lundi, mai 25, 2009 $5 is a lot of money in schools CK came by my office for lunch before she left for HK last month, and as I had requested St. Nicks orange bowl fishball noodles (锅条，干的，不要辣，加豆芽！), she kindly went and 打包ed from school for me! And we ate like kings... apparently she had given the uncle $5 per packet, and he kept on going back for more 料, maybe because he felt that it really wasn't worthy of a $5 price!Considering that he normally sells his food for a max of $2.50, I think he was a little out of his element... not that I'm complaining! Yum. .jpg) 
[$5 is a lot of money in schools] |
|
I'm not a Starhub user due to legacy issues, but I really liked the French song that they used in their most recent commercial. Can't remember? Looky here: Lyrics of Starhub Advertisement C'est Si Bon (and my attempt at translating it)
It's got a good trashy cymbal sound to it, and it's got a good beat that you can dance to... I really wonder why Starhub isn't maximising its use, like how M1 totally maxed out KC and the Sunshine Band's "Walking On Sunshine" all those years ago. The origin of the song is murky. Some say it's a special track written for Starhub. Others say that it's C'est Si Bon, as done by Eartha Kitt, Lisa Ono, Dean Martin, Louie Armstrong and many others, but the tunes sound in the way that "Majulah Singapura" sounds like "Singapura, Oh Singapura" - i.e. they don't. Have a listen to Lisa Ono's and Eartha Kitt's - Lisa Ono: Eartha Kitt: I guess we'll never know... or at least, I won't know :D Libellés : music [Starhub's C'est Si Bon] |
||
 I found a poem I wrote in 2003. I think I was at a Crusade camp and I hadn't slept the entire night. This was written at 8.30am in the morning. Could also be that this was the allocated time for QT and I was bored.Is it weird to think that I'm quite funny? The Bean The time is short yet my pages still clean I cry to God "Were I born a bean!" "No thesis, no typing, no pain, no noise, But then I'd be harvested to be stuffed into toys." 27 Jan 03 8.30am Libellés : literature, personal, writing [The Bean] |
dimanche, mai 24, 2009 I rather love my AMK (or, Why I Think I am a Heartlander, or Heartland is Where the Home is) .jpg) Rie and I have these terribly funny conversations all the time about how I'm a "pseudo-heartlander", a poser, a wannabe. I, in turn, call her an atas-face, which she takes with a graceful sweep of her $50-or-more-haircut hair (she will refute this vehemently but don't believe her, even if she produces receipts), and basically, well, owns the sort-of insult."At least I acknowledge that I am atas, and cannot function outside of AMK Hub, okay," she huffs. "You are the worst: a wannabe heartlander who cannot admit the fact that you are atas. Ashamed of your own class.*" (* well, obviously not in so many words, but the general IDEA behind the sentiment is correct anyways...) I cannot remember if I've tried defending myself before (I have a sneaky feeling that I have), but after another one of my trips to AMK, I felt that my love for AMK should really count towards my credit! Here are her arguments which (purportedly) support the idea that I am an atas-face: I stay on landed property, and have never stayed in an HDB flat before - nor an apartment. I've gone to the best schools, and I've travelled far and wide, and I speak English predominantly. "But, but, but," I argue, "it's not particularly fair to penalise me for my parents' investment savvy-ness, or my mother's willingness to queue up for the best schools, or my wanderlust! Not to mention the fact that my mother speaks NO Mandarin at all, since she was a Malaysian, and studied Bahasa Melayu rather than Mandarin. And my Dad only learnt Chinese till he was Primary 6! The fact that I speak ANY Mandarin at all is a major miracle!" Seriously speaking though, I think that the notion of a heartlander is one which is limited only by the mind. I prefer a hawker centre over the food court, and a food court over a restaurant, and I'm happy to go bargain-bin diving (as my good friends will attest!) to find the cheapest multi-plug, rather than head to the nearest D.I.Y. Fix-It shop (which, let's face it, is pretty expensive compared to the chapalang shops that exist in the heartland town centres!). I would not think about going to Tanglin, for example, to buy a lamp - it's Ikea (oh come on, this is WAY not atas!) or just some random shop in AMK or Thomson Plaza. .jpg) Ah, Thomson Plaza. That's another point of contention between Rie and me. She points to the fact that it used to be Yaohan, the Japanese supermarket, and concludes that it's got a history of atas-sion. Plus, its house supermarket recently upgraded from a regular NTUC Fairprice, to NTUC Gourmet - WOW, that's a sign of crazy atas-people living nearby.Puh-leeze. That's like saying that Tampines people are now half-Japanese because Uniqlo opened in Tampines Mall. Granted, the NTUC Gourmet has a wide selection of alternative (organic, wholistic, expensive) food, but its proximity to me has NO bearing