next door. Today, Queensway stands like a historic testament to the power of focus. People from all over come to buy shoes at the scores of stores that stock every conceivable form of footwear. Escalators now carry you upstairs, only one way up - which I figure helps to control shopper traffic flow. On the top floor, the same old shops that zap 10 pages a second still do a reasonably roaring trade. I bound my Final Year Project report there, as did many other undergrad. We did a loop around the first floors before we decided that this blast to the past maybe perhaps had lost its charm. I guess we were a little tired and aimless. But I got a cone of strawberry to enjoy :)

I may be coming back, since my pair of Asics are looking less than fresh. We'll see.

Red Laser Spectacular

We went to this art gallery, Collectors for a talk on the psychoanalsis of art in conjuction with an exhibition of work called Confabulation. We learned about looking at things from the eye versus the gaze, reality versus intent, however unplanned. It was quite an eye-opener.

The exhibits were cool and thought-provoking. This pix is a shot of low-level red lasers emanating from a circle arrangement of emitters. With a smoke machine and the light turned off, we got this wondrous 3D, star-trekish effect. Stunning, especially when you walk towards the source.

The gallery is a little out of the way in the city, haha. Jalan Kilang Barat. You'll realise it's so close yet so far. Confabulation is on till Oct 25.

32, 33 and now 35

I recently took on a new job. It's one where I have to leave my jeans and t-shirts behind for 4 out of 5 days of the work week. So I had to update my business wear and in that process discovered that my waistline isn't mine.

I thought I was a 33. And that 33 would be a comfy fit. But no, I leaped up to a shocking 35 for snug. After time in the fitting rooms in several stores, I emerged with larger than usual trousers to wear to my current employ. Sigh.

But no, I have a size 32 bermudas and size 33 jeans. Hence the semi-miffed post. Haha, I let it go as quickly as I exited the trains at Raffles Place. No point fretting over a 2-digit number that defines vanity and superficial perceptions.

A friend advised it was 'cutting'. Business wear just has a different 'cutting'. Great.

This Curry Is Safe To Swim In

That's a slightly unsteady shot of a bowl of shark curry with two chappatis dunked in.

It's probably unsteady because it was my first meal of the day today. Lack of sugar and sustenance and all the jazz. The curry is overnight curry, which afficionados will tell you is the best curry. My mother cheats with the chappatis - she makes them thicker so she prepares fewer chappatis and we get fuller faster. It saves on cooking gas too if you think about it.

Yes, the fleshy chunks are shark. My mother likes to buy shark at the market as the cheaper fish alternative. The fins we all know are expensive and should not be eaten as an affirmation to the violent and brutal persecution of the most advanced fish species, but the meat is cheap. And tasty. The flesh is firm and takes in flavours quickly. Bet you could batter bits and fry it up as a snack.

When I told some of my friends about this seemingly peculiar protein source, they imagined a fin sticking out of a pot of curry, slowly making ever-decreasing circles as per the film Jaws with music thrown in. If only Spielberg was Indian.

Relive The Big Bang!

On Wednesday 10 September 2008, CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is going to recreate the BIG BANG. Yes, the one that created the universe.

At about 0900 Swiss time (quite apt eh) (1500 SG time), some scientists are going flip a switch and send tiny atomic particles accelerating to near light speed around a set of tunnels 27 kilometers long under the Swiss-French border. The colossal complex is known as the Large Hadron Collider. The particles will then hurtle into each other, releasing massive amounts of energy in as many as 600 million collisions each second. Cool eh. All this in the pursuit of knowledge, and hopefully answers to questions like "What other dimensions are there?", "What happened to all the anti-matter?" and "Why do women need so many shoes?".

CERN had to commission an new computer system called The Grid to capture all that day and beam it to labs all over the world. Lagi cooler.

For more geeky background into the multi-billion dollar project, go to BBCNews.

You can watch the live webcast on Wednesday here.

In honour of the project, I have embedded a YouTube video that deserves a Nobel Prize of its own. Presenting the Large Hadron Rap! (BTW hadrons are too complicated to explain simply. The best known hadrons are protons and neutrons.)