A Problem With Sengkang

I recently moved to Sengkang. It was a choice determined by proximity to my nephew (for the weekday delivery of the little monster for my mum to look after with the rotan nearby), availability of a flat within a reasonable walking distance to the MRT (I hate taking feeder buses), how broke I'd be when I sold my soul to HDB, COV, HSBC and other acroymns you read about when people talk about flats, plus other factors.

Having been here a month and a half, I made some conclusions about why Sengkang sucks, or could suck for some.

Urban planners had put on their Utopia hat on when thinking about the transportation scheme here. They imagined brainwashed heartlanders walking in file to LRT stations, pleasantly smiling and hardly distressed by small platforms and closeness with each other, all fillng up small compact metal boxes headng towards the nexus of Sengkang, the all-hallowed MRT/Bus interchange, the heart of this suburb. But all this of course, doesn't quite pan out in real life. All these peak-hour people stuff themselves into small lego-land trains and fall out at the hub to get into bigger moving boxes. Thank God that it's just the Punggolians/Punggolites/Punggolers that board the NE trains down to the city before us Sengkangers/Sengkangites/Sengkangolians enter. So yes things are a little crowded.

The LRT system itself is kinda screwy. From the hub, the trains apparently can venture off in 2 directions in 2 loops around the estate and passengers have to board this confusion at one of two platforms. So there's a 1/8 chance of picking the optimal train. I use the term "apparently" because I can't sometimes figure the signage out. I pity the tourists.

Why couldn't they split the hub role? Sengkangers/Sengkangites/Sengkangolians don't always want to end up at one place. Why put the stress of populace and sweaty bodies in one place? It would have been smarter to spread the LRT network between Buangkok (Yes, the urban planners and SBS Transit of 'white elephant' fame forgot that Buangkok has people and it's also part of Sengkang) and Sengkang. Then the madness of platforms and directions would have been solved. Residents headed to the city would end up taking LRT trains to MRT stations closer to them, splitting the human traffic and the associated craziness in two directions. (Buangkok MRT station would have opened earlier too instead of languishing in Compass Point - Sengkang hub's dust.) It would be smart to invest in this change even now, as the HDB puts up more Sengkang BTOs.

There is only one pan-Sengkang feeder bus. The rest are trunk services that connect between the interchange and some other housing estate. So everyone generally has to pay extra (I think) to get to work and school. The feeder bus also doesn't really connect all the neighbourhoods because they're thinking the LRT does that job. It does but bus stops are far more in existence than LRT stations, walks are shorter to bus stops and people are lazy or don't want to sweat.

On the bright side, there are 3 express bus services to the city in the morning. I hope they make sense for those paying $3-5 for each daily ride. I hope the CTE morning grind doesn't mess things up.

Well that's the state of Sengkang transport. I mean the nomenclature sucks already (come on, Rivervale, Compassvale, Anchorvale and Fernvale with all the usual street types at the end is more than enough to confuse drivers without GPS) so let's just improve the dynamics.

Howdy Hougang

I am guilty of not writing, again. I blame it on the move. We moved out of the Woodies to Hougang.

Moving is always trying and tiring. Good thing we left most of the boxes (mine by the way) in the other room and so we didn't have much packing to do. Though the packing we had to do was done painfully. We ran out of boxes and improvised with many a trash bag, pails, baskets and other things around the house. Even the large clay pot had something else in it.

The other bad bit about completing the move is unpacking. I spend a whole Saturday opening boxes and deciding where to put stuff. Guess what, I don't have enough shelving for my millions of artefacts, books and CDs. Habis. So now there are 14 boxes mostly untouched taking up space in my room. It's a large room though, so it's not so bad. Old flats were built bigger is the general concensus.

Apart from these gripes, I am so glad I got broadband back. The modem connects at 130mbps sometimes! 130! More than the speed in the office. I could finally update my Mac software. It came down at a blistering 1mb in 5 secs. Happiness is digital.

The ride to work isn't so bad. A 2 min walk to the bus stop, a few minutes wait for one of 4 buses to bring me to the train station, a 2-min bus ride to the mrt (I know I should walk but the weather ain't conducive) and a 38 min train journey across 1 interchange and 2 lines, a 2 minute stroll up to the office and I am sitting pretty. Still coming in 15 mins late each day but at least I'm consistent.

