thegreatsze

Youth

2012-01-25T23:26:00.005+08:00

I remember now, the cusp of spring in 2003; lying in bed on a quiet Friday afternoon, with nothing for company but soft grass rustling.

A knock at the door: it's Nelson, my Singaporean senior living one floor above.

"Hey, is your internet down?"

I don't know, I say. I look down at the book in my hands: The City and the Stars, by Arthur C. Clarke. I've been reading, apparently.

"Wow, still got time to read story book? Not bad, really know how to enjoy ..."

I smile guiltily and offer a suitable rejoinder. Nelson laughs in his good-natured way and goes off, unabated in his search for greener internet.

I return to my room and look at my laptop, shut for the first time in days. I look at the deep impression I've left on my bed; I look at the window, slightly ajar, letting in a refreshing temperate breeze. I am noticing all these things for the first time.

I look at the book in my hand. How long ...?

A quiet warmth builds inside me as I curl up again, resuming from where I'd left off. I still have the rest of the afternoon, the rest of the book, I think happily. The rest of my life.

How to be Happz

2011-06-13T22:52:00.020+08:00

Not my woman, not my alcohol - alas, not my life

So last Friday I found myself ensconced in the warm embrace of Singapore's "first members-only club", bobbing to the dull thud of what, on hindsight now, must have been music. It was a queer feeling, to be both an insider and outsider at the same time: I was unsure whether to feel sad about my initial exclusion (really a mean business concept), or happy at my intervening intrusion. This dilemma did not bother me for long, however, for soon I was caught up in the vicissitudes of "being happz".

Because this was the "first members-only club" in Singapore, everyone in the club was just that much more "happz". Never mind that half the people I knew there were not members; never mind that the other half were janitors at my office who had missed the last bus back to JB. It was MEMBERS-ONLY, so the ante had to be upped.

But first: what exactly is "happz"? It is a difficult concept to articulate. Let us give examples, first, of what is not "happz". Farting is not "happz", regardless of gender. A female admitting to bodily functions is not "happz". A bloke PayPalling you for $0.05 is not "happz". Supporting Manchester United when you cannot play football is not "happz". Oh, a good one: blogging about clubbing is not "happz".

Now that we have defined the concept negatively, we can move into firmer territory. For starters, who is "happz"? The answer, unequivocally, has to be Wolverine. Wolverine is "happz". Nobody will ever say otherwise. Can you think of someone who is more "happz" than Wolverine?

Gambit: I am more "happz" than you, wolf-boy.
Wolverine: I have adamantium erection. You have exploding penis.
Gambit: OK I lose.

I cannot. And so Wolverine sets the standard for "happz" - at least for the men. (I will talk about female "happz" later, or tomorrow, because I am so busy.) Now, what are the characteristics of Wolverine that lend him so well to being "happz"? I shall outline a few:

1. Wolverine kills people.
2. Wolverine cannot die.
3. Wolverine is attractive to women.
4. Wolverine is laconic.
5. Wolverine has a scarred past.
6. Wolverine can shoot out adamantium claws from his knuckles.
7. Wolverine smokes.
8. Wolverine is called Wolverine (and not, say, "Lupine-Man" or "Lupus").

1 is out of reach of most normal people. However, you can project the idea that you kill people. This is why guys wear tight t-shirts that barely cover their rippling muscles. Or you could carry an unsheathed knife all over the place with a crazed look in your eyes.

I sense objection. Someone is shouting: "A crazed man carrying a knife is not 'happz', he is just crazy!" This is a misguided counterpoint. A crazed man is the essence of "happz". Someone who does not change himself to suit the world is "happz". Of course, if subsequently the crazed man breaks down and sobs an apology into tissue along the lines of "My mama abandoned me I just want attention with my knifey boohoohoo", he becomes extremely "unhappz". Wolverine would never do this. Wolverine would say to anybody who asks, "Go fuck yourself."

2 is similar to 1, except that projecting it is slightly harder. You have to do stupid things, like drink 23746872 shots or bungee jump. And there is the risk that you might die. Therefore in general, it is cooler to be 2 than 1, if you can only manage one. But if you can only manage one, you are probably never going to be "happz", so you might as well give up and go back to supporting Manchester United.

