Clutch Gear Accelerator

Clutch, gear, accelerator, clutch gear accelerator, clutchgearaccelerator dammit! Pretty obvious what I did after work today ain't it? It took me a good 8 months to finally start lessons after passing my Basic Theory. The wonders of procrastination. Tomorrow marks 70 days to ORD. Thursday marks 600 days in the SAF. And while I can't exactly complain about my army experience, I have to say that I will be ecstatic when 7 Nov rolls around. My spelling seems to have gone to the pits (and it never was my strongest suit to begin with). Vocab is sadly as rudimentary as ever. Pronounciation isn't exactly chipper either. All I have to fall back on is my impecabble grammer, along with my pathetic Chinese.

The Emmys this year are just really blah. Blahblahblah. I miss the days when Ally McBeal and The Practice won for Best Comedy and Best Drama, when Jennifer Aniston won for Friends, or even last year, when the Housewives ruled the roost. I suppose this has something do with the fact that a lot of the shows nominated this year were flops and so not shown to us deprived people in Singapore depending on executives at Mediacorp with no taste to dictate what we get to see after a long day at work. Ok so maybe I'm not giving them enough credit. For an English language channel, 5 isn't too shabby really. Network TV in Australia seems infinitely more boring. Now cable, that's a whole different story.

Well it's almost 11 and i really don't have anything else to say. No pet peeves. No write-ups on people I want to sleep with. No gushing about how much I hated school. My life right now, in NS, is pretty empty. I mean the thrice-weekly gym and Meng and WR do help to fill this space somewhat, but it really doesn't help that from 6.30AM to 5.30PM every working day, I am stuck behind a damn computer playing stupid games and trying to pass time. It's completely inconsequential. NSF life is just utterly unrewarding. I'm not working to advance my career, I'm just trying to do everything the way it's supposed to be done and to stay out of trouble (which I've managed to do rather effectively, it must be said). Very unfulfilling. Very unsatisfying. Which is why I really can't wait to ORD. Wake me up when September ends indeed.

S _ _ T

So Choo B is contemplating the possibility of engraving a tattoo of some sort onto himself. I've never been fond of tattoos. They're ugly and when you finally do regret having them it's a pain in the ass to get them removed. So we were throwing around suggestions (Heartbreaker, ponies, glitter) when Meng suggested that certain four letter word starting with S and ending with T. And our poor Choo B was utterly cluess as to what S _ _ T stands for. Meng tried to throw him off with, for lack of better prose, "SHIT", and that just made Wei Ren even more confused. It was such a Jessica moment I couldn't stop laughing. The bewildered look on his face was just priceless. So this goes on for more than a minute and after playing wheel of fortune and Vanna White he still doesn't get it. It's either an issue of SERIOUS Jessica-itis or maybe he just doesn't associate himself with that term. Which of course is a moot point if you've read his latest blog entry. Yes Wei Ren, come out and embrace it. Haha. I'm in no position to judge la. Personally I'd throw morals to the wind and be every bit the promiscuous boy if I had the same opportunities as him. Sadly, it's the chances that are sorely lacking. Does that bother me? Potentially. What's more worrying is how I take everything people say about Britney so personally. Still. It's really very ridiculous, and I don't think I'm as obsessed as I once was, so why does every criticism (the unjustified, ignorant, plain ol stupid ones) make my heart drop? REE DEE CUE LOUS I tell ya!

I'm 8 episodes into Sex And The City and loving every moment of it! I'm trying to space out the episodes so that it will last me for at least half a year. Feels more like the authentic experience too. I do wonder what some of my primary school classmates are like now. Of course, some I've seen in SA. People like Winnie, George, Joshua, Daniel Tan, even Goh Jia En. Others not so much. Especially those from lower primary. Have been blog-surfing occasionally (note careful choice of words here) and it does seem like one or two of them have grown up to be people I can actually see myself liking. Doubt they would remember me in any case. Meh.

I'm no Carrie Bradshaw and I'm not going to pretend to be (for tonight anyway), so you're spared from hearing me rant. My MacBook gets worryingly hot sometimes, even when I'm not using battery power. That is somewhat disconcerting.
You SOOO broke the cardinal rule girl. Never abandon your friends just because you've found someone. That's right, hang your head down IN SHAME. LOL I am mad!