I twittered that the NEL seemed sterile, and blamed it on the underground nature of the whole line. No sunlight gets in vanquish the early morning vampires from the northeast with their pale, lifeless skin and bloodshot eyes, smart in shirts and skirts. I miss the glistening waters of Sungei Seletar reservoir that would reflect too much sun into trains that zoomed by on the red line to and from the remote north.

I think physically I am staying half the distance I was from the city barely 2 weeks ago. I've already experienced the superior connectivity of the KPE but yet to discover the hood. I need to jog around Punggol Park too.

Here's to new beginnings.

To iPhone Or Not To iPhone

So the latest Apple toy has hit town. Branding my initials, the iPhone 3GS has taunted and tempted me for quite a while now. I have friends who are true Appletons and constantly are whispering words of temptations into my unbelieving ears. "Of course, it's the best" "It's not a phone, it's a computer" "See how easy it is to use" "See how cool this app is" "Blah blah"

A few days ago Singtel, the only provider of the great i in Singapore, announced prices and I quickly calculated that it'll be a minimum spend of $1334 and a maximum spend of $4920 over 2 years, adding price plans and initial cost of acquisition. I posted that on Twitter and Facebook, and lo and behold, comments poured in. I was suprised at the urgent reaction. In the end, it became more about additional cost of getting the iPhone versus what one was using and paying for now (There are more mobile phones than people in SG).


I thought about this for a little while longer after screencapping and posting the graph - how do I assess value of a mobile plan. I thought of ratios and products. If a plan had 100 free mins, 500 free SMSes and 1GB of data, then the min-SMS-data product would be a good indicator of value, 50000 in this case.

If the plan cost $10 or 1000 cents a month for 24 months with the initial cost of the purchase set at $100 or 10000 cents, the total cost would be 34000 cents. The ratio of price to value (PTV) then would be 34000/50000 = 0.68 (I decided on cents because it'll kill off more zeros in the division). So the smaller the number, the more value for $ the plan would be.

With this logic, the new Iphone plans for the 8GB model would give the following ratios:
- iFlexi Lite - 5.3360
- iFlexi Value - 1.4820
- iFlexi Plus - 0.4560
- iFlexi Premium - 0.0729

Clearly the highest end plan for a huge $205 monthly outlay has the most value but who really, who needs 1500 free mins and 1500 free SMSes? The ratios for Plus and Premium are also lower because the 8GB iPhone comes free with those plans.

My current MIO plan has no free data roped in and I pay $48.15 monthly. But if I added on a 1GB/mth Broadband on Mobile (BBOM) data plan for $19.90 (same amount of data for iFlexi Value) and got the 8GB model at $198, the PTV ratio becomes 1.5408, close to the 1.4820 for the iFlexi plan.

If one could get the iPhone at iFlexi plan and add on the 1GB BBOM plan, the PTV ratio is 2.4443 - already better value than the orginal plan.

Well if the maths doesn't get you, I know some people who are getting it because it's pretty. And now has a compass for fengshui.

Time to commit? Perhaps. My N73 is showing signs of crossing over to the mobile phone junkyard in the sky.

Unwitting Facelift 2

I didn't even last a day. But that's ok. This one was more fun to make.

Thanks Sisilia for the Flickr mosaic maker link. :)

Unwitting Facelift

This is my new Twitter background. I was a little bored. I discovered that it was easier to put this together with PowerPoint than a photoediting software. Hence the nasty white lines. Do you need a intro to the images?

Top left corner is Calico, ex-resident of ex-place of work. She was exiled then banished after the ex-CD complained of asthma.

Top right corner is graffiti under my block I think. Or was it Bali Lane?

Bottom left corner is a shot of ships docked at Sembawang Shipyard. I sometimes end up at Sembawang Beach on my long walks on Sunday, adjacent to the magnificent giants of the sea.

Bottom right is an umbrella. I forget where I took this. I suspect it was Mustajab at Tras Street.

I think I'll go back to Twitter basic backgrounds in a few weeks. Time to sleep.

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.

Hasn't It Been A Month Since CNY?