3 is actually the end result of everything in the list.

4 speaks for itself (haha). The less you say, the more other people can talk and trip themselves up. In Wolverine's case, I suspect slight dyslexia and mental retardation but hey, if it works it works. Allow others to project themselves onto you; it makes them like you because you remind them of them.

5 is crucial. If you have no scarred past, nobody will be drawn to your hidden magnetic allure. Because of their shallow natures and inability to accept reality, people like to think that things have depth. Make a torrid past up if you have none; every scar can be turned into a story. To date my cleft lip has bestowed upon me all manner of heroics: bank robbery, skateboarding accident, "you should see the other guy" broken-bottle fight etc etc. If you have no physical scars, emotional scars work too, but be careful; don't whine. State matter-of-factly ("yeah my father castrated himself, then killed my mother"), steel your jaw and then down the shot you have in front of you.

6 - let's not waste time here, bub.

7 is fun. Don't think that Wolverine only smokes cigars; he smokes cigarettes off and on too. The key is appropriateness. When in the gutter, cigarettes; when photographed, cigars; when in a Victorian building, pipes. Let the smell hang on your clothes so the women you make love to can feel the difference between you (dirty scruffy badass cur) and them (pure silken fragrant tofu). If you don't actually like putting things in your mouth, you can find a nicotine scent to put on you. It does the job of hiding affairs just as well.

8 appears unimportant, but really it is very, very important. A man with a lousy name is worse off than a man with no name. Ergo, if you have a lousy name, just abandon it. Tell people you have no name, and see what happens. It will always pan out more "happz" than not. Consider:

A: What's your name?
B: Booloolaskuka.
A: Ewww.
B: Dang.

and

A: What's your name?
B: I have no name.
A: Huh?
B: Yep.
A: How come?
B: Guess my parents forgot.
A: Oh dear.
B: Don't worry, they're dead now.
A: Oh dear.
B: Yeah I killed them. For forgetting to give me a name.

If this approach is too extreme, you can always give yourself a name. But here is the difficult part. You cannot give yourself a name that is obviously self-given. This is because it is extremely "unhappz" to do anything for yourself. Take, for example, photos that are put up on Facebook. People always try to make it look like other people are always taking photos of them and putting them up. "... Dude when was this taken? don't remember it ... musta been totally wasted ha ..." writes Wannabe X. Oh really? You don't remember? I took it after you failed to pay me back for dinner, farted and declared that you supported Manchester United. Remember now? Wanker.

So very sad but true, the very behaviour I condemn is the one that most closely approximates "happz" behaviour. Ideally, of course, you will already have a cool name, but if you don't, remember not to go overboard choosing. Classic English names are all the rage now: see that you adhere, Andrew. Go away, LeBron.

Now that we know what "happz" is, we can go back into Singapore's "first members-only club", where I am standing in a corner drinking ginger ale and being very "unhappz". I am watching people, watching for clues on how to behave. My eyes fixate on a singular man, who appears to be doing his best to be "happz", but I think he has only managed to "blend in". Have you ever stared very hard at computer-generated audiences in sports games like Virtua Tennis or Winning Eleven? OK, you haven't, but I have. Basically the illusion of a crowd falls away, and you are left thinking: it is really, really sad to be a piece of background looped animation.

That is what happens as I stare at this man (let's call him Bobby). Bobby is bouncing on his feet, looking here and there, a glass of alcohol permanently riveted to his left palm. He has the shoes, the shirt, the look; but he has no idea what he is doing. He is trying so hard to be "happz" it is clear that he is no longer enjoying himself. His conversations with his companions are meaningless ejaculations of less than 5 syllables; his drink does not so much hydrate him as it is supposed to validate him; he does not know the lyrics to any of the songs, but he moves his lips nonetheless (maybe he is deaf! alamak I am so cruel, but it is too late now). Actually, what would a deaf man be doing in a club? No, it cannot be possible. I do not feel bad anymore.

I am starting to enjoy isolating people and watching them. I find that the club becomes less intimidating when I do this. Nobody knows what they are doing. Everyone is pretending. Even Extreme Chiobu With Light Sticks has moments where she is standing there, staring into space, questioning her choice of activity on a Friday night. It is comforting, knowing that I am not alone; knowing that members and non-members alike do not find belonging in a club that has, from the get-go, been created to divide.

