A Stranger at Home

National Anthems

2008-12-04T00:19:00.000+08:00

I've been on a bit of a national anthem kick recently. Call me bored, call me in need of inspiration, but there is something stirring when you hear some national anthems. That is their point, after all -- to stir some kind of emotion.

In order of stirring:
1) Hymn of the Soviet Union (Alas, no more, but bar NONE the best national anthem in itself)
2) The Internationale (the Chinese version)
3) The Marseillaise (France)
4) March of the Volunteers (China)
5) Shche ne vmerla Ukrainy (Ukraine)
6) Ha'Tikvah (Israel; you must listen to the recording on the Wikipedia page of concentration camp survivors singing it though.)
7) Flower of Scotland (well... you guess)

(Special mention for the Star Spangled Banner -- perhaps if I hadn't been too exposed to it it would stir more)

Of these, the top 5 are revolutionary anthems; more than that they are anthems of successful revolutions. It's true -- the revolutionaries get the best songs. I guess it makes up for the torture, execution and general misery before the revolution ends (successful or not).

Note that China gets two mentions -- that's because there's nothing like a massed choir for a national anthem, and no prizes for guessing who can put together the biggest choir. But the massed Red Army choir is both big and disciplined...

Those who faced the hordes roaring the Marseillaise for the first time must have been genuinely terrified. I mean, when you're outnumbered by two-to-one, it can't help hearing the other side shouting "we're coming to kill you, your sons and your wives!" or declaring (with all likelihood of being correct) that they will "water their furrows with your tainted blood" (free form translation, by the way).

I've especially been listening to Flower of Scotland, because it's short, pointed and moving. Especially when you see it on Youtube being sung at a rugby match, where there are these massive bastard mountains of men who look in desperate need of kilts and cabers with which to beat their opponents into the ground with, belting it out with real emotion. (Especially watch out for Scotland v England matches -- oh boy, do the players look like they feel something.)

Unlike most Scottish songs which revolve around some battle where the Scots got their behinds handed to them (viz Loch Lomond), this celebrates a (rare) and actual victory. And everyone loves a winner.

By contrast, the Scandinavian anthems sound terribly civilized. At least all the Youtube renditions I could find point that way...

So where does Majulah Singapura sit? Well, normally I'd say it's a bit anodyne, on par with the Scandinavian ones but perhaps more aspirational. After all, the Scandinavians have history behind them and had plenty of time to work out the "let's go kill everyone around us who has more money than we do" urges. (If I didn't respect their economic system more, I'd make snide comments about death vs taxes.)

I remember listening with horror to Majulah Singapura at the Singapore consulate in New York when Kishore Mahbubani forever drove me away from National Day functions by playing it and demanding a sing-along before food could be served.

But, but, but.

I heard it sung -- and sang along with tearing and chills down the spine -- with fervor at probably the last place you could still find some form of revolutionary fervor in Singapore. That's right, at the National Stadium on January 26, 2007 at about 7:55pm. Against our auld enemy, Malaysia, in the Tiger Cup semi-final. And just like the Scots at Bannockburn, we sent the bastards homeward. Tae think agin.

There's no better test of an anthem than its ability to move those who hear it -- and that day, Majulah Singapura did it, all colours flying.

Tears in my eyes

2008-08-03T22:23:00.002+08:00

There's nothing that brings tears to my eyes faster than hearing jets go overhead on afterburner. I was waiting at the workshop on Saturday while my new exhaust and air filter were being installed (and now the Impresser is just that much faster) when the display team went overhead for the National Day display.

The purity of sound as the air tears overheard -- I could hear it for days. Of course, I did, once, 7 years ago; and it was among the most reassuring sounds I've ever heard. Not one I'd have ever imagined hearing on a clear blue New York afternoon sky, but they were special circumstances.

But yesterday it was almost as reassuring hearing a sound like God zipping his fly; the volume of noise reaches down into the ape part of the brain and grabs the "That's some GOOD SHIT" lever.

Time Dilation is a bitch

2008-07-04T14:45:00.002+08:00

Ever noticed how time dilates when you are sick? It's been only 24 hours since I left work yesterday on MC, but it feels like at least a week's worth of diarrhea and fever dreams.

Not to mention the joy of nausea at the thought of milk.

If only time could slow down this much when I'm having fun...

Gatepost Discussions

2008-02-06T01:41:00.000+08:00

I have just had an hour long chat with housemates in front of Mugs, discussing the future of Singapore and what the gahmen can possibly do to help. Ignoring the fact that nothing significant can happen until the Old Man (an utter bastard, but without doubt OUR bastard) kicks off, I can only say that I have never been happier.

I've had these political discussions before in New York, with Singaporeans about Singapore, with Americans about America and with Singaporeans about America. I had never expected to be so glad to be able to talk in my country with my fellow citizens so plainly about the future of our country. The immediacy is excellent.

God I love the city

2007-11-01T12:23:00.000+08:00

Just got into the city today after a day and a half in chicago. I had no internet connection there: i'm actually blogging this through my phone as i'm too lazy to boot up my computer. What computers have become indeed...

So today i went shopping for a tie and requests from 2 people. I'm going to kill one of them. Because the tie turned into 4 shopping bags and one person's request was a bit the bulky...

Anyway have to wake up at 6am today so am going to turn in now. Later...

On the ground in Narita

2007-10-30T07:37:00.000+08:00

After the trials of dealing with a squeaky roller-bag (the price of going to Mustafa for your travel needs) and a moderately uncomfortable flight (thanks to the Japanese loving warmth) I am now on the ground in Narita.

Soon, I'm off to take a shower; for now I'm using as much of the 100 yen for 10 minutes Internet as I can. No free broadband?! I'm shocked and disheartened. But still, it's infinitely better than O'Hare will be.

Consider: I touched down at 7:40, have had two cigarettes, a 10 minute massage from a roller chair and a quad-shot Starbucks mocha. Soon there will be a shower and food. I will then feel vaguely human. Will I get this at O'Hare? Will I bollocks.

Maybe the Starbucks, if I'm lucky, and once I'm outside, the ciggies. Why oh why can't American airports be as comfortable as Asian ones?

Incidentally, the spread on a JPY/SGD exchange in Narita is quite stunning. 73/83! 10 yen on every SGD -- what a trade.

I am so looking forward to a shower... Flights leave you vaguely inhuman. Showers bring you back to humanity.

Later, when I reach Chicago.

Man Laws

2007-10-17T20:00:00.000+08:00

Apart from the fact that I don't recognize anyone other than Burt Reynolds, hilarious

That's some advanced crane...

2007-09-28T23:58:00.001+08:00

That's some advanced crane..., originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Fri 28/09/2007 17:48 28092007093 One Shenton Way is coming down. That's fine. But how the hell did they get those excavators up there to begin with?! No cranes, no nothing. Just 3 excavators.

A sudden double take

2007-09-28T12:56:00.001+08:00

A sudden double take, originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Fri 28/09/2007 12:52 28092007092 Perhaps the angle is a bit off here but when walking by this display piece, I had a sudden double take... Advertising what looks on first glance like a severed body part (called le grand sausage no less) doesn't seem likely to boost appetites. Well, not hetero guys' appetites at least.

Product Design

2007-09-27T16:56:00.000+08:00

I think this is the clearest example of TMI that you can find...

The power of bullshit

2007-08-30T02:09:00.000+08:00

Below is an essay I turned in for a Shakespeare class in university, perhaps one of the most best pieces of faux-erudition I have ever written, dug up from my archives. As I read through it, I grow more impressed with how I thoroughly absorbed the standard language used at the time in English departments at American universities.

If you're interested, read on -- otherwise I will summarize the best points for you:

1) Arviragus' hankering for blood can be regarded as a diversion from virginal to arterial blood.

2) Implying that just since Shakespeare wrote a play in 1598 about evil Welsh women, of course he'd remember that and not include them in this play

3) Desperately digging through all the historical plays in my Norton Shakespeare looking for some bullshit I could dig up about Welsh characteristics

4) Claiming that the Welsh in fact reverse colonized the British with their traditional virtues

5) Best of all -- citing the professor(!) as one of my sources. Had she balls I could not have carried them better.

---
The Significance of Wales in Cymbeline

A narrative thread pertaining to Wales grows evident through the latter half of Cymbeline. This thread is composed of several elements, for the most part laudatory, imbuing its component characters with what might be described as a military messianic nature. The salvation of Cymbeline and the capture of Lucius is conducted by "two boys, an old man twice a boy" (5.5, 57-8). These two boys possess a strong sense of valour, and in general this thread makes little attempt to incorporate any less than salubrious Welsh elements.

Nonetheless, such elements did compose part of the contemporary Welsh archetype. To welsh someone still implies a breach of trust, and a contemporary piece of slang in Shakespeare's time was a morgan, or counterfeited money. Wales was a relatively recently subjugated colony (in fact, the very first colony in the British Empire) and despite the recent Act of Union in 1536, memories of Welsh rebellion were still current. Indeed, Shakespeare had written in 1598 I Henry IV, which dealt largely with the rebellion of Owain Glyndwr and the seduction of Mortimer by Wales.

No such seduction occurs in Cymbeline as there are no Welsh women present. When Innogen enters Wales, she does so after having been transformed into a man. The issue of Welsh gender relations has been evaded by the deletion of all Welsh females, so much so that men keep house; or rather, keep cave. There seems to exist in Cymbeline's Welsh narrative trend some attempt at reducing any complications which might exist through an inclusion of women.
Why, then, does Shakespeare seem quite so determined to present Wales in such a good light in Cymbeline? To answer that question, we must examine how Shakespeare lauds Wales and Welshmen.