on my poor old heartlander heart. AMK is a bit further, but I go there more often and I think I comport myself with great heartlander decorum. Today, I went and repaired my shoes with the uncle who has no shopfront - just a quasi-legal store at the lift lobby of the Sports Link building. I went to alter two pieces of clothing with an auntie who was sitting outside her store with two pedal-operated sewing machines. I bought a zip. Bubble tea. Bread for my family's breakfast tomorrow. A $1 lock. All transactions were conducted in a mixture of Mandarin and Hokkien, or in singlish. I joked with the uncle that I didn't need his card - I knew where to find him. I was very happy haggling with the sewing auntie. And I enjoyed (as I always do) walking around in the crowd, drinking my SweetTalk bubble tea, visiting ValuDollar and the many, many chapalang stores that AMK Central has... and it never feels like I'm slumming, and I don't look down on anything there. (Okay, to be very honest, some of the buskers are really quite irritating thanks to their expensive sound systems (ironic much?) , but even then it's more compassion and sympathy I feel rather than stuck up.) At no point did I feel like I really needed a nice, clean Gucci store, or a foot massage by an overenthusiastic Cartier salesperson. The point? Atas-sibility and heartlander-syndrome is really about how at home you feel in your chosen environment. It's not just that I feel like a fish out of water on Orchard Road (or Raffles Place area), it's not just that I'm prudent with money, and it's not just that I happen to have a certain zip code. It's all about the mind - for where the heart is, the mind is also. Libellés : humour, personal, thinking, writing [I rather love my AMK (or, Why I Think I am a Heartlander, or Heartland is Where the Home is)] |
|
Congrats and Bon Voyage, Rachel & Eeleen! Come back with more music to share.
.jpg) [Congrats and Bon Voyage, Rachel & Eeleen!] |
jeudi, mai 21, 2009 There's really a difference between stuff that good friends recommend and send, and people who really have NO idea what you really, really like.Case in point:  Sexy, and cute!  I really like the latter! He used to be a casette tape that really played, and now he's a thumbdrive!!! Libellés : personal [Kristine Knows Me!] |
mercredi, mai 20, 2009 PDL Day 06 - Life is a Temporary Assignment  This reminds me of a quote that a lovely lady once told me when I was 11 or 12, at a children's camp at the Christian Outreach to the Handicapped (1991? 1992?) - to learn to hold things with a loose grasp so that it doesn't hurt so much when God takes it away from us. (I think she was quoting Corrie Ten Boom, but I can't seem to find the actual quote and citation.) It's just really hard to remember not to grab everything we can in this "me" culture.It feels really comfortable on earth. Stuff fits us - clothes, shoes, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. There's always something MORE to do/ say/ eat/ take/ see/ experience/ encounter/ learn/ etc. And worse still, our own human desires pull us towards these things, and unyieldingly, we lean towards them... if we forget to check ourselves. My boss once criticised this of me (and he proclaims to be a Christian) - he said "Oh! Thought police!" I'll take that as persecution, thank you very much for adding to my riches in heaven, sir. It's crazy hard to remember this particular lesson: that this isn't home. This isn't our final destination. But it's not a vacation either! There's Matt 28, our eternal "to-do list" that never ends. So we straddle the two as best we can, muddling our way through with the Holy Spirit. I asked Andy last week if I should change jobs, to something a little more fulfilling, and something that would advance my career. He told me that he had once asked Ps. Jack Snell the same question. The answer? As usual, in the practice of all psychologists/counsellors, the answer came back in the form of a probing-reflective question: "Would it take time away from God?" I gave Andy a look that resembled the oft-used emoticon: -_- ... Oh, and Andy's been in his current job for about 10 years. How can one balance all the warring needs within us? To want to fulfil ourselves and our potential, and feel like a useful member of society, versus doing God's work and fulfilling our Holy function (to glorify God)? To meld the two is not impossible, but it's hardly economically-friendly - or put in less PC terms - there's really no money/easy street when you're doing God's work. Rom 7:19-20 For I do not do the good I want, but I do the evil I do not want. Now if (I) do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. It sucks being a sinful human. * Besides reminding me of the hymn "This World Is Not My Home", it also remind me of a lovely song by Chris Rice - Life Means So Much Life Means So Much Chris Rice [Album: Smell the Color Nine] Every day is a journal page Every man holds a quill and ink And there's plenty of room for writing in All we do is believe and think So