3 AM, the lights come up; one man is drunk beyond sentience. He sits alone at a sofa, abandoned by his friends (including Extreme Chiobu With Light Sticks). The security men are prodding him none too gently; no matter, he is dead to the world. Takeaway #1: alcohol is not a magic bullet that makes you "happz". You have to be "happz" first before you can rely on alcohol to enhance your "happz"ness.

A couple are still kissing (they came to the club together and pretty much made out the whole time). I gawk openly, but my thoughts are intellectual and deep. Why do couples come to clubs together? Are they so insecure that they must kiss in public? Why not set up a website and charge $14.99 for monthly subscription? Takeaway #2: a lot of your love life can be monetized.

I am sad at having to leave Singapore's "first members-only club"; given my status as non-member, I am unsure if I will ever be able to return to its hallowed premises. But my friends are impatient ("eh let's go wait outside the toilet for chiobu to come out!"), so I linger for only a little while longer before skulking outside.

One of my friends is impatient to leave. "Eh let's go lah," he says. I ask, Why? Did we not want to ogle chiobus coming out from the toilet? "No lah, let's go let's go." Had we not been ogling chiobus inside the club? "Yes but now is outside. Let's go let's go." Why is it that ogling can only take place inside the club but not outside the club? "Cos I say cannot OK?" OK.

As we part ways outside the club (I wave to the janitors from my office), I look over to the taxi queue. People still have their walls up; I can hear the pointless conversations that are being had, the posturing, the complete inability of every individual tumbling out of the "first members-only club" to simply be himself or herself. I want to go up to the girl who is giggling in her affected manner and tell her: "When you lie to others, you are only lying to yourself, fool! Now are those fake?" But I stop myself, because (a) I have no balls and (b) I hear another voice telling me - "This is how different people have fun, don't be so judgmental." (Actually this is the voice of Xiuhui, who likes to take the side of morons (for the challenge).)

And so I leave these people to be "happz"; I think I will be happy instead.

Articulating Dislike

2011-01-03T12:01:00.011+08:00

Jack: "Xiaoming, why don't you like Tjugito?"

Xiaoming: "Dunno leh. Dun like his face."

Jack: "So if his face was different, you'd like him then?"

Xiaoming: "No la, of cos not la. He is damn irritating can. Even you look like Brad Pitt, if you are a lousy person, nobody will like you wan."

Jack: "But just now you said you didn't like his face - "

Xiaoming: "Is just a PHRASE, ok? Wah lan eh dun like means dun like lah!"

Jack: "Well, I am not disputing that."

Xiaoming: "... huh?"

Jack: "'Don't like' means 'don't like', I am not disagreeing with that."

Xiaoming: "Cheebye that is another phrase can."

Jack: "Actually cheebye is not really a phra - "

Xiaoming: "You wan me to tell you why I dun like you?"

***
While the exchange appears to be a farcical one, it discloses several truths. One, there are many reasons for liking and disliking people. Two, people are frequently unable to articulate their reasons for liking and disliking people, for whatever reasons (probably strategic, but also encouraged by Facebook's low-requirement, incoherence-engendering "Like" button). Three, the superficial aspect ("his face") is inevitably our first port of call - subconscious or otherwise - whenever we get down to the exercise of judging people (for that's what this is, let us be under no illusions).

Mindful of these facts, I have laboured to construct a system for deciding exactly why some people are disliked by all, some by some, and some by only me. In designing this system I was conscious that it ought to explain as much about the judger as the judged: social life, after all, is nothing if not reciprocal. To a large extent I think I have succeeded in my endeavour.