The traditional title of the heir to the throne of Her Majesty's United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has been since 1300 the "Prince of Wales." That the heir to the English throne should be named head of the Welsh nation is a sign of a special relationship which exists between these two nations. This relationship, which has at times been extraordinarily tense, is a thread which runs through British history. From Arthur onwards, Wales has in some sense been a font of Britishness, as the history of the Angevin, Lancastrian and Tudor lines are inextricably entwined with that of Wales. Richard II was the son of the most famous of the Princes of Wales, Edward the Black Prince. Henry V was born in Monmouth, while Henry VII had a Welsh grandfather. Of all English military leaders, the Black Prince and Henry V are perhaps best remembered.

The most common meme which flows through the Welsh thread in Cymbeline is that of virility. An old man and two boys rally British troops, save the King of Britain and capture the general of the Roman forces, all in the name of Britain. "Two boys, an old man twice a boy, a lane, / Preserved the Britons, was the Romans' bane," (5.5, 57-8) says Posthumus. The two princes are clearly represented here as warriors; indeed, Arviragus' Welsh name is Cadwal, or "Welsh warrior." By their victory over the Romans, the two princes seem to serve as a prefiguring link to the Black Prince, victor of Crécy and Poitiers, and Henry V, victor not only of Agincourt but over a rebellious Wales.

It is worth noting, though, that while these two princes are from Wales, they are not of Wales. They are in some sense colonists, though unwittingly so. One could argue that they have been forcibly transplanted into Wales; by that transplantation, they have usurped the place of the native Welshmen. Strikingly, there are no native-born Welshmen in this narrative; arguably this is because at this point in history, the British were Welsh (as the Saxon English had not yet arrived.) The colonial status of the princes is for now somewhat ambiguous.

Equally ambiguous seems their maturity. Posthumus describes them as "striplings … with faces fit for masks" (5.5, 19-21), implying an aura of immaturity. This battle is their first blooding, but they have willingly chosen to be blooded. "What a thing is't that I never did see man die, scarce ever looked on blood," (4.4, 35-6) says Arviragus. These phrases, while perhaps attributable to a common adolescent, implies a sense of harshness, but also a sense of anticipation. The battle, to the young princes, is an almost sexual encounter. It is an eagerly awaited rite of passage which denotes their transition to manhood. It hardly seems to be the "traditional" road to manhood, however.

The "traditional" road to manhood is through a sexual encounter, clearly delineating the boundary between adolescence and adulthood. By thus expressing potency, such an individual is accepted into the body of the patriarchy. However, in Wales, there is no woman upon whom the princes can be initiated. Though Innogen may present herself upon the princes' door, she is yet disguised as a page, and thus is removed from such an action. The valour of the princes, then, can be thought of as a sublimation of the sexual urge, which is then satisfied through victory over the opponent. Arviragus' hankering for blood can be regarded as a diversion from virginal to arterial blood. This is a meme of isolated masculinity, unmoderated by feminity, and while it may be useful for building warriors, it begs a question.

Why are there no women in Wales? Such a state of affairs seems almost barbaric. Men are reduced to, in Belarius' words, "keep[ing] house" (3.3, 1) and "play[ing] the cook and servant" (3.6, 30). Such a state of affairs might have seemed inverted to a contemporary audience, and most probably demeaning were they placed in such a situation. Yet Belarius, Guiderius and Arviragus seem entirely content with their rustic lives. The atmosphere generated seems to be one of domestic masculinity (and what an image that conjures!) where women need not apply. In part, it resembles that happy state which Leontes and Polixenes enjoy in The Winter's Tale prior to their marriage.

Why does Shakespeare appear so intent on eliminating women from this carefully crafted idyll? An answer may lie in the fate of Edmund Mortimer. In I Henry IV, Mortimer, Richard II's designated heir and one of the rebels against Henry IV, is captivated by Owain Glyndwr's daughter. So enchanted is he by her that he does not go to war; "Wales and a wife swallow him up" (Introduction to I Henry IV, 1152). Having previously painted this alluring picture of Welsh femininity and its effeminizing effects, Shakespeare may understandably be chary of introducing another such figure, which might distract from his two valiant princes.

It may then be that the complications arising from introducing a gendered dimension to the Welsh thread may have discouraged Shakespeare. However, it seems more likely that this absence is intended to emphasize the unsullied chivalry of the princes as well as the semi-barbaric nature of Wales. The two boyish warriors conjure images of Galahad and Parsifal, virginal warriors and great heroes both. It also seems to indicate a pre-civilized ideal masculinity, reinforced by their dwelling in a cave.

This pre-civilized meme seems appropriate in that Wales could be considered to be a highly marginal locale. Despite the Act of Union, despite the three centuries of English colonization, one could imagine that Welshmen were still in some sense the Celtic other, defiant yet at the encroaching English. However, such a picture of Welsh discontent is not raised. Instead, it is not the Welsh people who seem barbaric; it is Wales itself. The act of inhabitance forces an acceptance of a measure of barbarism, due to the environmental harshness.

Shakespeare thus propagates three major memes through the Welsh narrative thread; those of skill in battle, of isolated masculinity and of pre-civilisation. Combined, all three seem to form an appealing and interrelated composite picture. With the removal of the feminine figure, the princes can devote themselves to their battle; being raised in barbarism, they are both tougher and more callused than their British contemporaries. Why, then, choose Wales as the source? After all, could Scotland not have been a viable option for such warrior heroes?

Part of the answer may lie in the manner in which Fluellen is portrayed in Henry V. If Henry V follows the traditional Shakespearean form, where Act 3 contains the meat of development and the middle of Act 3 the most crucial scene (and one sees little reason not to do so,) it is very noticeable that Captain Fluellen is given equal time with Hal. In Act 3.3, the pivot scene of Act 3 and thus the play, Fluellen is the most active character among the four captains. These four captains are, of course, representatives of their respective nations. One might expect Gower the Englishman to take control of the situation. In fact, it is Fluellen the Welshman who commands the conversation and guides it.

This is fascinating; it is the Welshman here who takes the initiative and commands the composite British entity which is formed out of the four nations. The first colony has usurped leadership in the British empire, guiding the English. The subjects have, if not entirely become masters, at least are on equal footing with their former masters. This would seem to put the lie to the argument that Wales represents a conquered and dominated country, fit only to be exploited by its colonial masters.

In "A Brief History of Wales," Williams notes that in 1461, "the first full-blooded Welshman [became] part of the English aristocracy." By 1536, the date of the revised Act of Union, "any differences between Wales and England and between Welsh people and English people could not be found in the political arena" (Williams). Even more fascinating, Williams claims that "there had been growing ever so firmly a new feeling of Britishness was supplanting the old political and national boundaries and making possible the 'settling in' of Wales as part of what we can call 'The new Britain' ."

If Williams is correct, then the interpretation of Wales as an exploited space seems somewhat hollow. One might go so far as to claim that Wales was itself exploiting its erstwhile exploiters! Were Cymbeline a historical play, such an interpretation might be incorrect. After all, the changes which Williams notes began in the reign of Henry VI, but did not really begin to take effect till the reign of Henry VIII. Such a historical disparity would have to be observed, particularly in the treatment of Richard II, where the only part the Welsh play is to desert Richard.

Cymbeline, however, is not a historical play. It is a deliberate attempt to propagate memes, among them British inheritance of Empire from Rome and rejection of insularity in favour of a more worldly approach. The narrative threads which Shakespeare weaves into this purple toga are modified to fit the imperatives of the overall intent. Thus Shakespeare can manipulate his various previous interpretations of Welsh characters in order to present those aspects which seem most effective.

I would argue that the significance of Wales in Cymbeline is that of a harmonious resolution of a colonial dilemma. Wales was the first of colonies, and thus could have been continually exploited with little recourse but rebellion. Indeed, such was the case through the Lancastrian line. After that initial phase of exploitation, however, a phase of acclimatisation begins, where the urge to rebel is slowly bled away, though no power is bestowed upon the Welsh. Finally, a phase of incorporation begins, where the Welsh are absorbed into Britain through a process of devolution of power. Once incorporation has finished, the former colony has itself become a coloniser, allied to its former masters though different.

This would lend a new spin to the saving of Cymbeline by Belarius et al; the former enemies have become loyal allies. It would also explain the lack of Welshmen throughout the text; in a sense there are no longer any Welshmen, merely Britons. The memes which Shakespeare implants through the narrative might then reflect a sense of affirmation of the new role of the Welsh as fellow colonisers and unifiers. Indeed, the heirs to the British throne are Welsh; perhaps this might be a portent of the future of Britain? As Rome made way for Britain, perhaps England may make way for Wales? Or by extension, other dominions?

Thus I believe that Shakespeare presents in Cymbeline a rosy picture of Wales as an optimistic sign for colonialism. By using the example of contemporary Welshmen, he could reinforce the idea of Empire by showing that former subjects have become equals in the unification of Britain and the spread of colonialism. To do this, however, he had to present Wales in as flattering a light as possible given his maintenance of multiple threads. This necessitated a slimming of the role which Wales was to play so as to hone its message. Thus gender issues, which would have added a new dimension of complexity, were simply ignored. Wales therefore plays an important supporting role in the justification of the spread of the British Empire, and by corollary, colonialism.

So how do you pot THIS?

2007-08-28T07:58:00.001+08:00

So how do you pot THIS?, originally uploaded by Kaishun.

7:51 PM Monday, 27 August, 2007 27082007089 A slightly difficult 9-ball problem encountered last night. Hmm....

The view from Mount Faber

2007-08-28T07:56:00.001+08:00

The view from Mount Faber, originally uploaded by Kaishun.

5:18 PM Saturday, 25 August, 2007 25082007088 Was at Mount Faber on Saturday and took this snap of Sentosa. It is a surprisingly lovely view. Unfortunately all this shot does is show off the inadequacies of the N95 camera... 5 megapixels my smelly backside.

