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.

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.

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.

Zack And Miri Make A Porno

Need some insane humour in your life? Go watch Zack and Miri Make A Porno. It's a film about finding a way out of the deepest trench in loserville in the middle of the coldest winter faced with seemingly insormountable odds, and finding something unexpected. The laughs started from the get-go. And paying close attention to the small conversational details. Haha. And the F-word flies around like bees on a honey farm.





Need more? Visit zackandmiri.com. Oh yes, stay for the credits!

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.

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.

The Ride Of Your Life

Now this is what I call dreaming big. "8 stories up and 120 meters long" kind of big.



I bet all the skateboarders dream like this - huge monster ramps to conquer because the only way forward is bigger and scarier for the high that comes with pride of conquest, ownership of feat and conviction that comes with hard work and wrecked knees, shoulders and skull.

We need skateboarders in gahmen. To inspire and fly.

Burn After Reading

I managed to catch the much lauded Coen brothers film Burn After Reading on Saturday. It's got some real high profile actors who come together really well in a film that is essentially about pride and paranoia. Without giving too much away, the film goes through the paces of how one misplaced item can transform the lives of a small group of individuals in an interconnectedness that goes beyond humour and into alarm. The story is pretty single-minded but plays upon the unique traits and desires of each character. You get to understand how each person thinks and hence plays out his or her life.

Then it gets funny. The funny is sort of like adding a bucket of KFC to traditional, homecooked dinner. Both strange funny and haha funny. Some people are afraid, others jump in and some don't care. But everybody experience has been twisted, forever. Maybe that isn't a great analogy. But it made you think eh. And the smell of fried chicken rekindled in the nether reaches of your nostrils, didn't it? Gotcha.

Go watch it for yourself. It's a little slow in the beginning but soon you'll be giggling (and grimacing) along nicely. It's NC16 and when you suddenly get shown why, you might think it should have been R rated. Just rock it baby. Hahaha.

And listen to the song that plays over the credits appears. It's so funny.

Burn After Reading official site

Future One

In the aF1ermath of the "most exciting to happen in Singapore this year", I have ten suggestions to make:

1. After the race is over, have a charity race where people race on the actual circuit in cars powered by alternative fuels - solar, water, human, human waste, whatever. All proceeds will go to offsetting the cost of oil.

2. Given the perfect storm of morning traffic incidents that took place on 26 Sep (F1 road diversion, heavy rain, trains not working on the EW line), the organisers should give people bicycles to congest the pavements and have boats from West Coast Park and Bedok Jetty to bring workers into the CBD.

3. Open up both sides of Anderson Bridge to give Hamilton a chance to overtake everyone ahead of him.

4. Put some colour on the grey boundary walls. Think advertising man.

5. Get Khong Guan, Arnold's Chicken, Eu Yang Sang, Yeo Hiap Seng, Lee Kum Kee, Mustafa and Hyflux premium spaces to advertise on. Like on UOB and OCBC buildings. Money shots baby.

6. Let Ah Bengs and Ah Lians live out their The Fast And The Furious fantasies by allowing Evo vs Type R races on the circuit as a build up to the actual F1 race.

7. Allow Kacang Puteh men to troll the grounds to sell-in the local peanut flavour.

8. Have a stylist decide what the PM should wear when he gives the trophy away.

9. Wouldn't it be cool if the F1 cars could do the ECP-AYE-KJE-BKE-SLE-CTE-PIE loop? At 300km/h no less.

10. Re-employ the Grid Girls as steel fence dancers, and replace local commentators with those that actually have a passion for the race and know what's going on beyond how beautiful everything is.

Hitler And The ERP

CW8, whoeever he is, has done a fantastic job supplying the subtitles on the following video that takes a unique Deutschlandish perspective on Singapore's system for controlling traffic congestion. Bravo!



(If it's offensive in German, I'm sorry. Any Nazi references, if any, are purely for entertainment and are not condoned. Seriously.)

080808, Toto, Olympics, NDP And Everything

So everything began on 080808.

Very much earlier in the day, I went to the Tanjong Pagar NTUC to purchase 60 sets of System 7 with money pooled from office colleagues. The lady behind the counter was unsure of what I asked for and shouted back '60 ah?' to let the entire queue gasp at my bad gambling habit.

When I got home at about 11pm, a little worse for wear from regular Friday activities in the office (though accentuated with the presence and subsequent frolic of a small rubber ball in the car park), I turned on the TV to watch the Olympic opening ceremony.