I call mysystem the "Five Epsilon System", but the easier to pronounce "We Can No Longer Agree to Disagree About People System", or "WCNLADAPS" for short, appeared to command greater popularity (in beta). In any case the system countenances 5 distinct attributes observable in human beings: Ability (B), Awareness (A), Superficiality (S), Intelligence (I) and Consideration (C). Each individual attribute is measurable along a sliding scale ranging from -100 to +100, to be agglomerated with the following formula:

Like/Dislike Rating = B + A + 2S + 0.5I + 0.75C

The formula above is applicable only to present-day Singapore; it reflects Xiaoming's (and our) superficial bent. Here are some formulae from other places and times:

Like/Dislike Rating in the Old Wild West = 5B + 0.5A + 0.5S + 0.1I + C

Like/Dislike Rating in Outer Space = 100B +50A +0S + 75I + C

Like/Dislike Rating in Prison, circa 1892 = 100B + 100A + 0S + 0.2I + (-|2C|)

The Like/Dislike Rating, or LDR for short, reflects how much you like or dislike someone. If it is positive it signifies liking; if negative, disliking. It is best thought of as not being measured "upon" anything (even though that is theoretically possible), but rather exists as a handy relative gauge for inhabitants of a particular society at a particular time. An illustration:

Jack: "Xiaoming, why don't you like Tjugito?"

Xioaming: "I can't identify with his lack of A and I. He watches MTV with his mouth open all day long."

Jack: "Oh. I am guessing those attributes pulled him down to a low positive?"

Xioaming: "No man, his lack of S brought him to -48!"

Jack: "Oh dear. I never knew you were an S man."

Separately: It was suggested that the convenient acronym "BASIC" be employed instead, but as the passive voice suggested it, the suggestion was canned.

Without further ado, here are the five relevant attributes, each with a short description and accompanying examples.

(NB. This entry could have been "Articulating Like", except that for some reason "like" is not a noun. Also, I am generally a mean, cynical and negative person, so I dislike this title less.)

Ability
Competence, talent, leadership - someone who possesses a lot of ability usually leaves you gaping in awe, rather than seething with envy. Usually it is associated with tangible, obviously measurable traits (piano-playing chops, dribbling skills, savoir faire - rather than insincerity - at networking events and other complex social interactions).

+100 examples: Michael Jackson's dancing, Jason Kidd's dribbling, Barack Obama's oration, Jay Chou's everything

-100 examples: Someone who has played Bejeweled for 10 months but still cannot get beyond 100,000 points, people who take up tennis late in life and slice every ball back with a char kway teow stroke, girl who cannot cook, boy who cannot kill cockroach

Awareness
Arguably the most difficult of the five to define, this attribute is also the most commonly flouted. Fortunately, however, our society at present does not set much store by it. Awareness refers to the ability of an individual to keep up with the non-intellectual nuances of everything. Conversation and EQ, in particular; but also observing things, remembering times, recalling important nouns, making the relevant connections between disparate pieces of information.

+100 examples: People who define acronyms before they use them in the presence of those unfamiliar with them, a good stand-up comedian, men who notice, women who don't mention it when men fail to notice

-100 examples: Person who repeats the same anecdotes/jokes and extends the punchline with unnecessary paraphrasing, individual who is transparent in his self-augmenting motives during conversation (e.g. men who put other men down by saying "actually so-and-so is actually quite short"), women who dress twenty years too young

Superficiality
Without a doubt the most important attribute of - or should that be for? - our gilded generation, superficiality measures everything that can be perceived with the senses - how one looks, how one smells, how one moves. Hygiene, grooming, sartorial style - all of these fall under this umbrella category.

+100 examples: Jude Law with hair, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Lin Chiling, Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark

-100 examples: Sea cucumber, man wearing singlet constantly scratching himself in Chinatown, corpse, Murloc

Intelligence
A no-brainer - intelligence measures one's capacity for abstract discussion and logic, as well as one's thirst for knowledge and general curiosity. Mathematical prowess is a great indicator, as is fluency with any non-waffly subject (polygots qualify). Previously I was of the impression that the arts in general were just repositories for morons, until I read Ian McEwan and realized that you can turn poetry, music, wonder - you can turn all of this into math, and beautifully so.

+100 examples: The apocryphal rocket scientist, erudites (not name-droppers), people who use the word "quark" on a daily basis, Einstein

-100 examples: People who don't read, uninteresting people ("my hobby is slping n eating"), people who use the word "quack" on a daily basis, Frankenstein

Consideration
Kindness, other-regarding values, genuine empathy, heartfelt sympathy - all of these make up the final spectrum that is consideration. There is some overlap between this characteristic and awareness, but while the latter focuses on social awkwardness (superogatory and subrogatory acts), consideration is concerned with ascribing ownership to fault.