A night of Wii

2007-08-28T07:54:00.001+08:00

A night of Wii, originally uploaded by Kaishun.

11:56 PM Friday, 24 August, 2007 24082007087 Too easy to make Wii jokes. Too too easy. But still, had a nice night witk AK and Trace playing Wii Tennis and other vaguely sport-like games. Nice except for breaking AK's tennis racket add-on -- who knew that overhand smashes in the dark might end up connecting with chairs?

The dreaded throat disease...

2007-08-23T00:36:00.000+08:00

Actually sounds surprisingly intelligible when restricted to a particular domain.

Or do all commentators sound like this?

Masterpieces of Science Fiction

2007-08-20T03:55:00.001+08:00

Masterpieces of Science Fiction, originally uploaded by Kaishun.

9:48 PM Wednesday, 15 August, 2007 15082007079 Notice who the editor is. Although the stories do actually look decent and the authors are the right authors, I wouldn't trust Orson Scott Card to comment on anything to do with science fiction. One good book does not cancel out the dreck he's produced since then.Give me someone like Iain Banks, Ken MacLeod, Charles Stross, John Varley, Vernor Vinge, or best of all Neal Stephenson as an editor of masterpieces and I'll read it. Orson Scott Card -- pfeh.

Just another drive-by blogging

2007-08-19T19:52:00.000+08:00

Been away for a while, probably for a little longer after this.

In the mean time --

One way to impress creative directors.

Blue is the Colour

2007-05-20T23:58:00.000+08:00

Chelsea 1, Manchester United 0.

Teams that wear blue, WIN.

Sue and Kevin

2007-05-11T00:18:00.000+08:00

Compare and Contrast.

Such politeness from one, such politeness from the other.

A lovely old Alfa

2007-05-11T00:10:00.000+08:00

This was an old Alfa, either a 1750 or a 2000 that I saw in the Bras Basah complex carpark.

Beautifully maintained, and a hell of a goer -- 110mph in 1970 is pretty damn decent for a car like that.

Looking more normal...

2007-05-10T22:10:00.001+08:00

Looking more normal...
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Thu 10/05/2007 22:03 10052007065 Yep, more normal. Fear the armlock!

Shy Joe and Rachelle

2007-05-10T22:07:00.001+08:00

Shy Joe and Rachelle
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Thu 10/05/2007 22:04 10052007066 Such a sweet couple...

Soviet Music

2007-05-08T01:36:00.000+08:00

They may have been as much bastard oppressors as the Nazis they fought but they certainly had the best music.

Possibly the greatest national anthem ever written, so good that the Russian Republic could not give it up, Hymn of the Soviet Union

The anthem of the Great Patriotic War, The Sacred War

The warning of the gathering storm, Arise, Ye Russian People

And last, but not least, The Internationale

Why?! Why?!

2007-05-02T11:17:00.000+08:00

WHY, CHELSEA?! WHY DIDN'T YOU WIN?!

Oh well, when it came to penalties, I was pretty sure that we were out.

Bastards.

How to scare 回春

2007-04-27T22:56:00.000+08:00

回春：What crawled up your butt and died today?
Pat: Wanna join it?

And she would follow through...

Migraines they are a bitch

2007-04-26T17:04:00.001+08:00

Yes they are.

280SLC vs 315

2007-04-24T02:28:00.000+08:00

Lorelei next to a car of the same age -- a BMW 315. 4 stroke 1.6 engine, so not really a fair comparison, but still... Thanks to parallax, Lorelei looks shorter in the second shot, but is probably about a foot or so longer.

Oh, and the 315 was not in the best of shape, with a bit of surface rust and all.

But I bet it's a fun car to drive and a bit more nippy at low speeds.

Power Grid!

2007-04-24T02:23:00.001+08:00

Power Grid!
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

3:32 AM Sunday, 22 April, 2007 22042007041 Pat, Kevin and Jo after playing a round of Power Grid, one of the more brilliant board games out there. Highly recommended if you want to waste a couple of hours learning how to corner resource markets...

Lorelei at Seletar Airport

2007-04-24T02:09:00.000+08:00

A nice little photoset of Lorelei at Seletar Airport. Amazingly the dust at this resolution doesn't show up -- after the rain she was damned dusty.
I still love how classic the lines are, although I still think that the rear window should be the windshield...

Ten-jyaku Sushi

2007-04-23T21:16:00.001+08:00

Ten-jyaku Sushi
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Mon 23/04/2007 21:11 23042007054 Had a very satisfying dinner tonight. The sushi was excellent for Singapore and good for Tokyo. Overall decently priced for the quality. Best of all the restaurant is very peaceful which made dinner that much more destressing. Very much recommended.

Marutama Ramen

2007-04-19T14:56:00.001+08:00

Marutama Ramen
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Wed 18/04/2007 21:28 18042007040 This is where we had dinner. It's on the third floor of Central, and serves genuinely authentic (as opposed to fake authentic) ramen. Very different from most ramen restaurants as it uses a chicken based soup stock.

Dinner with Nelson

2007-04-19T14:52:00.001+08:00

Dinner with Nelson
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Wed 18/04/2007 20:24 18042007039 Had dinner with Nelson last night. Hadn't seen him in a while. We talked about his trip to Shanghai. As you can see, he's adopted some hygienic habits from the mainlanders.

Ikea Boy

2007-04-16T03:30:00.000+08:00

Ah, the joys of a N95. Camera on, USB in, hey presto blog post that has some vaguely interesting content which is overshadowed by the pictures in the background. Yes, to me pictures aren't really content, they're fluff. I know, I know, but I'm a dinosaur.

Oh, my room by the way. Notice how everything except for the computer (and the books) are Ikea. Much more Ikea is on the way in the next few months, alas. I am and always have been Ikea Boy

Capital Towers, yes it does.

2007-04-16T02:21:00.001+08:00

Capital Tower
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

6:11 PM Sunday, 15 April, 2007 15042007029

A view from my car-park. I like how Capital Tower looms threateningly over the viewer, with dark clouds gathering. Given the law firm and investment firm it houses, quite appropriate, actually. Also note how the CPF building looks subservient to Capital Tower.

Lorelei at rest

2007-04-16T02:19:00.001+08:00

Lorelei at rest
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

6:08 PM Sunday, 15 April, 2007 15042007028

Shiny, isn't she? And this is before the wax and polish. Lorelei before taking her off to get cleaned and polished. I do so love her long straight lines. I wish the greenhouse was a little more streamlined though.

Classic Volvo

2007-04-16T02:09:00.005+08:00

Classic Volvo 164 front eyelevel 3/4 view
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Classic Volvo 164 front 3/4 view
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Classic Volvo rear 3/4 view
Originally uploaded by Kaishun

I took Lorelei in to JB today to get a wax and polish, and parked at the hotel next to the car-wash was this nicely maintained Volvo 164. Not perfect -- there was some chipping on the chrome and a very minor bit of rust under the front bumper. But certainly nice enough for a wedding car.

Not quite sure what's going on with the Swedish connection recently. It must be the smell of new Ikea wood surrounding me.

Also, Lifeblog's upload capabilities suck eggs when trying to put more than one picture in a post.

Last Supper for the visitors

2007-04-15T15:10:00.001+08:00

Last Supper for the visitors
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

11:39 PM Saturday, 14 April, 2007 14042007026 Jo's part of a cycling group called Warm Showers and so every month or so a group of strange cyclists will traipse into the apartment en route to some other destination. This is Gene and Jess's last supper in Singapore (no prizes for guessing who Gene and Jess are.)

Lorelei out hunting

2007-04-14T21:49:00.001+08:00

Lorelei out hunting
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Sat 14/04/2007 17:39 14042007022 Just got her back today after a week. Plenty of good things updated like actually having running lights. Went out hunting today. Hunting what? I'm not sure except that the chase is more fun than the catch.

What a difference one letter makes

2007-04-14T21:44:00.001+08:00

What a difference one letter makes
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Sat 14/04/2007 21:36 14042007025 If only the stuff Gustaf sells were that cheap... Perhaps their hourly billing rate might be that low.

Emergency Socks

2007-04-12T19:26:00.001+08:00

Emergency Socks
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Thu 12/04/2007 19:19 12042007016 Going to a bowling alley wearing sandals results in emergency socks. This lifeblog thing has done wonders for my update frequency and thumb size.

More visitors and lifeblogging

2007-04-12T01:00:00.001+08:00

More visitors and lifeblogging
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

Thu 12/04/2007 00:37 12042007011 So apparently I can send in lifeblog entries through the phone just by agreeing to pay Singtel a ridiculous per byte fee. Ridiculous as in bad ridiculous. Oh, and jo has more visitors over. Check out the photo.

Testing all LifeBlogs

2007-04-11T22:18:00.001+08:00

Testing all LifeBlogs
Originally uploaded by Kaishun.

2:51 PM Wednesday, 11 April, 2007 11042007009 I got an N95 yesterday and have decided to try setting up the lifeblog to see how the whole mobile blogging thing goes. Let's see whether this makes it through to Blogger...

Stunningly... Cool...

2007-03-22T01:29:00.000+08:00

Yes, it's only curricula and without a competent teacher to evoke the appropriate information there's only so much you can get to but still.

STUNNINGLY... COOL.

Why can't Alma Mater do something like that, instead of leaving it to the Boston crowd?

Found on the fringe

2007-03-21T23:40:00.000+08:00

Ah the joy of finding someone you'd known of vaguely on the net. The talented and no doubt lovely proprietor of the Home of the Underdogs has a blog! I've been a fan of HotU for what seems like aeons now -- I'm just amazed that it's 10 years old this year. How many sites can claim that?

Since a lot of cool people are doing it and (for the same reason as the cool person) it looks cool, I present my Visual DNA below. Alas, filled with less than amusing comments on why these particular items.