A Tribute

Had dinner with Mitch at some Italian restaurant around 6th Avenue. Delicious starter, wine, seafood pasta, peach ice cream and $144 dollars later, stepped out feeling tipsy and in awe. Mitch reminds me of Santino Santos. He can get irritating if you don't *get* him, but all the same one can't help but feel impressed. Here is someone with ambition, who is making something out of his life. He's not waiting till 30 to earn his first million, he's doing it NOW. Enriching himself, enriching others, and earning money all at the same time. The experience is probably worth more than the moo-lah. In retrospect, I have no regrets parting with all that money for tuition. I got my 'A' for Econs, I got to meet someone who is a physical representation of what I aspire to (without as much of the Santino-esque thing la), and hey, I got a free dinner that would have otherwise burned a whole in my pocket. Haha. Props to the dude.

Meanwhile, a certain Miss Spears has posed for People magazine with yet another interview about motherhood. It was a standard Britney interview, although there was a smattering of album news (it's gonna be 'cool', 'fun', 'sexy' and 'unxpected' apparently, although that does seem a tad oxymoronic). I laughed out loud when I read about how she feels she's been pregnant for the last 10 years. Couldn't have said it better myself. Anyway here are the wonder pictures. People should really just change their name to Britney Magazine or something. She practically has them at her beck and call.



Can I just say that SEAN PRESTION IS THE CUTEST THING EVER! And you guys know that I'm really not keen on the whole baby and infant and just small children in general thing, but it has to be said that he's fucking adorable. Hard to believe that he came from the loins of la Federline. The "Tabloid Whore" tag is rather ironic isn't it? Do your thang BRITNEY!

Finally, I would like to pay tribute to a group of women who revolutionised the fashion industry. They injected life onto the catwalk, turned models into bona fide pop culture icons, and improved working conditions for their peers. I'm talking 'bout the original supermodels. And no Janice Dickensen, you are not the original supermodel, just the original definition of trash.


In the first picture we have, of course, the power 3. The Trinity. They didn't get out of bed in the morning for less than $10 000. They didn't vouge in clubs, they were Vouge. Linda, Christy and Naomi. Simply untouchable. In the second picture we have the trinity with some poor unknown soul and of course Cindy Crawford. Let me be honest, I only heard of Cindy Crawford on a regular basis in the mid-90s (when the supermodels were argubly at their peak). I did remember Linda from the Stuffed Crust Pizza advertisements but that was about it. Now, however, Cindy strikes me as the least...glamourous of the lot. Maybe it's her wholesome American girl image, which doesn't exactly bring to mind haute couture does it? Anyway apart from the Trinity plus Cindy, the other members of the extended 'Big Six' were Claudia Schiffer and Kate Moss. It's good to see Kate still rocking all those fall advertisements, Vanity Fair and British Vouge at the same time. Others followed in their wake. Stephanie Seymour, Shalom Harlow, Giselle, Tyra, Heidi, Gemma Ward, Elle Macpherson etc etc (and I seem to remember a certain Niki Taylor although she seems to have been collectively erased from people's memories altogether), but the original 3 (or 6, depending on how rigid you are) are in a league of their own really.

Well, I realise that putting Mitch Ong on the same level as Britney and the supermodels is kindda ridiculous, but the damn thing is written and he did pay for dinner so too bad. Cheers! (or 'Cheer!!', as Mdm would say)

Leave Me Alone (I'm Lonely)

I'm beginning to think I'll never get what I want from life. It's just going to be one disappointment after another. Stop building castles in the air and get back down to earth Simon, it'd do you a world of good. Money makes me happy. Money can buy me things that make me happy. Hell, money can probably buy me love. But what good is all of that at the end of the day if I just don't *feel* right?