Goodness. It has almost. I haven't really talked about what I did on this auspicious occasion. The holiday fell on a Monday and Tuesday so it became the third long weekend in 2 months (Christmas and New Year's were great long holidays too). I did little that weekend apart from watching a lot of TV. The following weekend the bunch of us trotted off to Joo Seng where Jo was going to prepare her once-a-year creation, lup mei fan. This Cantonese dish is essentially claypot rice with waxed duck meat and sausages. Yum yum yum it was. I think I ate three bowls of it.

She threw the event for her family and friends so there were always people moving in and out. There was the cacophony of conversation, card playing and clashing of mahjong tiles together with sounds of the TV to add to the festive occasion. The pictures don't quite do justice.

The next day I went to my boss' boss place for lunch. She insisted on serving her infamous chicken curry and I had somehow volunteered my mum's mutton curry some time ago. So there was quite a bit of curry at the party. Just a small group in a super apartment in a snazzy Bukit Timah condo. Aspirational.

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 >>

A More Than Normal First Week

Looks like I haven't really been living up to my blogging commitments.

By the way, there's a guy singing in some neighbouring block. Pretty loud karaoke. He isn't too bad, just that it's almost two in the morning.

And someone else just sneezed. Think it's from upstairs.

The first week of work hasn't been remarkable in any respect. There's work and it feels like 2008 hadn't really ended. More like 2009 just took on the baton without missing a beat. It's sort of the first time I think that's happened. There was always some subconscious recognition of the year change but this time it was just work, holidays, and work again. An unremarkable new year.

Though at the about the stroke of midnight on Jan 1, I could hear the fireworks from Johor Bahru. I couldn't see anything because of the direction my living room windows face and the inadequate height of my apartment, just echoey booming noises in the background to my third installment of the Pirates of the Caribbean series running on Star Movies. I hadn't really seen any of these modern day classics so I promptly plonked my aching left ass on the sofa and made like a potato till one-ish in the morning.

I didn't go out on New Year's Eve because history dictates that there be a human mess sprawled across town, inebriate but conscious enough to dial and wait for a pickup to a Taxi hotline. Finite number of taxis to an amorphous mob of sloshed partygoers roaming about the streets isn't my kind of odds. And it would have been expensive. We did get sparkling fruit juice from the nearby supermarket to pop and dish out at midnight. Whoopee.

So back to the normal week at work. I had goals for 2009 to key into the company system. Most of the department was quite tense about this. So the boss did her thing, shared her expectations, my boss did his thing and shared his success measures and I did my thing 2 hours before the deadline putting my 3 main goals and hoping for successful submission to a system fraught with delays and slow reaction. The other 'big' thing that happened at work was that my ex-employer is now my current agency which sort of made things interesting. So far so good.

I went to see Uncle Tong today to make adjustments to my spine to correct my recently inflicted back pain (refer to previous mention of aching left ass). He is a miracle worker. Snapped, crackled and popped my vertebrae, hips, head, and legs into their right places. Felt like a million bucks almost immediately. He told me "When you come here, you must learn to relax. Or else I cannot help you." I could feel my body tensing up as he put in the acupuncture needles and he could tell too.

On Friday, I discovered Oosters at Suntec, a Belgian beer place that serves mussels by the bucket and lovely french fries. Even the salad looked awesome, all served in large white porcelain bowls. I dunno but there's something about simple, white porcelain that turns me on about food, which I didn't get to try by the way. Just watched it served out to other patrons. But I did steal a menu. So we are going back there to ensure the theft wasn't in vain.

I got home early and watched a strange film on TV called No Such Thing. It was about this orphan journalist who chooses to be sent to Iceland to find out what happened to her fiancee and his 2 TV crew friends. There are different things that happen to stop her making her destination - even her plane crashed into the Atlantic. She eventually finds out about this "monster" who eats people and breathes fire and drinks a lot. The monster spoke fluid American English complete with swears. Strange and funny film. No she didn't get eaten.

A dog is barking now. It sounds small. Yelp, yelp. The singing's stoppped.

Alright, that sums up week 1. 51 more to go till the end of the O series.

Not A Great Start To Oh-Nine Is It?

So what's bad that's happened?