I wish I had a bit more time to explore just why these personality test results, but I wonder if it's related to this, my most favourite social psychology journal article...

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

英漢字

2007-01-30T14:48:00.000+08:00

A calligrapher named Tomomi Kunishige has some fairly interesting calligraphy using English to write the kanji equivalent. She calls it Ee-kanji (a riff on good/English characters). Quite cool.

Singapore 6, Malaysia 5

2007-01-28T16:54:00.001+08:00

I'll upload the photos tomorrow when I can sync my phone. Went last night to see the Singapore-Malaysia game, which came down to penalties. Incredible atmosphere -- the entire stadium was packed solid.

Later I'll show you the piccies.

Mobile Phone Cameras

2007-01-26T17:12:00.000+08:00

Hmmm, camera resolution on this phone is crap. See below.

Oh well.

Desktop Monitors

2007-01-26T16:58:00.000+08:00

Just testing out how well the Bluetooth connection I've set up with the new laptop is.

So far, so good.

Dragging and dropping the mobile phone photos doesn't seem to work very well here. Oh well. Wooha for technology.

Laptop is an IBM T60 Core2Duo and the monitor is a loaner Dell 24 inch. Time to upgrade my monitors...

Wooha

2007-01-23T11:44:00.001+08:00

Finally, I have switched to the new Blogger. Let's see how much more often I update now. Ha.

Blogger Weirdness

2006-12-20T12:00:00.000+08:00

Can't switch to new Blogger. Posts not going through. Damn you, Google.

まだ東京。。。

2006-12-17T09:26:00.000+08:00

Tokyo again, after a very good trip to New York. The new New York office is amazing, considering what the office was like when I first showed up. I didn't see everyone in New York, missing Dov, Peatey and Ajay, but managed to see Salman who I haven't seen for nearly 4 years.

Was absolutely wiped out when I got to the hotel last night. Went to sleep at 8pm, which was probably a mistake -- was up bright and early at 7:30am. I think, though. that this may not be such a bad thing -- I do remember feeling incredibly refreshed when I got up. Let's see how the rest of the day goes.

Going to be meeting Mari, Michiru and Dave over the next couple of days -- that should be fun. This trip will basically be decompressing and catching up on work I didn't get done in New York -- there's a LOT more wireless networks here now. Otherwise I wouldn't be able to be posting this...

Anyway, off to lunch soon. Be good.

Some things you just can't expense

2006-12-15T14:40:00.000+08:00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0OTgb3KO7QM

Oh, and it's been a great trip so far. On the plane to Tokyo in 10 hours time.

Not at home

2006-12-13T12:46:00.000+08:00

Been an interesting trip so far. Saturday I had brunch with Yish, Julia, Duncan and Amanda at an Austrian brunch place and met up with Shan for dinner. Sunday I drove up to Old Lyme in Connecticut to visit Rich, then drove back down to Fairfield to see Ian. Monday I drove to Princeton to visit Kim, and then to Philly to see Salman, and finally back up to Flushing to stay with Duncan. So far, the mileage on the Mustang is getting a bit of a workout.

Oh, and I got a speeding ticket. Oh well. 85mph in a 65 zone. Just as well they didn't catch me on the way up when I was doing 100-120.

From an old classmate's computer

2006-12-12T07:02:00.000+08:00

Long trip out to New York this time. Plenty to talk about, especially about the Mustang convertible I rented. Zoom zoom!

Writing this from an old classmate's computer, from ISS. Catch up later with you all.

Fragrant Harbour

2006-11-05T23:22:00.000+08:00

In the fragrant harbour at the moment, about to have a (very) early night.

Played mahjong for 10 hours in a mahjong club with Pat and Kin Tun last night -- as Kin Tun said, HKers play mahjong in style.

Lots of thoughts about this place -- more than I really feel like writing down right now. But it is quite a stunning place, bits reminding me of Tokyo and New York combined. It's like walking through a New York comprised solely of Mott St.

Oh, and the food is _excellent_. The humblest diner humbles the best restaurant in New York.

On the way to Hong Kong

2006-11-04T06:32:00.000+08:00

Right.

Burnt out.

Need vacation badly.

Ten minutes to boarding.

Eight days of eat/sleep.

No nirvana ever beckoned more alluringly.

Definitely blogging again before leaving Hong Kong.

As true now as then

2006-09-25T06:33:00.001+08:00

I remember looking for normality in September 2001.

I didn't start watching the Daily Show again until 2003 when I was in Chicago with a TV. But Jon Stewart said this then and it's as true now as it was then.

As true now as then

2006-09-25T06:33:00.000+08:00

The chestnut re-roasted

2006-07-22T04:45:00.001+08:00

The Canon is such a overplayed piece that everytime you hear it, you twitch a little. But this version is leetle different. And of course, the original arrangement.

Sometimes

2006-07-02T21:12:00.000+08:00

And if at times I glance up at the giants above and shake my head, dreaming of feeling the words come effortlessly, still I trudge, searching for satori. The words do not come easily; they do not come, then like the sudden darkening of the sky, they pour down indiscriminately, uneditable in their flow, constantly pouring and almost always into the sewer. They almost never come when I have pen to hand or keyboard to finger; they come with suddenness when I should be doing things which let me pay for life and trapped as if I was on the street with no umbrella, all I can do is keep pressing forward to my destination, letting the words soak through me, eventually to dry up.

I wish I could have shared this feeling with her, but the sight of her constricted me until that last day when I knew that I had no other choice but to burst into full persuasive flow and twist her denials around to acceptance. For that moment on that day, the words poured down through me, trying to soak a seed planted in the Sahara to germination. And failed.

Well, Now We Know The Truth

2006-07-01T05:48:00.000+08:00

I always suspected something like this.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3934788900154749704

Die. Laughing.

2006-06-28T05:53:00.000+08:00

Now sometimes life doesn't quite go your way...

Compare and Contrast

2006-06-28T05:16:00.000+08:00

Fernando Torres

Rooney

Zidane

Ronaldo

Ronaldinho

Maradona

For bonus comparisons,

Ronaldinho vs Zidane

Ronaldinho's Nike commercial, and Ronaldo's response

So says Yeito

2006-06-22T05:05:00.000+08:00

So what's your Brazil name?

http://www.minimalsworld.net/BrazilName/brazilian.shtml

Beckenbauer!

2006-06-20T08:38:00.000+08:00

Last post for today:

Beckenbauer!

Litany for Dictatorships

2006-06-20T07:40:00.000+08:00

Written in 1935. As relevant today as ever. Dictatorship recognizes no directions, left or right.

Damn them. DAMN them.

And damn all those who use another dictatorship as an excuse to impose their own, who cloak their tyranny under the betrayed flag of democracy.

===

Litany for Dictatorships

by Stephen Vincent Benet, first published in 1935

For all those beaten, for the broken heads,
The fosterless, the simple, the oppressed,
The ghosts in the burning city of our time...

For those taken in rapid cars to the house and beaten
By the skillful boys with the rubber fists,
-Held down and beaten, the table cutting the loins
Or kicked in the groin and left, with the muscles jerking
Like a headless hen's on the floor of the slaughter-house
While they brought the next man in with his white eyes staring.
For those who still said "Red Front" or "God save the Crown!"
And for those who were not courageous
But were beaten nevertheless.
For those who spit out the bloody stumps of their teeth
Quietly in the hall,
Sleep well on stone or iron, watch for the time
And kill the guard in the privy before they die,
Those with the deep-socketed eyes and the lamp burning.

For those who carry the scars, who walk lame - for those
Whose nameless graves are made in the prison-yard
And the earth smoothed back before the morning and the lime scattered.

For those slain at once.
For those living through the months and years
Enduring, watching, hoping, going each day
To the work or the queue for meat or the secret club,
Living meanwhile, begetting children, smuggling guns,
And found and killed at the end like rats in a drain.

For those escaping
Incredibly into exile and wandering there.
For those who live in the small rooms of foreign cities
And who yet think of the country, the long green grass,
The childhood voices, the language, the way wind smelt then,
The shape of rooms, the coffee drunk at the table,
The talk with friends, the loved city, the waiter's face,
The gravestones, with the name, where they will not lie
Nor in any of that earth.
Their children are strangers.

For those who planned and were leaders and were beaten
And for those, humble and stupid, who had no plan
But were denounced, but were angry, but told a joke,
But could not explain, but were sent away to the camp,
But had their bodies shipped back in the sealed coffins,
"Died of pneumonia." "Died trying to escape."

For those growers of wheat who were shot by their own wheat-stacks,
For those growers of bread who were sent to the ice-locked wastes.
And their flesh remembers the fields.

For those denounced by their smug, horrible children
For a peppermint-star and the praise of the Perfect State,
For all those strangled, gelded or merely starved
To make perfect states; for the priest hanged in his cassock,
The Jew with his chest crushed in and his eyes dying,
The revolutionist lynched by the private guards
To make perfect states, in the names of the perfect states.

For those betrayed by the neigbours they shook hands with
And for the traitors, sitting in the hard chair
With the loose sweat crawling their hair and their fingers restless
As they tell the street and the house and the man's name.
And for those sitting at the table in the house
With the lamp lit and the plates and the smell of food,
Talking so quietly; when they hear the cars
And the knock at the door, and they look at each other quickly
And the woman goes to the door with a stiff face,
Smoothing her dress.
"We are all good citizens here. We believe in the Perfect State."

And that was the last time Tony or Karl or Shorty came to the house
And the family was liquidated later.
It was the last time.
We heard the shots in the night
But nobody knew next day what the trouble was
And a man must go to his work.
So I didn't see him
For three days, then, and me near out of my mind
And all the patrols on the streets with their dirty guns
And when he came back, he looked drunk, and the blood was on him.