+100 examples: The one who pays for everything first and is very embarrassed to collect money from people subsequently, the one who is on time, the one who volunteers for non-self-augmenting purposes (e.g. bringing 7-Up to the picnic), the one who finds out the details

-100 examples: The non-driver who takes lifts as a matter of entitlement, the non-payer, the borrower (see also: the non-returner), the favour-asker ("eh you are going there ah can you help me buy ..."), the presumptuous, the eat-more-than-his-share, the unapologetic transgressor

With this five-way attribute system, we can now solve complex problems that have plagued us since the dawn of time: Why are some people interesting but difficult to be friends with? (High I Low C) Why are we friends with so many boring but "nice" people? (Low I Low A High C) Why do so many women put up with being beaten by their NFL/EPL/NBA husbands? (High B High S Low C Low I) And why do we love and hate Megan Fox? (High S Low ... Everything Else)

Of course, there will be overlaps between the categories. For example, the woman who dresses twenty years too young displays both low A and, consequently, low S. Separately, there will inevitably be apparent internal inconsistencies for each attribute, which makes scaling for that particular attribute that much more difficult: a classic instance would be the genius artist who is unable to file his income tax returns on time (High B? Low B?). Where the genius is truly genuine, however, people will still be fond of the individual. The administrative shortalls serve to make him human and more accessible, so overwhelming is his B. Other inconsistencies for other attributes, by and large, may be resolved in a similar fashion.

Additionally, as has already been mentioned, the system yields value in another fashion: the individual LDR for each appraiser tells us what is important to him or her, and therefore how we should or should not behave around that particular person. This is not sycophancy; it is simply Treating People The Way They Want To Be Treated (and nobody likes to feel like you are treating them in a certain way so that you can get what you want - that is a completely different matter altogether, mind). Without question, the Five Epsilon System can only lead humanity to greater harmony in the new year and beyond. I hear "Nobel".

Now that we are done with the BASICs, let us resolve to dislike more accurately in 2011!

thegreatsze on Cybertron: Bizarre 10 Killstreak

2010-11-06T01:06:00.004+08:00

Who needs Cloak when you have War Cry?

Everything I Learnt In Life, I Learnt From Transformers (Part Two)

2010-10-24T16:44:00.010+08:00

Specifically, Transformers: War for Cybertron.

Lesson #1: If you suck at something you think you might enjoy or find worthwhile, don't make excuses. Just do it

I was always terrible at shooters. Back in the days of DE_DUST, I was always the liability, the deadweight, the "free frag". I was so bad that eventually the better players resolved only to knife me to death, out of sheer pity. Their charity backfired, however; shortly thereafter I became known as "free steak".

Which is not to say I didn't enjoy DE_DUST and DE_OFFICE and DE_AZTEC and all their other equally pixelated brethren. I did, I really did; which 16 year old boy doesn't like to shoot stuff up, virtually or otherwise? But I knew I was no good, and as the years passed and the invitations petered out (no one wants a cripple on their running team), I did not fight to keep shooters in my life. I'd watch a few videos on YouTube now and then ("Modern Warfare 2: Whiteboy7thsts Epic Throwing Knife Kill"), my brother playing Battlefield 2142, and partake in the odd nostalgic conversation ("Desert Eagle was the best man, cheap and good and reload animation damn stylo"), but I never played another game of FPS. I was like a tennis player who'd bought all the gear and read all the magazines, but never stepped onto court. (Hi Paradorn! Have a good retirement.)

That all changed, however, when High Moon Studios released War for Cybertron. I'd played a few Transformers game before, but they were mostly rubbish. But here was a game, finally, that actually put the transformation mechanic into good use. For the first time ever, transformation in a Transformers game was actually functional. As a Scientist, you transform into a jet to escape; as a Soldier, you transform into a tank for good burst damage; as a Leader, you transform into a truck to mow other robots down. It was too good to be true, and despite telling myself "I'll just buy it for the lore and the single-player campaign", I soon found myself playing non-stop rounds of Team Deathmatch in multiplayer.