I'm thinking about the past 2 decades of my life so far. Pretty unremarkable. Pretty blah. Boring. Except when people suddenly develop issues with me for no apparent reason. Chris, Siow, Tong, Jireh. Even in primary school (yes I'm really going back here) when my classmates seemed hell bent on making fun of me and just giving me a hard time. Or when friendships collapse. You can see the cracks forming but the process seems inevitable. Jeff, Cindy. But then again I'm no angel either. I've made my mistakes, I've been fucking mean to others, and perhaps all this is just a cycle of that pesky thing called karma. Or life. I really hope that once we've all left the army, we can pick up where we left off. Me, Tong, Gerald, Fabien, Homan etc. And I really hope that the fledging friendship I have with Meng and WR develops into something decidedly more...substantial than clubbing and gymming and talking about trashy things. And I really hope that when it's time for school to start, I won't repeat the same mistakes I did in AC and SA.

Hope. It's all I have sometimes. Yet I feel like a mere spectator to my life, unable to take full control of the steering wheel, just waiting for fate or destiny or whatever crap to blow me along, waiting for the next shipwreck, looking forward to that sunny paradise that is always 'only a distance away'.

It's not easy. None of it is. I've had to bloody fight for a lot of the things I have today. The funny thing is once I've won the battle I often lose interest in the thing (more often than not, person) I fought so hard for in the first place. It's a rather interesting part of my character. I suppose I'm whimsical that way.

I don't know what I need. I really don't know.

Assorted TIDBITS

Well well well. Quite a bit's been going on this past week. NATIONAL DAY EVE! Another night of dancing and ogling at Taboo. I figure that if I do hit that damn place regularly, I'm SURE to get laid EVENTUALLY. I mean, it HAS to happen some day right? It's always so anti-climatic having to take the taxi back home. And now I sound desperate. I'm not really. REALLY! It wasn't cool that they recycled the same old songs from last Saturday tho'. Push The Button, Hung Up, and probably lots of vocaless crap that I don't recognize but was played. Oh and let's not forget the regrettably ubiquitous Pussycatdolls with their generic nonsense. Loosen up your buttons? No thanks I'd rather push them.

Anyways the next day we met in Orchard (again) and ended up watching 'The Lakehouse' starring Sandra Bullock and Keanu Reeves, who is PAINFUL to watch when he attempts to cry or indeed show any form of emotion whatsoever. The movie was better than I expected. In all honesty, I though it'd be pretty crap and the only reason I paid my 10 bucks was because there were no other movies around that time and we didn't want to wait around for 2 hours. The time lapse was a little disorienting initially, but once you tackled that decidedly minor obstacle, the movie proved to be competent. I adored the lakehouse. Wouldn't want to live there alone but it'd make a lovely setting for romance and sex and all that jazz. Also appreciated the focus on Chicago. I've always though that Chicago was a beautiful city and the movie did nothing to dispel that impression. There's this familiar yet alien feeling you get when contemplating the cityscape, because on one hand you've seen these buildings before (and I'm not just talking about the Sears Tower here), while on the other they're not as instantly recognisable as the Manhattan skyline. So I am looking forward to The Breakup, which I suspect will offer panoramic views of Chic, among other things.

After the movie we made our way to Fish & Co where we tried our best not to be impressed by the National Day Parade that was showing on TV, but couldn't help admitting that it was, on some level, rather...amusing. As CHOO said, no other country actually has an official parade every year to celebrate it's founding. I mean the fireworks on 4 July may be impressive and iconic, but this whole parade, with all the shebang, does take a lot more effort than just setting off fireworks. I suppose that's one of the perks of having an army of conscripts that don't have to take part in conflicts in Iraq or Afghanistan and where one of the main ways of proving one's worth is not by displaying military prowess but by being a contributing factor to the sucess of a two-bit parade. Ok my cynicism is showing again let's get past it pronto. Snap! (FYI the service at Fish & Co @ Wheelock is, for want of a better or indeed more fitting word, SHIT) Oh yes I finally found out what SAMAZOZI is...it's atrocious la.