For the women who mourn their dead in the secret night,
For the children taught to keep quiet, the old children,
The children spat-on at school.
For the wrecked laboratory,
The gutted house, the dunged picture, the pissed-in well
The naked corpse of Knowledge flung in the square
And no man lifting a hand and no man speaking.

For the cold of the pistol-butt and the bullet's heat,
For the ropes that choke, the manacles that bind,
The huge voice, metal, that lies from a thousand tubes
And the stuttering machine-gun that answers all.

For the man crucified on the crossed machine guns
Without name, without ressurection, without stars,
His dark head heavy with death and his flesh long sour
With the smell of his many prisons - John Smith, John Doe,
John Nobody - oh, crack your mind for his name!
Faceless as water, naked as the dust,
Dishonored as the earth the gas-shells poison
And barbarous with portent.
This is he.
This is the man they ate at the green table
Putting their gloves on ere they touched the meat.
This is the fruit of war, the fruit of peace,
The ripeness of invention, the new lamb,
The answer to the wisdom of the wise.
And still he hangs, and still he will not die
And still, on the steel city of our years
The light falls and the terrible blood streams down.

We thought we were done with these things but we were wrong.
We thought, because we had power, we had wisdom.
We thought the long train would run to the end of Time.
We thought the light would increase.
Now the long train stands derailed and the bandits loot it.
Now the boar and the asp have power in our time.
Now the night rolls back on the West and the night is solid.
Our fathers and ourselves sowed dragon's teeth.

Our children know and suffer the armed men.

Yet another archival dredging

2006-06-20T07:06:00.000+08:00

I need to re-start my writing.

=====
Date: Tue, 3 Apr 2001 04:46:16 -0400 (EDT)

Setup: I'm an agnostic, a former rabidly anti-evangelical who was that way thanks to conversions in the family. (I've mellowed with age and no longer feel compelled to snarl/snap at evangelicals) Last April I visited my cousins and my auntie in Houston, who are very evangelical and who I love very much but who test the limits of my mellowing.

(They took me to church on Sunday, for one. That was a real teeth clencher, but all for the family, hey?)

Since young I've been unable to eat crustaceans without flinching. Molluscs, fine, raw oysters even. But not crabs/lobsters/prawns. Until I went to the Army, I would refuse to eat a single mobile crustacean. I mean a single. I didn't eat one unless by accident, and then would stop and pick through every single liftable thing on my plate until I had winnowed out every single crustacean. Yes, I was a terribly picky eater.

(One day in boot camp, after a long, long day's work with lack of sleep and physical work starting to tell, I went to the messhall for dinner. The cooks plopped onto my messtray perhaps one of the most disgusting dishes I ever ate in the Army -- prawns and hairy gourd (as bad as it sounds.) So there I was, with a bone-deep weariness that you have to experience to understand, and this glop of sticky stuff in front of me. I had eighteen years of avoidance behind me. And I stared at the plate for all of fifteen seconds before I realised that there really was no other viable way out. That's then enlightenment struck, and I realised that there is no facet of the human psyche that is not modifiable, given enough pressure. That and the garbage point story (but that's another story))

Well, April is crawfish season, and the first day I landed there, there was enough talk and anticipation among my cousins that I knew what was going to come and had plenty of time to steel myself for it.

I just didn't know how bad it would be.

Why didn't I speak up and say I didn't like shellfish, you say? Well, since I saw that all my relatives were so hyped up about it, I felt that I just couldn't let them not have their five pounds of cockroach-of-the-sea -- and that after I'd been in the army, there was really no excuse for me, since I knew that I was able to make myself physically eat the things.

We'd already had lunch, and so being Chinese and prone to idle gluttony, we wandered over to the nearby foodcourt and sat down for our second round. My cousin's husband drifted over to the crawfish stall (I still remember it being called Crawfish Beignets) and ordered four pounds of crawfish etouffee.

So I'm sitting there chatting with my cousins, when back comes my cousin's husband with this opaque garbage bag full of HUGE. RED. COCKROACHES. He upends the bag over the table (which is covered with this plastic tablecloth/garbage bag) and in front of me, in all their chitinous glory, are about 100. HUGE. RED. COCKROACHES.

And I smile, grin at my cousins, and dig in, picking up those wet -- fresh from the boiler, no less -- clawed things, snapping their tails off with this sickening hollow crack, breaking the tails in half, like with their bigger cousins (makeitstopmakeitstop), yanking out the meat, stripping off the digestive tract and popping the meat into my mouth. And chewing. And chewing.

Then after each tail is done, cracking open the little claws, all the while convinced that they're going to come to life and snip off my fingers, breaking the body, sucking the juice out of the gills (right above the little once-scurrying legs), getting massive, massive chili burn.

And smiling. And smiling.

And talking. And talking.

And getting up twice to go to the toilet, splash water on my face, wash my hands, stare at myself in the mirror, feel the little cockroaches screaming "I WANT OUT OF HERE!!!! LET ME OUT OF HERE!!! YOU BASTARD, WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!", wiping my mouth, and diving back into the fray.

And eating about four pounds of crawfish myself (seconds, thirds even, with none of my cousins suspecting a thing.)

So... that's the crawfish part of the anecdote.

Later that night, I get into a conversion argument with my other cousin. He and I sit down for hours, from ten till three in the morning, debating (a useless thing for me to do, but he wouldn't stop), discussing, evading. Until finally, since I have a flight the next day, I make him a promise to cut the flow off (besides, he got uncomfortably close when we started discussing my pride, but that's another story too.)

I promise him, with all my heart, that I'll sit that night, and pray. Pray and try with an open mind to see if I can accept Jesus as my personal saviour. I do this too because I'm myself wondering -- the seed of doubt planted well, but would it wither?

So after he's gone back, I sit down and think. And pray. And think and pray. And open up whatever heart I can, and then, out of the blue comes my answer, a vision if you will. I'm still wondering if it's a touch of the divine, incidentally, or just my subconscious ticking over. And the answer is:

A crawfish.

A Platonic crawfish etouffe.

And at that point, I know what has been revealed to me.

So the next morning, I go and talk to my cousin. And I tell him that I tried, I really did; and that I had a vision. And that vision was a crawfish.

And as expected, he cracks up laughing -- until I tell him my hidden secret; that I probably ate more shellfish yesterday that I had in literally my entire life. That I hate, abhor, can't tolerate the sight or smell of shellfish (note that I say nothing about the taste). And that to come to him and embrace his brand of Christianity would be exactly in spirit -- exactly! -- the same sacrifice to family happiness that I'd made yesterday.

Of course, it was a lot greater a sacrifice, since I couldn't make it.

I could stomach some parts -- some parts were surprisingly sweet -- but the whole was completely indigestible and entirely against my nature to approach, yet alone embrace. Note that this does not at any point preclude a conversion, but it would require such a deep destruction of my mental makeup that I don't think that whatever converted would be "me".

Neither he nor any other members of my family had realised that I was in the least bit malcontented with eating crawfish. I was actually quite proud of that, since it showed me that I could still be cheerfully inscrutable even among people who know me reasonably well.

And apart from a few other inconsequential things, that's pretty much it in its cliche ridden, rambling glory. If nothing else, it shows that the divine and I have a good relationship if it can grant me visions with this perfect -- divine, even! -- irony.
=====

Strange Dreams

2006-06-20T06:50:00.000+08:00

A blast from the past:

=====
Date: Fri, 24 Oct 2003 09:25:46 -0400 (EDT)
So this morning I woke up after having one of the most vivid dreams I've ever had -- and you lucky people are going to have to plow through the strange strange visions I had this morning. I suppose the writing could do with some kind of structure instead of being a single long run-on paragraph but it was written with my eyes shut so that I wouldn't lose my memories of the dream.