Needless to say, I was still shit. War for Cybertron might be a well-realized licence, but first and foremost it is fundamentally a shooter. Within a month of playing the game I'd racked up 400-odd kills - and well over 700 deaths. With this horrific kill-death ratio seared into my eyeballs, I put the game away quietly, pretending that "oh I need time to research new talent builds for Cataclysm". Only my wife knew of my shame, and of course she didn't think much of it. "I think the computer game thing on your men-must-be-able-to-do list is the least important," she said. "Can parallel park can already."

It really is funny how much we lie to ourselves. When we do poorly at something we say we were "never really interested in it anyway"; when we cannot muster up the effort to do something well (or at all) we tell ourselves "I could've done it properly if I'd wanted to". So the enthusiast who abandons golf after a month of gear-acquisition; and so the examination candidate who tars the efforts of her top-placed compatriots in a paper that apparently is "not important". "I didn't want to put in the effort," she says. Yes darling, we think. If you had put in the effort it would have made all the difference, now.

Qualifier: this only applies for things that we are really interested in. I do not feel a compulsion to be excellent in cross-stitching because it ... really never has occurred to me. But I do enjoy shooting games. How do we know when is which? Honest truth-seeking, hours of talking to the mirror (or to me, come come), and an earnest self-appraisal. If you watch Manchester United on TV, you want to play soccer well. If you like reading, you want to write well. If you enjoy the blues, you want to play (at least pentatonic) guitar. Yes, these are exaggerated examples; a lot of it depends on your available time and other competing priorities. But you must at least be able to say, with an air of apologetic acknowledgement: "I wish I could do such-and-such." If you find yourself saying "I like to watch soccer but I hate playing it", you are being disingenuous. You like to watch soccer but you SUCK playing it.

Back to the story. About a month after I'd shelved the game, guilt bit into me. I was having fun re-skinning my Dragon Age characters and forcing Morrigan to have sex with Alastair, but deep down inside I knew: I was running away from something I wanted to do. I was giving myself excuses, lying to myself and everyone around me (except for Dom and Zhenhao, who both have the game and can see my kill-death ratio on Teletran). I told my wife about my disgrace regarding War for Cybertron: she carried right on cooking.

So it was up to me. Heavily, I took the game back down from my wife's bookshelf (I'd told her that the game was taking up too much of my time, and that I needed to be physically away from it so as not to be tempted), plonked the disc into my computer and started playing. But this time, I'd made up my mind: I was going to go from 400-700 to a positive ratio. I wouldn't stop playing until I did.

And I have. Just two days ago, after two weeks of play, I arrived at a kill-death ratio of 1300-1172:

This means that in those two weeks, my kill-death ratio was approximately 900-472! For the record, I've never had a positive kill-death ratio in a single shooter. In my life.

I'm glad I bit the bullet. People always say computer games are pointless and a waste of time et cetera but, to me, they allow a very productive outlet for otherwise unpleasant competitiveness (much like sport). Personally, I find competitiveness very ugly in the real world; who feels good filling up their staff appraisals with things that are intrinsically meant to show how much better you are than the next person? In the arena of a game or a sport, free rein may be given to these competitive urges (within the bounds of sporting behaviour): no one is harmed in the process, and everyone can have a laugh about it afterward. Pace the real world: "Hahaha, I really topped you for that round of promotions, didn't I? LOL!" I didn't think so.

In any case, the lessons one learns from playing computer games are applicable to the real world as well, as we shall soon see.

Lesson #2: Pick one thing and stick with it

Initially, during my 400-700 era, I played every single class: Scout, Leader, Scientist, Solider. Needless to say, I got good at none of them. Over time, however, I realized that I played somewhat less bad with the Scout (sniping, stealth and surgical strikes). I went all in. Here's my most recent game:

Life is pretty much the same. You'll never be indispensable to people unless you offer a comparative advantage in (pretty much just) one thing. Find it, do it, keep it. You'll find that it keeps you.