will you compose a curse Or will today bring the blessing Fill the page with rhyming verse Or some random sketching Teach us to count the days Teach us to make the days count Lead us in better ways That somehow our souls forgot Life means so much Life means so much Life means so much Every day is a bank account And time is our currency So nobody's rich, nobody's poor We get 24 hours each So how are you gonna spend Will you invest, or squander Try to get ahead Or help someone who's under Teach us to count the days Teach us to make the days count Lead us in better ways That somehow our souls forgot Life means so much Life means so much Life means so much Has anybody ever lived who knew the value of a life And don't you think giving is all What proves the worth of yours and mine Teach us to count the days Teach us to make the days count Lead us in better ways That somehow our souls forgot Life means so much Every day is a gift you've been given Make the most of the time every minute you're living Libellés : christian, church, music, PDL2009, thinking [PDL Day 06 - Life is a Temporary Assignment] |
mardi, mai 19, 2009 PDL Day 04: Made to Last Forever  * God has planted eternity in the human heart (Eccl 3:11)* Interestingly enough, the start of this chapter made me think of relationships. If we're made for God, and made for eternity, should not our quest to find someone to spend the rest of our lives with, be instead a quest to find someone to whom we can ask – would you like to spend the rest of our lives serving God together? That our quest to find someone to hang out with until we die is wrongly focused – on ourselves? Some food for thought there. I think God would be pleased with that proposal. * Considering everything in light of eternity is paramount to Christian living. If all Christians thought about eternity in everything they did, we'd have a much better reputation. * Atheists are liars if they aren't also nihilists and completely debauched – in the same way that Christians who don't attend church aren't really Christians. Quote from Bones 5x26 The End in the Beginning: "You love someone, you open yourself up to suffering. That's the sad truth. [PDL Day 04: Made to Last Forever] |
samedi, mai 16, 2009 PDL Day 03: What Drives Your Life? * I think I'm driven by fear of failure.* I also think that the question, "What Drives Your Life?" has a mixed bag of responses. As sinful, fallen creatures, we can only expect - at best - an even mix of altruism, self-love and God. Phileo, Eros, Agape. * Scary questions to be asked by God: a) What did you do with my Son, Jesus Christ? b) What did you do with what I gave you? * Thoreau and "lives of quiet desperation." I think many in Singapore are living this life. Bleak. Libellés : PDL2009 [PDL Day 03: What Drives Your Life?] |
vendredi, mai 15, 2009 PDL Day 02: You Are Not An Accident * Day 2 is all about Psalm 139: about how we were created - with love in mind. Notions of worthiness and value must be inculcated when we are born/are young, or self-love will not be inherent. Our life situation is planned!* We cannot understand WHY we are formed unless we understand the nature of God - which we can't, not really. This is the step of faith: to accept that God exists, and that He *is* love. Libellés : PDL2009 [PDL Day 02: You Are Not An Accident] |
jeudi, mai 14, 2009 Google Chrome ads: cute and mostly cuddly Google's finally come up with tv ads for Chrome!Watch them here: http://www.pcworld.com/article/164695/google_hits_tv_with_11_chrome_ads_see_them_all.html My favourite: Libellés : technology, television [Google Chrome ads: cute and mostly cuddly] |
|
PDL Day 1: It All Starts With God D wanted to do Warren's PDL, and I offered to accompany her along the journey. We're cross-blogging to keep each other accountable, but to keep the pressure light, the blogs don't have to be completely coherent.Day 01: The central idea is that nothing makes sense without starting first with God. That we get confused because ask questions "Why" that start with us. Having the wrong starting point leads us to places we never wanted to be in the first place. Thoughts: * The Bertrand Russell quote, "Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless" reminds me of someone who once asked me to read - with an open mind - his treatise on religion, "Why I am not a Christian". That was quite a clearly marked line that I thought I could bypass... but it's like a latitudinal line - stretched all the way around and there's no circumventing it. * The other interesting thing is the idea of success versus one's life purpose - what matters the most? We don't get to choose our life's purpose - we were made by God, for God. I think this is what sticks people the most - that we don't get to choose. But none of us could have made ourselves, so everyone's just angry at the God for making them, but that's like the pot being angry at the potter. We've deluded ourselves into thinking that we're in control, and that's why we're so angry when we don't get what