----

I dreamt i was in my old house, 91 Chun Tin Road, running in late by 10 minutes for a meeting -- a _crucial meeting_ with Bloomberg. All the lights are off in the living room and there are benches everywhere with a a projector showing the new Bloomberg modelling GUI. Dave Lakshmanan is showing the GUI off and so I sit down in the crowded dark wooden benches next to someone, and promptly fall asleep. And when I'm asleep I dream that my hands are moving the mouse on the screen... and when the presentation is over, Jim Driscoll drags me to one side and says "don't you _EVER_ come for another meeting and fall asleep and talk really loudly
in your sleep. To which Rich Shriver's voice drifts in from off stage saying "I didn't need to hear that!" And then I go outside to the driveway, among the orangey tiles to change clothes into my army pants and a black Cobra T-shirt, and as I'm changing I look at the window and see that on the back side of the bookshelf placed smack up against the window, there are these land lobsters growing. Not small ones, but genuine horrors the size of your arm; and when I go back into the house to gibber at the Bloomberg cleaning staff, they ignore me until I've sat down for lunch with Kim and have finished eating -- what else -- a lobster; we get up to go upstairs to discuss something in the computer room and all of a sudden these giant lobsters emerge from hiding behind the bookshelves and converge on the leavings _finally_ prompting Bloomberg staff to come around and exterminate them all. So I escape upstairs and am busy picking out another
set of clothes and preparing to change clothes before my inevitable chewing out with Shriver when Andrea Gotelli pops his head (and just his head -- there is no body that I can see) across the window from the balcony and starts going in on one of his long rants about how life is treating him like crap, to the accompaniment of me folding clothes -- all the clothes I've ever owned somehow seem to be inside my old ceiling to floor closet, from which I'm drawing them and putting them back. The only thing I can really remember Andrea saying besides a general slagging of the Spanish, and how everyone are so stupid for loving red wine (which can't be the real Andrea) is how the only decent wines in the world come from the East Coast of France... And so as I'm folding clothes, I come across yet another fucking lobster which this time seems to want a piece of me. I run away, get the Bloomberg staff to swear they'll take care of it, then cross the hallway into the old bathroom. But when I open the door, it's not my old single tub bathroom after all -- it's this gigantic, GIGANTIC palatial room which sould have come out from Versailles, with mirror and gilding and chandeliers everywhere, and an incongruous single person bathtub that happens to be smack up against the only window in the room. Admittedly it's a very nice bathtub which has gold taps and is already drawn and waiting for an occupant so I skin down and get in (after checking for lobsters) and start a nice long soak. Only to be awoken by this annoying Upper East Side matron (not really, since the only one I know is a very very nice lady, but you know the stereotype) who walks in with who else but Yishen and Julia, showing them around the place throwing a sales pitch. It's hilarious -- the matron is saying something about how one can install a speaker next to the bath tub to page other people in the
house to which I respond what's wrong with raising the voice to which she says something like "In a 20 room apartment one can only shout so far." And so after more banter, I get up out of the bath (whch miraculously parts to let me rise up dry and clothed to talk to Yishen and Julia, trying to find out what they're doing here in what I thought was my remodeled bathroom (hey, in dreams anything may happen) to which we open one of the six doors in the room and walk out past the sole porcelain and gold inlaid sink, out into a long corridor on the side of the sides of an atrium, the column of light which is being let down stretching as far above and below as the eye can see, with occasional flickers of movement at the bottom. So we walk along the corridor, catching up (for apparently we haven't seen each other in forever) and I find that we're somewhere in the 40's in New York because Julia says it's only 70 blocks to go up to Columbia. And then we've traversed the corridor and are in a long hallway that again stretches as far as the eye can see on both sides, full of people but none of the foot traffic at _all_ affecting this thick plush white carpeting. So we enter this door offset from the hallway and apparently are in this bedroom, which is filled with boxes, but which is draped with this incredibley thick yet beauiful silk brocade, _everywhere_ on the tall 16 foot ceilings. And there's two beds, which have never been used in this room, and one other door, into which we go and there's yet _more_ draperie, which I didn't believe possible, and everything is painfully Louis XIV. And this is where I wake up.

1 1/2 hours to dream it, 20 minutes to write it, 1 full day to be freaked out about it.
=====

Perhaps I should have slept more and dreamt less...

Some pictures from Log Island

2006-06-20T05:51:00.000+08:00

On a dull day, Stockholm looks like this (2006)

But on a bright day, the sun, the Sun!

The air is so sharp and clear...

And the greenery stuns.

But even the brightest sunlight can't break through an alley in Gamla Stan

No matter, it's beautiful at night.

And not quite the midnight sun to round it off (10:30 pm)

Homeless in Singapore

2006-06-20T02:34:00.000+08:00

I haven't taken any pictures, so as to preserve these people's privacy. And I'm also not saying where I saw them in case some bloody minded person decides to go and report them to the police. There are such fucking selfish people...

Admittedly I could be wrong as to whether they're truly homeless or not. But an uncle asleep in a Burger King or KopiTiam at 2am, so that they can get aircon, is almost certainly not going home for the night. It's the same look and same exhaustion as I've seen in New York, if less smelly and better dressed.

More and more in Singapore. Not a good trend.

Bitches for Friends

2006-06-20T02:28:00.000+08:00

Apparently I have bitches for friends.

But thanks for the love in putting together the edit (such as it is.)

Some Good World Cup Links

2006-06-13T03:02:00.000+08:00

Decent commentary
http://www.whoateallthebratwurst.com/

All the 2006 World Cup goals.
http://germany2006goals.blogspot.com/

The best pub team in the world
http://www.oldlions.co.uk/home.html

T-shirts! (Best one -- Wir sind die Roboten)
http://www.spreadshirt.net/shop.php?sid=89747

World Cup Holiday

2006-06-12T21:55:00.000+08:00

Light blogging for a while. すまない。

Individual or Group Excellence?

2006-06-07T16:41:00.000+08:00

Yen Yen has made an interesting post on the Finnish education system. It brings up a very important point re:

Basically, out of 41 participating schools, 15 year-old Finnish students topped the world in Math, Science, Reading, and Problem-solving skills (participating countries included Japan, Korea and Hong Kong – no mention of Singapore).

And what’s very interesting is that they also have a very small percentage of difference between the top performing students and the lowest performing students.

In other words, the Finnish school system has managed to get all their students to perform at a fairly high level rather than focus on only a top group of ‘elite’ students.

I find it rather ironic that Singapore, with its strong emphasis on conformance and not rocking the boat, pushes an elitist meritocracy quite so strongly. Rather than putting boats on stilts, why not raise the tide?

I have strong views on the utility of specialists -- they're great in a given context, but they're useless once the context shifts. The rat -- the ultimate generalist -- does a lot better in any environment than the lion.

Back from Krung Thep

2006-06-05T03:27:00.000+08:00

And tired...

An interesting post from Landover Baptist Church (warning -- may offend the religious). I guess if they back it up with quotations... but we all know the saying about who may quote scripture.

[howl]Won't you guess my name...[/howl]

In Krung Thep Again

2006-06-03T21:50:00.000+08:00

In the City of Angels, for a business trip. I like it more each time I come back. So vibrant, in so many ways...

Back in the Lion City on Sunday evening.

Three Little Pigs

2006-06-02T02:47:00.000+08:00

Yet more clumsy, clumsy parody from a 21 year old. I see this stuff now and wince. But since I can't be arsed to think and write about the rather exhausting past two weeks, this will have to do.

Minutes of XVII meeting, IX Division of the Committee for Public Security
Members attendant :
Director N. Chuikov.
Deputy Director V. Ilanov
Comrade P. Kasich
Comrade C. Stukach
Comrade T. Lyubanska
Members unable to attend:
Comrade A. Stukach
Comrade B. Stukach
1. The meeting was convened by Deputy Director V. Ilanov at 16:32 on 8 October 1984.
2. Director N. Chuikov stated that global socialism was an attainable goal, which would be realised in all the committee's lifetime.
3. Director N. Chuikov expressed surprise at the lack of participants in the meeting.
4. Comrade C. Stukach informed Director N. Chuikov that both Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach would be unable to attend the meeting.
5. Director N. Chuikov reiterated that all members of the Committee for Public Security are to attend come rain or shine.
6. Comrade C. Stukach regretfully informed Director N. Chuikov that Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach were unable to attend the meeting by virtue of being deceased.
7. Director N. Chuikov declared that this was an inadmissible excuse. All members of the Committee for Public Security are expected to be faithfully present at all prescribed meetings. No exceptions are allowed for any reason whatsoever.
8. Comrade C. Stukach said that he would apprise both Comrades of their duties as members of the State's functionary organs.
9. Director N. Chuikov expressed his sympathies at Comrade C. Stukach's loss. The question of circumstances surrounding the deaths of Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach was raised.
10. Comrade C. Stukach replied that both Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach were slain by a cannibalistic imperialist counter-revolutionary functionary who entrapped these heroes of socialism.
11. Director N. Chuikov deeply regretted the loss of the valiant Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach. They would be sorely missed.
12. Deputy Director V. Ilanov enquired as to the cannibalistic nature of the imperialist enemy.
13. Comrade C. Stukach stated that both Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach were eaten by the insidious enemy agent hereafter referred to as B.B. Wolf.
14. Comrade P. Kasich questioned whether Comrade B. Stukach was employing a figure of speech.
15. Comrade C. Stukach retorted that both Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach were physically cooked and eaten by B.B. Wolf.
16. Comrade T. Lyubanska retched on the floor.
17. Deputy Director V. Ilanov motioned for a recess of five minutes.
18. Comrade T. Lyubanska vehemently seconded the motion.
19. A recess was taken at 16:42 on 8 October 1984 by the IX Division of the Committee for Public Security.
20. At 16:48 on 8 October 1984, the IX Division of the Committee for Public Security reconvened.
21. Director N. Chuikov reprimanded Comrade T. Lyubanska for tardiness. A motion was raised to suspend Comrade T. Lyubanska's secondary privileges for a seven day period.
22. Deputy Director V. Ilanov seconded the motion.
23. As duly noted, Comrade T. Lyubanska will have all secondary privileges suspended. Comrade T. Lyubanska is to turn in her bathroom key and soap bar at the end of the meeting.
24. Director N. Chuikov reiterated that timeliness is of the essence. To build a global socialist state built upon true Marxist-Leninist dialectic, all stated timings must be adhered to.
25. Deputy Director V. Ilanov asked Comrade B. Stukach to recount the circumstances surrounding the death of Comrades A. Stukach and B. Stukach.
26. Comrade C. Stukach replied that Comrade A. Stukach had been staying in his dacha, in the Kara suburb, north of Moscow on the night of October 5 1984. While Comrade A. Stukach was busy composing a treatise on the inevitability of victory of Marxist-Leninist dialectic over the imperialistic capitalistic forces of the so-called First World, a squad of twenty men closed upon Comrade A. Stukach's dacha. Using main force, the twenty man squad hammered down the walls of Comrade A. Stukach's dacha and held him down. B.B. Wolf approached the valiant hero and as his men held the valiant Comrade A. Stukach down, ate Comrade A. Stukach alive.
27. Comrade T. Lyubanska was violently sick.
28. Director N. Chuikov commanded Comrade T. Lyubanska to leave the room.
29. Comrade T. Lyubanska left the room.
30. Deputy Director V. Ilanov motioned that a five minute recess be imposed.
31. Comrade P. Kasich seconded the motion.
32. A recess was taken at 16:56 on 9 October 1984 by the IX Division of the Committee for Public Security.
33. At 17:00 on 9 October 1984, the IX Division of the Committee for Public Security reconvened.
34. Director N. Chuikov remarked that this efficiency was a good sign. All members of the State should strive to reach such a high level of time saving. Twenty percent time saved was no small matter.
35. Deputy Director V. Ilanov enquired as to the circumstances surrounding Comrade A. Stukach's death. Were the walls of proper construction, to be so easily torn down by a mere twenty men? Surely good Soviet construction would withstand twenty thousand men, as it had during the Great Patriotic War.
36. Comrade C. Stukach replied that the dacha had been built by the imperialist Tsarist forces before the light of socialist reason was brought to the Rodina.
37. Director N. Chuikov remarked that this tragedy was undoubtedly the cause of inferior construction.
38. Deputy Director V. Ilanov enquired as to the circumstances surrounding Comrade B. Stukach's death.
39. Comrade C. Stukach replied that Comrade B. Stukach was surprised in bed on the night of October 6th 1984 by the collapsing of the walls around him. The same squad of twenty men attempted to seize Comrade B. Stukach, but forewarned by the death of Comrade A. Stukach, Comrade B. Stukach managed to slay a good number of the traitorous lackeys in the pay of the imperialist B.B. Wolf.
40. Deputy Director V. Ilanov expressed admiration for the prowess of Comrade B. Stukach. No doubt, when fired by the righteousness of the cause in this never ending class struggle, Comrade B. Stukach was inspired by the spirit of the New Soviet Man.
41. Director N. Chuikov retorted that it was more likely that the imperialist lackeys were complacent and that as time goes by the triumph of the dialectic is inevitable.
42. Comrade P. Kasich fervently affirmed Director N. Chuikov's remarks.
43. Comrade C. Stukach proceeded to recount that despite Comrade B. Stukach's valiant efforts, he was overwhelmed and suffered the same fate as Comrade A. Stukach.
44. Deputy Director V. Ilanov enquired as to whether Comrade C. Stukach had lived in a dacha similar to that of Comrade A. Stukach.
45. Comrade C. Stukach replied that though Comrade B. Stukach did indeed live in the Kara region, his dacha was built by Soviet engineers. However, it was built in during the period of a certain Jew's* appointment as Secretary of Public Affairs.
46. Director N. Chuikov remarked that Comrade C. Stukach's family seemed to have a propensity to stay in houses built by enemies of the State.
47. Comrade C. Stukach retorted that he lived in an dacha built by Comrade E. Drubenskaya during the Great Patriotic War. It had doubled as a defensive bunker during the great battles which the fascists had encountered during their ill-fated and in any case doomed from the start attempt to capture Moscow.
48. Comrade P. Kasich remarked that no doubt the unsoundness of doctrine leads to unsoundness of construction.
49. Director N. Chuikov noted that Comrade P. Kasich had a propensity to state the obvious.
50. Deputy Director V. Ilanov expressed the sentiment that B.B. Wolf had lived far too long.
51. Comrade C. Stukach agreed with this sentiment, but declared that the reign of terror imposed by B.B. Wolf had come to an end.
52. Comrade P. Kasich inquired as to how this situation had come about.
53. Comrade C. Stukach replied that on the night of October 7th 1984, B.B. Wolf and his squad of lackeys approached his dacha. Thanks to the solid construction and Soviet architecture as exemplified by Comrade E. Drubenskaya's handiwork, all the imperialists were thwarted and exhausted in their attempts to destroy Comrade C. Stukach's dacha. When the foolish imperialists had exhausted all their energy, Comrade C. Stukach left the dacha and proceeded to kill all the capitalist lackeys in true righteous fervour, as a true New Soviet man should.
54. Director N. Chuikov enquired what Comrade C. Stukach had done with B.B. Wolf.
55. Comrade C. Stukach replied that he had broken B.B. Wolf's arms and legs.
56. Director N. Chuikov expressed the importance of knowing the fate of the agent provocateur B.B. Wolf. Is B.B. Wolf still alive.
57. Comrade C. Stukach replied that an eye was fair payment for an eye.
58. Director N. Chuikov commanded Comrade C. Stukach not to be deliberately obscure. What was the fate of B.B. Wolf.
59. Comrade C. Stukach replied that B.B. Wolf had been eaten. By Comrade C. Stukach.
60. The meeting of the IX Division of the Committee for Public Security was declared closed by unanimous votes by reason of ill health at 17:15 on 9 October 1984.