Thursday was gym night again and we proceeded to have dinner at Subway. More Kim Jong-Il, SAMAZOZIs, ABISHAGANEDANs, ABU NA NA GARDENS, TAEPODONGS, KIMCHI, and assorted fetishes that WR and Meng can't seem to stop indulging in. It's always terribly hilarious. Go up to South Koreans and speak mambo jumbo pseudo-Korean to them and add in the words KIM JONG-IL, and they will scream "AHHH" and run away. Meng did it so effortlessly. It was really very very funny. Anyway Phuket's coming up and I'm trying not to think about it yet because I still have a couple months of army to get through, but no doubt it's going to be very exciting indeed. Should I visit daddy in California tho'? If he was in LA or SF I wouldn't be posing this question at all, but apparently he's in some industrial area. Maybe I can be the next Karen Silkwood. Hur hur hur.

Anyway we're gearing up for the VMAs and PARIS made some promotional pics which really leave me at a loss for words.


Paris Hilton, in GLASSES, READING A BOOK, SITTING NEXT TO A LIFE SIZED MOONMAN! It's so utterly trashy and so superbly engaging all at the same time. This year's VMAs look more interesting than previous years (which isn't that hard really, and I still haven't forgiven them for what they did to Toxic back in '04). Hopefully Cuntina doesn't win anything. That's my one wish this year. On the topic of that heiress, I listened to some clips of her album on AOL and it's ok la. The vocals are really flimsy and her voice sounds so brittle it could break into two at any moment but I've never been one of those close-minded snobs who dismisses anyone with less than stellar vocals. Pop music is about so much more than having a good voice really. When will people realize that? WAKE UP AND SMELL THE DAMN COFFEE LA!

Wake me up when September ends. Because when it does, I start to clear my leave. The SAF has been an...experience la. That's all I can say. Other than that, SOS get me outta here ASAP! I carried my SATC DVD back from the post office in a big Gucci bag. Isn't that just funny. The kind lady at the Post Office asked me if I needed a bag because my parcel was so big and then proceeded to pull a Gucci shopping bag out of her ass. This reminds me of the moaning woman in Cali who, according to Meng, sounded like she was giving birth. Out of point. SATC is fabulous. I already downloaded the first episode but it was good to watch it on my gigantic (comparatively la) TV set. And the second one was quite funny also. Although at this point it literally is all about sex. Everyone wants to be Carrie Bradshaw (ok some want to be Samantha). I just want my $400 (in 1998 terms) strappy Manolos. Gimme gimme gimme! I am very gay.

Happy Taboo

In fashion, one day you're in, the next day you're out. I suppose it's appropriate that on the gay clubbing scene, the same concept is evident. One year ago, Happy was the toast of the town. The queue outside was excruciatingly long, the dancefloor (indeed the whole club in general) was packed. Taboo was dying a slow, painful death. The whole placed seemed drab, the floor was empty, there were less people there than there were watching Glitter a week into it's screening.

Last night we waltzed into a spacious (ie not crowded) Happy where you could actually feel the draft of the AC (ie not crowded) and could walk from one part to another without ever brushing against anyone (ie pathetically not crowded). In comparison, we had to wait for some time before gaining re-entry into Taboo even though we were on the VIP list. The whole club was packed to the brim, you couldn't move 2 feet without colliding into another person, and it was stuffy as hell. How appropriate.

I'm not well-aquainted with what exactly happened to bring about this dramatic turn of events. One of the Happy DJs left for Attica (where Sunday nights are HOT apparently), but how did Happy and Taboo experience this role-reversal in under a year. The fickle nature of gay people I suppose. Which probably explains why fashion is so whimsical too. We're a very capricious bunch la. Perhaps that is a contributory factor to the trend of gay people being generally unhappy. Evangelical types spare the preaching, and go pray for hypocrites of your own kind like Mel Gibson. I really have nothing (much) against Christianty (I still do consider myself Christian, no matter how much the Church may reject me). It's those damn people preaching from their self-improvised moral high ground that really pisses me off.

Anyway, last night was more fun than I've had in some time, althouh I actually had someone come up to me and tell me to 'relax' and not look so tense. WR says that I always look bored. It's the music. Give me a hot song like Hung Up, Push The Button or Intuition (and Kate Moss has found LOTS of jobs so HA) and I can just lose myself and dance like a lunatic. Play crappy songs without vocals or Pussycatdoll garbage and I'll either just pretend to be moving or fold my hands and people watch. And what a bunch of people there are to watch! There was this really psyco guy last night who was basically dancing on the podium the entire time. He was NOT hot, terribly dressed, and had the most awkward dance moves ever. Towards the end of the night as we were dancing in front of him, he suddenly crouched down and gave this look that can only be described as Bambi gone crazy. It was very scary.