we want (success.) Only after we - like addicts in the Program - admit that there is a Higher Power, only then will we be able to define our life's purpose, and only then, conceptualise what our idea of "success" is. * The Free Will covenant is a myth. Nowhere in the bible did God say that we have the freedom to choose Him or not. Freedom is slavery to the self - only surrender to God will bring release. This is the paradox of faith. * Constant renewal in the mind by reading God's Word will bring understanding. Nothing else will. My activities, friends, and entire life must remind me of God and my purpose in life here. This is where we falter - because we do stuff that doesn't remind us of God at all. We secularise our lives, thinking that we can compartmentalise. It doesn't work that well. Integration is the key to being a whole man, not a "double-minded man, unstable in all he does" (James 1:8) Libellés : PDL2009 [PDL Day 1: It All Starts With God] |
mardi, mai 12, 2009  (Warning: highly inflammatory)The AWARE issue just made me so angry that I shouted at someone in the office for trying to pin conservative values on all christians. Just because an anti-abortion, anti-gay message is coming from someone, does NOT necc. make it a Christian value - I was very angry at this conflation made because these bunch of idiotic women from COOS decided to take matters into their own hands. The church ALREADY has a platform - legal, moral, and God-driven - to preach our message of hope - it is the church. The fact of the matter is that the church in Singapore has generally FAILED to preach these hard messages - that life is sacred and begins at conception, that homosexuality is NOT supported by the church - so these sincerely wrong women decided to take matters into their own hands. These women should have done something other than to circumvent and take over something which is in the world - it's just engaging Satan on his own turf. If they are truly watchers of the Women's movement in Singapore - of which I have been an active observer of - they would have known that there are other things going on in AWARE - not just gay issues. If they were more involved with civil society in Singapore, as I am, then they would realise the metatexual issue at stake here, which is a statement on Singapore's civil society - the gay community (or GLBT/LGBT community) is very hard pressed to find a space to rally in Singapore, and therefore has to squeeze itself into the dialogue through spaces such as those provided by AWARE. Technically, because AWARE is a women's organisation, it should only champion lesbians - if it champions them at all. However, because lesbians and gays are related, there is issue-affinity there - then come along the bisexuals and the transexuals. GBLT is not a single-issue button - you press one, you get four minorities in with your cause. It is AWARE's fault for NOT realising that they should have refused to engage so much with lesbians because it would have meant taking on the collective baggage of ALL minority groups. We cannot delude ourselves into thinking that Christians are "neutral". This is the kind of thinking that confuses us. The ground that we stand on is never neutral. If we think it's neutral, we get sucked into this idea that our "conservative" stance is one which is held by most of society. While this is true in conservative Singapore, "most of society" is changing/degenerating fast. John 15: 18 "If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.'[b] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. To think of ourselves as neutral is to take away the warning that Christ gave us: Matthew 10:16 "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves." --> Jesus to the disciples as he sent them out into the world. I find it irritating that Christians go out into the world, profess a Christian belief, and then get surprised and act so hurt when the world jumps on them for their beliefs. Have we been lulled so much into this myth of "tolerance" that we think that the "liberal left" doesn't have an agenda to push? That the "liberals" are really, all that liberal in the first place? Anyone who doesn't accept homosexuality and "liberal" values are persecuted by the sword! And they want to point a finger at us for the crusades? It's human nature to fear the thing we do not understand, and by extension, destroy it. Look at poor Miss USA (or whatever it was; Carrie Prejean?) She said she didn't support gay marriage, and now her whole family is receiving death threats. See these women who stood up (however wrongly) for "conservative family values"? Got publicly crucified by 3000 women at Suntec. Standing on the side of Christianity is NOT neutral ground. I wish Christians would stop looking so surprised when the world doesn't understand. In the wake of the AWARE saga, how should the church and Christians respond? My goodness, is that even a question? Study the bible, study WHY you're a Christian, and then get more involved with Christ and His work on earth - increase your bible literacy, work harder at Matt 28! Engagement with the world is through our lives, and unless your lives point to Christ, it's just (as Eccl says) meaningless stuff. I really didn't mean to go into a ten-paragraph rant on this issue, but everytime I think/talk about this AWARE issue, it makes me very (1) annoyed at COOS and (2) at these women, (3) and by extension, the church, for not giving women like these a platform to use their energy for Godly work instead of creating a mess. If COOS is patting these women on their back and congratulating them for changing Singapore MOE/AWARE history, I don't know what kind of church they are. Libellés : christian, church, current affairs, singapore [Christians and AWARE] |