Recorded by O. Riabtchenko,
17:20 October 9th 1984.

A little blast from the past

2006-05-30T02:37:00.000+08:00

So I have recovered a little gem I wrote in Columbia after prospecting through my old homework sets. I can't remember what it was for, but I think it was one of those standard "write a story from a different perspective". It still stands on its own, though it could do with a little polishing. Eh, what can you expect from a 21 year old.

The Cat in the Hat
by Dr. Seuss, 61 pages. Beginner Books, $3.95

The Cat in the Hat is a hard-hitting novel of prose and poetry in which the author re-examines the dynamic rhyming schemes and bold imagery of some of his earlier works, most notably Green Eggs and Ham, If I Ran the Zoo, and Why Can't I Shower With Mommy? In this novel, Theodore Geisel, writing under the pseudonym Dr.Seuss, pays homage to the great Dr. Sigmund Freud in a nightmarish fantasy of a renegade feline helping two young children understand their own frustrated sexuality.

The story opens with two youngsters, a brother and a sister, abandoned by their mother, staring mournfully through the window of their single-family dwelling. In the foreground, a large tree/phallic symbol dances wildly in the wind, taunting the children and encouraging them to succumb to the sexual yearnings they undoubtedly feel for each other. Even to the most unlearned reader, the blatant references to the incestuous relationship the two share set the tone for Seuss' probing examination of the satisfaction of primitive needs.

The Cat proceeds to charm the wary youths into engaging in what he so innocently refers to as "tricks." At this point, the fish, an obvious Christ figure who represents the prevailing Christian morality, attempts to warn the children, and thus, in effect, warns all of humanity of the dangers associated with the unleashing of the primal urges. In response to this, the cat proceeds to balance the aquatic naysayer on the end of his umbrella, essentially saying, "Down with morality; down with God!"

After poohpoohing the righteous rantings of the waterlogged Christ figure, the Cat begins to juggle several icons of Western culture, most notably two books, representing the Old and New Testaments, and a saucer of lactal fluid, an ironic reference to maternal loss the two children experienced when their mother abandoned them "for the afternoon." Our heroic Id adds to this bold gesture a rake and a toy man, and thus completes the Oedipal triangle.

Later in the novel, Seuss introduces the proverbial Pandora's box, a large red crate out of which the Id releases Thing One, or Freud's concept of Ego, the division of the psyche that serves as the conscious mediator between the person and reality, and Thing Two, the Superego which functions to reward and punish through a system of moral attitudes, conscience, and guilt. Referring to this box, the Cat says, "Now look at this trick. Take a look!" In this, Dr. Seuss uses the children as a brilliant metaphor for the reader, and asks the reader to re-examine his own inner self.

The children, unable to control the Id, Ego, and Superego allow these creatures to run free and mess up the house, or more symbolically, control their lives. This rampage continues until the fish, or Christ symbol, warns that the mother is returning to reinstate the Oedipal triangle that existed before her abandonment of the children. At this point, Seuss introduces a many-armed cleaning device which represents the psychoanalytic couch, which proceeds to put the two youngsters' lives back in order.

With powerful simplicity, clarity, and drama, Seuss reduces Freud's concepts on the dynamics of the human psyche to an easily understood gesture. Mr. Seuss' poetry and choice of words is equally impressive and serves as a splendid counterpart to his bold symbolism.In all, his writing style is quick and fluid, making The Cat in the Hat impossible to put down. While this novel is 61 pages in length, and one can read it in five minutes or less, it is not until after multiple readings that the genius of this modern day master becomes apparent.

Brilliant, just BRILLIANT

2006-05-29T03:33:00.000+08:00

So.

I have found the missing camera. Woo hoo! Hoorah!

BUT.

I have now lost the camera's USB cable.

AARARAHRAHRAHARHR.

Fuckity fuck fuck fuck

2006-05-27T08:52:00.000+08:00

It appears I have lost my camera. The one with all my Stockholm pictures in it.

I åm stjill nöt deäd

2006-05-26T00:23:00.000+08:00

But am getting on a flight back to Singapore in another 35 minutes. Woo ha.

I äm nöt deåd

2006-05-24T17:59:00.000+08:00

Though after two days of 9 hour meetings and no internet access...

SEK179 (USD21) for 24 hours wireless access at a hotel! At a HOTEL!

There is no Plan

2006-05-20T08:43:00.000+08:00

I've just been flipping through Colin's blog and came across his essay Paved with Good Intentions.

If you're Singaporean, go read it; if you're not, read it anyway.

I find my reaction to it quite strange; I tried to opt out of the Singapore Plan at age 6 and thanks to a gigantic amount of luck and help from parents, managed to at least partially escape. Yes, 6. When I refused to speak Mandarin at Nanyang Kindergarten (one of the more Chinese schools in Singapore), my father parachuted me out to the International School of Singapore.

That's when I suppose I started being a pushy little bastard -- if opting out to do your own thing worked then, well, it should work now.

But all the same I still bought into the whole Plan; the idea that as long as you get good grades, everything will fall into your lap by virtue of your brilliant examination taking skills. That so long as you do well at school, get a good job, stick to the plan, everything will work out.

Well, that's not true.

I won't go into the gory details, but stuff happened that derailed me from my Plan. Things got very interesting when I was 16, all the way up till I was 26. 10 painfully unhappy years, which finally made me understand that for me at least, there is no Plan that will shape all the rest of your life; that there is only the plan that you make as events happen. That to try to Plan your future and fix it in stone and try desperately to make events fit your Plan is futile.

The reason I understood this? Tiffany rings. Which will mean little to anyone but those who already know.