1. Three Singaporeans died in a Bangkok club fire on New Year's Day.

2. Israel decides to attack Gaza.

3. I got back pain from a yoga pose in mid-class.

Point 1 is just depressing. We lost one person to the Mumbai terrorist attack and now three more locals perish horribly in a fire. Are there more Singaporeans out there now putting themselves at risk? I am over-reacting. Perhaps we are just used to safe Singapore versus all the crap we hear about everywhere else. We are too well protected, too safe, too unfamiliar with all the bad things we hear about on the news. It's a sad way to usher in 2009.

Point 2 pisses me off. Most people think the Palestinians are terrorists, all of them, the women and children and tea-drinkers. There's Hamas who have clearly made themselves known as terrorists. Unfortunately, they run the Gaza strip and even more damagingly, launch missiles into Israel from their people's brick houses. So Israel decides to go whole hog into Gaza, bombing buildings to kingdom come. Now the ground forces have gone in to eradicate the militants. 450 dead Palestinians and about 5 dead Israelis.

Yes, it is ok for Israel to defend itself. It is ok for the Palestinians to be pissed. It is not ok for Israel to blockade the territory so that the Palestinians can't live like normal people. It is not ok for Hamas to send missiles into Israel but think about it - the Palestinians got chased out of their homelands 50 years ago and were not allowed to return, had their families shattered, economy screwed up, education and healthcare left to pieces, no real semblance of a nation, much less a society. When people are put down too long, they turn to violence to keep themselves alive. (One of the Sikh sacred symbols is a dagger, a reminder of the persecution of religion's followers in the 1600s and the right to arms as self-defence). Israel has not allowed Palestine to 'live'. Palestinians live horrible lives. So how can they co-exist?

I am worried about the bigger repercussions. Will the Arab countries come in to defend Gaza? Indonesians already want their government to send troops to protect the Palestinians. Will Iran launch a naughty pointy thing towards Israel? How will the US help anyone anymore? The UN is simply making a lot of noise thus far while homes get blown up and people die and mothers worry. Expect more crap from the Middle East.

Point 3. Oh it just hurts. Especially when yoga is supposed to fix things. Ow.

Recent Snaps

The Year End series at my Flickr

One Holiday Down, More Eating To Go

So Christmas is over and we're hours away from 2009.

What's been going on?

I have been eating a lot. Some friends I hang out with a lot have this plan to eat at least 4 distinct places this holiday season - a bar to celebrate the return of a friend from SF with cider and chicken wings, another friend's house for Christmas zhi-char dinner, Long Beach Seafood at Dempsey because lunch is 20% off with your Visa card, Indonesian food at Cumi Bali because we miss the food and the restaurant had moved to a new, bigger place, and lastly, Karu's Curry at Upper Bukit Timah Road.

I am pleased to announce that we have completed all but the curry fest.

I am not so pleased to announce that last week I felt my heart beat harder while I was trying to get to sleep.

Today, New Year's Eve, there is some plan to make an addition to list of gourmet delights with a visit to friend's uncle's shop that serves turtle soup. That gives me the creeps. Apparently, there is black chicken soup too. Perhaps that will entice me to tag along.

I have been keeping to the twice a week yoga and weekend walk/run regimen. Perhaps the heart, liver and kidneys won't decide to expire prematurely this season.

I predict however there will be more feasting and merrymaking in the coming month as it leads up to Chinese New Year at the end of January. Yikes. I have to watch the wallet too. The ballooning is not just targeting the waist.

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.

It Has Been Found - The Tea Of The City

Tea. An Indian man needs his tea.

Everywhere I have worked, there has been a relentless pursuit of the optimal tea, in concordance with the trial and taste routine associated with determining the vendor of the afore-glorified tea product.

Back in Shaw Towers, the best tea was the Teh-C at Qiji. Mamma mia, it was a shot of goodness worthy of every deep pine-coloured drop. A shot because their regular portions were quite small but concentrated enough for the caffiene boost every office worker faced with a slovenly afternoon would need.

At Tanjong Pagar, it was a trying time before I settled on tea that was not exactly perfect but worth the 90 cents and great service. In fact, all I needed to do was raise my index finger upwards having caught the eye of the stallholder from yonder, and she knew that this Indian was thirsty.