lundi, mai 11, 2009 The Reactor: the first patented total liquid submersion personal supercomputer  Seriously, how cool is this? Instead of having your run-of-the-mill water-cooling pipes and thingamajiggys, the WHOLE SYSTEM is submerged in industrial cooling fluid!I'll bet it runs quiet as a peaceful, sleeping baby. *drool* Libellés : technology [The Reactor: the first patented total liquid submersion personal supercomputer] |
samedi, mai 09, 2009 Stop jumping the shark OOC-ing This post will not make sense to you if you do not watch Bones, or House, MD. I don't really watch much TV - just get the shows, and watch them. I don't follow many, because of my tendency to grow slightly (just ever so slightly) obsessive-compulsive about them. So I only follow a couple at a time. In the past year or so, it's been Bones, and even more recently, House MD.They are KILLING my shows with the jumping of the shark, and characters behaving OOC. It's terrible. I'm not sure if ratings are down, or if they've just run out of storylines, but I just finished watching Bones, and suddenly Brennan wants a baby (after having listed ten billion biological imperatives NOT to procreate), and she wants Booth's sperm to do it. The resultant conversations between Booth and Brennan, Booth and Cam, Brennan and her team, Booth and Brennan and Sweets - all completely uncomfortable to watch. The only real conversation occurs between Angela and Brennan - but that's only because Angela's been pushing the Booth angle hard since the first episode (Bones is now in its fourth season.) The whole thing is TERRIBLE. To make things worse, they're leading off to the final episode of the season with Booth having a brain tumour, with one more episode of nonsense to go. I just hope that I don't see anymore Family Guy Stewie in Booth's hallucinations.  Speaking of hallucinations, we kill House's amazing series of vicodin-sponsored cutthroat bitch subconscious. But end up with House and Cuddy getting their freak on. Which is completely hot, but the OOC thing is driving me insane with annoyance. I will sign the social contract that engages me as a TV watcher, and suspend my disbelief for the period of time that I watch the show. However, I cannot condone illogical leaps - like detox taking ONE NIGHT? House should have had the shakes for a week, and he should have been very, very nasty to Cuddy. Mean, horrible, like he was back in Season 3 when he was shouting at her and telling her she'd be a really bad mother (3x09).And at the end? "I always want to kiss you." From Dr. Gregory House? Impossible. Replace "kiss" with "enter a workplace-unacceptable euphemism for 'have wild sex with'" and you might get closer to what the character might really have said. It's the proverbial 20-minutes before the show ends, and I'm left with one episode left per show. I'm cringing at how bad they might make it, and how much I could possibly bitch about it. Interesting thing is that Brendan Fehr will be making an appearance, as well as poor Ryan O'Neal, and the other interns. Brennan might decide to have a team of interns under her, which would (sigh) make it like House and his interns. Maybe it's the Hugh Laurie - Stephen Fry connection between the two shows. Why are they mirroring each other? Libellés : television [Stop jumping the shark OOC-ing] |
mercredi, mai 06, 2009 Captain Planet, he's our hero! I'm working on a project right now which is bringing a whole lot of laughs. Hannah, this is for you.Captain Planet - Episode 1 Part 1/3 Part 2/3 Part 3/3 [unavailable] Libellés : cartoons, comics, environment [Captain Planet, he's our hero!] |
samedi, mai 02, 2009  "I think the vice president misrepresented what the vice president wanted to say," said White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs.White House adjusts Biden's swine flu advice Officials seek to undo the damage after the vice president goes his own way, saying he'd tell family members to avoid planes, trains and other enclosed spaces. [By Mark Silva and Christi Parsons, May 1, 2009, Los Angeles Times] I think the vice president said exactly what the vice president wanted to say. Staying on message can suck. Libellés : current affairs, humour, politics [Come again?] |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