Some people may benefit from a Plan. Good for them. I think though that the vast majority will not; and that those who believe their Plan will keep them happy may never really be happy. If they were, Singaporeans wouldn't be constantly searching for happiness (click on regions).

At dinner last night, Kevin mentioned something to the effect that I operate in binary mode. Either I'm off, disengaged, purring along half asleep; or I'm on, kicked down, exploding down the highway. Most of the time I'm off -- but it's those sudden bursts when the throttle is all the way down that ensure I'll never have some simple plan for life. Those bursts of excitement and passion upset the Plan, and lead me down roads I'd never have expected to go before. But I wouldn't have it any other way.

Would you?

P.S. I'm writing this on 24 hours of no sleep in preparation for the time zone shift. Rambling, bouncing here and there, warts, toadstools and all. Maybe I'll be more coherent once I've spent my first night's sleep in Stockholm; I certainly hope so.

Off to Stockholm

2006-05-20T08:29:00.000+08:00

Not to see the løveli lakes, alas, but on business.

I'll be away till Friday, but probably updating from the hotel there. Hooray for frequent flier mileage...

Let's hope I don't get bitten by a møøse...

Signed, TUTTE HERMSGERVORDENBROTBORDA

Oh well...

2006-05-18T05:12:00.000+08:00

Poor Arsenal. Barca 2, Arsenal 1. They tried like mad, but 10 vs 11 is a tough game to play.

Arsenal 1, Barca 0

2006-05-18T03:51:00.000+08:00

It's half time and I'm watching the Arsenal-Barca Champions' League Final on TCS5. Which is a big mistake. BIG BIG mistake. Because those useless losers at Mediacorp have replaced the half-time commentary with 30 minutes of ads. How infuriating. They couldn't even update the score on time; for 3 minutes after Sol Campbell's goal, the scoreline said 0-0. Why buy the rights to Champions' League when you can't treat it properly?

Lorelei

2006-05-18T00:54:00.000+08:00

I have found a new love. She's 26 years old and from Stuttgart. I've attached a picture of her below.

When Pat gets back from Hong Kong, we'll hold a christening ceremony...

母の日

2006-05-14T23:22:00.000+08:00

This weekend was pretty good at the start, less so at the end.

Friday I went to Sim Lim with Jo and Mike, bummed around and ended up playing mahjong till 6am. Saturday, I had lunch at Apollo Banana Leaf Restaurant down Race Course Road with Pa and Sheila; the curry fish head was excellent. I haven't had a fish head that sweet and well cooked for a long time. I also had dinner with Sue and Kevin at Kazu, a yakitori place in Cuppage Plaza. The yakitori was really quite excellent, on par with some of the places I've eaten at in Tokyo. Then more mahjong.

Today I went to see Ma at the nursing home. Not a good day; I spent the rest of the day at the video arcade burning through $1 coins to de-stress. It's not a pretty sight.

All in all, quite a typical Mother's Day...

To add a little joy to the day, I present to you the NHS Yorkshire medical dictionary.

Talk about the Passion

2006-05-12T03:25:00.000+08:00

Not everyone can carry the weight of the world.

It's hard, so hard.

I try to hide it, but it's clear

But only love can break your heart.

Now I'm free, free falling.

So when will I see you again?

It's Friday I'm in love.

何故俺が君の顔を夢見て、君の事を考えるか？エちゃん？この月曜日に君を見るかな。。。

I'll be damned if I ask her again; and I'll feel damned so long as I don't.

春よ、こい！

2006-05-11T02:57:00.000+08:00

(2002)

Consultant or Prostitute?

2006-05-10T03:17:00.000+08:00

Maybe people who work for body shops like Andersenture or Coopers HouseWater Price might relate to this -- I don't.

Are you a prostitute or a consultant?

You work very odd hours.

You are paid a lot of money to keep your client happy.

You are paid well but your pimp gets most of the money.

You spend a majority of your time in a hotel room.

You charge by the hour but your time can be extended for the right price.

You are not proud of what you do.

Creating fantasies for your clients is rewarded.

It's difficult to have a family.

You have no job satisfaction.

If a client beats you up, the pimp just sends you to another client.

You are embarrassed to tell people what you do for a living.

People ask you, "What do you do?" and you can't explain it.

Your family hardly recognizes you at reunions (at least the reunions you attend.)

Your friends have distanced themselves from you and you're left hanging with only other "professionals."

Your client pays for your hotel room plus your hourly rate.

Your client always wants to know how much you charge and what they get for the money.

Your pimp drives nice cars like Mercedes or BMWs.

Your pimp encourages drinking and you become addicted to drugs to ease the pain.

You know the pimp is charging more than you are worth but if the client is foolish enough to pay it's not your problem.

When you leave to go see a client, you look great, but return looking like hell (compare your appearance on Monday AM to Friday PM).

You are rated on your "performance" in an excruciating ordeal.

Even though you get paid the big bucks, it's the client who walks away smiling.

The client always thinks your "cut" of your billing rate is higher than it actually is, and in turn, expects miracles from you.

When you deduct your "take" from your billing rate, you constantly wonder if you could get a better deal with another pimp.

Everyday you wake up and tell yourself, "I'm not going to be doing this stuff the rest of my life.".

The Land of the Free

2006-05-10T01:56:00.000+08:00

From the Staten Island Ferry, (2002)

The river bends to... (2002)

chickens for the slaughter... (2002)

feeding a prisoner at home (2002)

Someone Else's Valentine To New York

2006-05-09T15:52:00.000+08:00

Ah, New York. I feel so homesick...

From Alien Loves Predator

WWRD?

2006-05-09T01:36:00.000+08:00

Yet more photos because I can't be arsed to write

Your humble narrator preparing to airbrush a scale model (2001)

By the by -- that airbrushing equipment served me well on September 13th of that year, when I went down to Wall Street.

Afternoon light on Beaver and Hanover (2002)

A window to the sky, Broad Street (2002)

Telok Ayer Street before preservation (2002)

What would he do indeed? (2003)

More photo whoring

2006-05-07T02:40:00.000+08:00

Maguro at Tsukiji (2003)

Stormtroopers in Atlanta (2004)

Harajuku, 2004 (and good advice too)

Chicago at night, facing west (2004)

Chateau Frontenac, Quebec City 2001

At a park on Mount Sophia (2003)

Next time

2006-05-07T01:33:00.000+08:00

So no changes to parliament this year alas. Still, at least I did some part of what I could do, and hopefully by 2011 there'll be enough of a shift.

2004 was a sea change for me, and so is 2006. Let's see what happens now. Will they keep their promises, I wonder...

Photo Saturday!

2006-05-06T14:05:00.000+08:00

Some minor photo whoring...

Coming to port at City Island

Looking up from Wall Street

The font of riches (New York Fed)

桜咲く　（ニューヨークでだけど）

Alma Mater, mater mei

Unforgettable. Ever. An empty place in the sky now.

Smrt Fasizmu, Sloboda Narodu

2006-05-06T13:55:00.000+08:00

Voted.

NARODNO OSLOBDENJE!*

*Nota bene -- I'm not claiming that I deserve the medal nor that the government is anything like the Nazis. But hooray, I can vote, I did, and I hope that it makes a difference.

From High to Low (and Back?)

2006-05-06T13:04:00.000+08:00

Memorable quote from last night's murtabak supper with Pat and Jo:

regarding a particularly unpleasant person

回春: You better hope she gets reborn as a cow, then everyday got someone go and pull her nipples {makes hand gestures}

Election Virginity

2006-05-06T03:13:00.000+08:00

So tomorrow I plan to lose my election virginity. 30 years of not voting...

I'm off to the URA building below to cast my first ever vote.

Before I left to study, I was living in a walkover constituency (no one has contested Bukit Timah for a damned long time.) When I was in New York and Chicago, I couldn't vote because overseas citizens who don't work for either the government or for NGOs are disenfranchised. But now I'm back, and ready to do my patriotic duty.

Which is to vote SDA.

There is no other reasonable option. Perpetuating a competent but incredibly image unconscious government doesn't suit my taste -- in a participatory polity, I'd like my voice and my views to be reflected in policies implemented.

From a purely economic aspect, there is also no point in voting for the PAP. After all, given that PM Lee Hsien Loong (a terribly bright chap, with excellent economic policies but who comes across to me as out of touch with ordinary Singaporeans*) has said the following, sourced from here:

Right now we have Low Thia Khiang, Chiam See Tong, Steve Chia. We can deal with them. Suppose you had 10, 15, 20 opposition members in Parliament. Instead of spending my time thinking what is the right policy for Singapore, I'm going to spend all my time thinking what's the right way to fix them, to buy my supporters votes, how can I solve this week's problem and forget about next year's challenges?"

Hat tip to Rockson for posting this

Obviously from an economic perspective, it is best to NOT be a supporter of the PAP so that your vote can be bought. The power of moral hazard... something that Singaporean management and government never quite seem to take into consideration.

So anyway.

Tomorrow I vote. Register my discontent with a government which never fails to remind its polity just how grateful it should be to the government for its prosperity (though this is debatable -- it is possible that Singapore invests too much for the return it makes, thereby diluting growth.)

It's individually irrational to vote according to Levitt and Dubner; they popularized the irrationality in Freakonomics. There probably is a feedback mechanism in repeated votings, where if you don't vote but someone you don't like does, then your expected dissatisfaction may be higher than the cost it actually takes to vote, but it's late and I don't want to think too much right now.

Besides, I have to. The gahmen tells me that if I don't vote now, I will never vote again. So too bad, so sad (not really) tomorrow I will lose my election virginity.

*Nota bene -- I recognize that I'm not an ordinary Singaporean, thanks to the 9 years spent overseas as well as the education outside of the local school system. But I don't think that disqualifies me from saying he seems out of touch.