You know I go out to club every Saturday night and yeah I have a good time. But I never seem to be approached by anyone even unremarkably decent. I don't know if it's the way I look (it probably is) or the way I appear (bored, tense whatever). For now it's fine la. But when Meng and WR do leave *sobs*, I go back to square one if I don't do anything about it soon. To be honest I don't exactly know what to do about it la. What can I do if people simply aren't attracted to me? Surgerly lor. Haha.

At MOX last night was talking with WR while Meng mysteriously disappeared to the toilet for a suspiciously long time. He doesn't really know what he's looking for either. Or, to be more exact, he longs for different things at different times. A stable relationship on one hand, a serial monogamist on the other, or just plain slutty sex sometimes. It's something that I think all of us have to reflect on at one time or other, and now's probably the best time to do it. We're going to be married to our careers in the future. If we don't sort this out now, we simply won't have the time (or energy) to do so when we're more grown up. God I hate growing up.

People are cynical. I hope I never go to those kind of extremes.

Airbrush Mania

So I've been twiddling with my MacBook and yesterday came across that wonderful tool, the retouch. It basically smooths out imperfections. All you gotta do is click on the icon and hold down the button as you drag the crosshair all over your ugly mug. And viola! I basically got rid of all the damn blemishes (my complexion right now isn't as bad as it was in the first picture, I SWEAR!) and tried my best to minimise those damn eyebags and this is the result.

BEFORE =(

And...AFTER!

Pretty good when you consider that it's a very primitive program, this is my first time at airbrushing (you'd think that I'd be a professional by now no?) and that it took me about 3 minutes. It IS amazing what technology can do. Haha I was kind of tempted to use this as my profile pic, but I'll keep my principles and not. Besides, why set others up for even more disappointment eh?

Und

Internet connection was down for the past week which explains the SECOND prolonged absence. Last Saturday after an average night at Taboo the trinity (Naomi, Linda and Christy of course) congregated at MAXWELL FOOD CENTRE for supper. Having seen Dick at Taboo, we started talking along that line und Jacintha soon found her way into the convo, whereupon ABISHEGANADEN entered the lexicon of the trinity. It does sound very vulgar doesn't it? Dick, please place your urm, dick, into my ABISHGANADEN. From there Naomi took it und ran, weaving it into song lyrics and actions und such artful descriptions that only she can conjure. We had a great laugh und that helpped to make up for the otherwise lacklustre night. Not ONE good song.

Anyway the next day was Cabaret and I got to meet WR's friend Shu Qi who seems like such a lovely person. For some strange reason half his neighbourhood showed up for the play so there were familiar faces. Reminds me of Wisteria Lane you know. Without the scandal und burnt houses of course...or just maybe...

I'd give Cabaret 8 out of 10. I'm the kind of person who appreciates good diction und there was little to complain about by way of pronunciation. I understood most of what was said perfectly. Bar the French und German of course. Je sui enchante! Among the more memorable (und funny) moments was this scene where the American's British girlfriend (I'm crap at remembering names) picked up a book in his room und went "Oh this is the book you wrote! Mein Kampf!" I don't know how many people got that. Although let's remember that the crowd at the Esplanade is probably considerably more...aware...than your average Singaporean. "I'll stick this up somewhere that will hurt even you"und "We're sisters of the SKIN" were also two hilarious moments. Some parts did drag but there was always Fei Xiang to enliven the scene sooner or later. What WR said was true, how they used the cabaret scenes as a sort of comparison with real life. Life, in many ways, is a cabaret. The whole Nazi plot at the end helpped to add some sort of substance to the whole thing, und I appreciated that. I usually dismiss such diversions as unnecessary und pretentious, but it did add another (chilling) dimension to what was up to then more raunch und shock und spectacle than anything else.

I always want to take photos at these of events but never do so in the end. I suppose I'll have to preserve the memories in words und in the recesses of my forgetful mind. But ah, a picture tells a thousand words. Pitie.

Word Up