Now at Raffles Place, I have yearned hard and long. It has been a month of testing and sometimes, fake belching, to find the ONE. Well, two. I get teh halia from Golden Shoe, a spicy, slightly sugary mix of milk tea and ginger. And today, I am pleased to announce I have encountered high quality Teh-C at a not-so great price. Oklah, $1.20 to take away. It's from Mirana Cake Shop, which happens to sell chap-fan and hot drinks. It's at the OUB underground towards Raffles Place MRT. Not too far away for the occassional 4pm sneaks out of the office to get refreshment. Happiness around the corner.

Just yesterday, a friend lamented at her dastardly state of Lipton consumption. She can't stand it and need to find comfort in a styrofoam cup in the Suntec area. Any ideas before insanity sets in?

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.

Dunlop Street Snaps & Zsofi's Tapas Delights

It's always good to shake things up a bit, break off from the routine. Most people my age quite likely live a "wake up - go to work - go home" life most of the week. Take a detour man, it'll do you some good.

I ended up at Dunlop Street on the shophouse fringes of Little India. The street is a surprise. I started at Serangoon Road and cross over at the lights - indoctrinated procedure for Singaporeans - while throngs of others simply dodged traffic in a lane by lane approach to jaywalking. No chicken would make it across this road safely.

Dunlop Street has shops galore, filled with Indian spices, saris, cloth, religious ornaments, food, electronics, mobile phones, CDs, VCDs, DVDs and many other things. Komala vegetable market was a sight to behold. All the greens and beans an Indian chef would need lay in crates displayed across one side of a no-signal junction. Beautiful.

Further down, lay one reason why Dunlop Street shot back to fame - The Prince of Wales. Pub and backpackers' inn, the POW, as its term of endearment goes, has given a interesting lifeline to the area. Backpackers from all over now stay in the area and more such hostels have opened up to cater for the budget traveller who doesn't mind sharing. The angmohs trawling the street are an interesting contrast to the overwhelming number of Indian and Bangladeshi workers who do the same.

Opposite the POW lay my endpoint. Zsofi, a tapas bar, opened about a month ago and Ashlynn, recommended meeting up there with Farah (author from previous post) and Ravi. I got there early and was the only one being served at the first floor bar. Armed with my Ixus and not much else to do with my hands, I went around snapping. Soon, company arrived and we moved upstairs to the 2nd floor rooftop, a horizontal plane shared by all the adjoining shophouses, partitioned only by low walls and zinc roofing. How cool. Thankfully, the weather was too. Next door, Filipino ladies were singing real bad karaoke. We beared with their rants and made good conversation.

Turns out that down the street towards Jalan Besar, many Thai massage parlours had come to be. They, ahem, provided reasonably priced services. I think the prophylactics come per entry.

Well, go check out Zsofi. You get a small plate of excellently crafted tapas item for each alkie ordered. And the quality of the produce is amazing. Seriously, the chicken wings, prawns, mushrooms, salad, potato frittata, sundried tomatoes, tomato poppers and salad will have you raving (They've got a really experienced chef apparently). Perhaps even ordering larger portions from the menu. The alkie is cheap too, a pint of Heiny from the tap is $10, no taxes. Check out Zsofi's online presence at www.tapasbar.com.sg. Go make an evening, and a friend or two, at the place.

Got home way past midnight, too tired but happy.

Shaking Things Up

In yoga class, there are times when I discover myself shaking in certain poses. The instructors that notice will say that the shaking is a good thing - it means the body is adapting, adjusting to uncomfortable change. And change is mostly good.

At work, in general, I have discovered that people generally don't like change. They sit in a comfort zone of preset tasks, abilities and responsibilities. Getting paid for routine is a safe situation I guess but when the daily grind is disrupted, people start to panic, or perhaps, raise some hell, or at least make phone calls.

Then there is me. I have a job to do which includes cutting cost and effort when I see fit. No point duplicating the pain when it could be avoided. Better yet, when it would cost the company more money. So that's one of the things I do on this not-so-clean slate of a job. History is something hard to forget. So why bother. Let's appreciate the work done, and move on the best way forward. Tension or otherwise.

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.