I think most people will share in my open-jawed expression of 'Oh My Goawd'. From the flickering number opening to the unfurling of the scroll to Li Ning running along the rooftop to light the Olympic flame (though the oversmiley little girl at the piano drove me nuts) was spectacular. And the fireworks, goodness. All over the shop. Only China could have pulled this off. And now the world knows for sure what the next superpower is capable of. (Am listening to BBC Radio 1 Pete Tong's show as I write this, and the host is asking listeners to put the Beijing show on as lighting effects for a dance party "It's like the biggest club in the world")

Then Saturday was spent watching men's gymnastics and swimming trials. I was jumping up and down for Korea's Park Tae Hwan and AU's Stephanie Rice sped towards the end of the pool to win their respective events. Australiasian Power seh!

At about 6pm I switched over to the National Day Parade, and for the first time I was half-hearted about watching it. It was a 'I've seen it all before' 'What else could happen?' kind of blase-ness. So I channel surfed between live Olympic coverage, live parade coverage and The History of Singapore documentary on Discovery (they showed Lee Kuan Yew crying in 1965 all over again, twice, and JBJ sellling The Hammer).

One thing about the NDP. The commentators were incredibly chatty and were describing everything they saw. "This event symbolises our resilience..." 'The lights represent our people's desire for excellence..." "The dance includes elements borrowed from our four main ethnic groups..." Come on, give us a break. Those lines seemed to be recycled from the previous ten NDPs. It really put me off. I liked the techno version of 'Shine For Singapore' though. The fireworks were, as usual, stupendous.

Too bad Beijing spoiled the market the night before.

And no I didn't kena the 8 million. Did you?

Post-Its & Note Fix

Ever heard of the marketing ploy where one company with one product line creates a similar product line to further cannibalise the market? For example, a shampoo manufacturer with 10% market share for one brand could launch brand two so that it ends up with 6% market share for both (that means an overall 12% market share). Voila, up 2%.

Today I went to get a pack of post-its from the stationery cupboard. Lo and behold, I found Note Fix. Looks alright and yes, sticky enough. And guess what? Note Fix is also made by 3M! Post-Its by 3M and now, Note Fix by 3M. The glue seems the same. Maybe they used 9% less sticky stuff on these. Probably also sold cheaper. I guess 3M has long found its 2%.

I didn't know Made in USA was Hecho En EUA in Spanish.

A Presidential Take On A Bob Dylan Classic

Make sure you watch everything in all the scenes, it's all hilarious!

Classic JibJab!

Get To It You Lazy Ass

Procrastination is not good. But the funny thing it is easy to fall back into the P-trap. I dunno why. Well maybe I do. The classic cause is laziness. When a job seems too overwhelming, it seems all too easy to pass the buck or tell oneself that starting can wait another day. The fear of venturing up the mountain of Start Now.

This reminds of the time I put off doing my A-Maths homework during the June holidays of 1990. I remember cramming 8 chapters of work into a similar number of exercise books (remember them!) in one week. (I had a mad teacher who made us do every question in the 10-year series. She was mad but we all came out the better for it.)

This few days I have slept late because of a particularly wordy project at work that I have been 'researching and reading' about for a while. Those are euphemisms for 'putting off'. So I had to get going on it on Sunday and yet wanted to watch the Euro finals early Monday morning and yet had to drag the tired feet and eyes to work for an abundance of regular to suffocate under the guise of happy employment. I managed to batch out the deliverables. 3/7. Now 4 more to go.

There was a poster I found in one of the hostel rooms in NTU. Just white text on a red background. "The secret of staying ahead is starting now." Can't deny the wisdom of a poster.

Ok, ok, ok. Get to it.

Germany Wins, Starhub Loses

Just watched the free screening of the Germany-Turkey game. And goodness, so many things have happened. Best of all, Germany won 3-2 in the Euro semi-final. Worst of all, there were 3, count em, 3 transmission breaks for the satellite feed. And we missed seeing 2 of the 5 goals scored - the spectacular Klose header and the subtle Sehmi slide through. Apparently, there was lightning at the stadium, according to BBC Sport. Well, what to do.

The repeat showed Angela Merkel jumping for joy at Klose's goal. That was very cute. Then the Turkish rep hugged the lady next to him when they equalised. But the winner from Lahm makes me smile. This young chap was in the right place at the right time, took the cross, had 1 second to stabilise and set up the shot, and made himself the hero for Deutschland. Greatness. And the smile on his face radiated across the universe I tell you.

Nice one Germany. Starhub, you better have a good explanation, you money-eyed corporates.