Lesson #3: Don't panic, whatever the situation

So three Soldiers are bearing down on you and you've just come out of Cloak. You can either:

(a) Panic and start to spam your Melee
(b) Jet backwards and try to headshot at least two of them with your Energon Battle Pistol before dying (you will die lah, let's be realistic)

This used to happen to me all the time, because I would never stick with my team (see Lesson #4). I would panic, and then go down in a sordid, flailing mass. As I got better, the frequency of these situations decreased, but when they did come up I would tell myself to stay calm. So they have 6 bars of armor; so they have Whirlwind; so they have greater numbers; so they have the X-12 Scrapmaker. So what? If you stay calm and always know what you have to do (answer (b) above), that's half the battle won.

Lesson #4: Be a team player

Unless your username is Cybertron97 (10,000 kills, 1,000 deaths) or DemanSupreme (regularly gets 20 killstreaks), stick with your team. Economies of scale, more targets, more support, whatever you want to call it. People who go alone ... die alone.

Lesson #5: Improvise

OMG Null Ray equipped no time to switch to Scatter Blaster enemy incoming how how? Fuck it, blast them at melee range. If they are close enough the spread won't matter. And follow up with a quick Melee to confirm the kill. Likewise, out of ammunition but the bastard still isn't dropping? Transform. Don't forget you still have bullets in vehicle form!

Bottom line: don't be tied to any one way of thinking. The world is surely more open-ended than a computer game; you'll find that most things can be overcome, if you apply yourself properly. Mix it up.

Lesson #6: Know when to hold and when to fold

When to escape: When you have no idea who is shooting you and from where - transform and get the hell out of there

When not to escape: When you know exactly where your enemy is - this means he probably has line of sight wherever you go. Stay and fight

The worst feeling in the world - a half-hearted attempt at escape, concluded with a well placed bullet from an enemy rifle. If you have a good idea of the obstacle you are facing, you might as well deal with it then and there. If you have no idea at all, chances are you need to take evasive manoeuvres to investigate and re-group.

I've also noticed that hiding in the shadows, lurking and waiting for a chance to snipe is probably the most un-fun and un-productive way to play War for Cybertron. You don't learn, and withdraw more and more into your cowardly self. The best players move about, shifting vantage points frequently, and get up close even when utilizing fragile classes like the Scout and the Scientist. Play like you have something to lose, and you lose. Play like you want to win, and you've already won.

Lesson #7: Do not be intimidated by ostensibly better players

I've mentioned Cybertron97. He is, like, the most awesome player on Teletran, with a special animated icon next to his name to show that he has maxed out all four classes and has reset all his stats just for the heck of it. But just the other day, after I headshotted him 4 times in one game, he added me as a friend on Teletran. Cybertron97, adding me! (You have to see this guy play to understand why I am gushing. It doesn't help that he might've been born in 1997, I know.)

Don't be intimidated by people just because they have "SC" or "PhD" after their names. They're just people, after all, driven by the same wants and needs: comfort, recognition, respect, love. Even PLC No. 1 also has worries about mortgage and toilet paper. In the same way that you shouldn't treat perceived inferiors worse, you also shouldn't treat perceived superiors better. Let no one affect your dignity of person.

Lesson #8: Even when you lose, you can win; integrity is all

I have more losses on record than wins for Team Deathmatch, but more kills than deaths. This can only be because even in games where I lose, I maintain a positive kill-death ratio. Even where your teammates are weak, you shouldn't look to blame them for an eventual defeat. Don't be a pre-emptive apologist; you're not there to make up the numbers, you are there to win. If your teammates are turning out to be liabilities, find ways to use them. Employ them as decoys, or teach them good play by example. Show them new locations and lead them to power-ups. Cybertron97 has racked up 25-0 for games where his team loses 40-25. In games as in life, there's no such thing as luck.

Lesson #9: Don't regret anything you have done by choice

Sure I've spent a lot of time on War for Cybertron, or computer games for that matter (Level 80 Druid and Death Knight tks). But choosing to play these games were decisions that were correct to me at the time I undertook them. To say now that "I can't believe how much time I wasted manipulating pixels for no clear material purchase!" would be, to my mind, really sad. Now that you're all big and important and professional, you pooh-pooh what your heart told you to do when you were full of youth and happiness? That's just bullying.

Life is too short to keep accounting in a self-aggrandizing manner. You have other priorities today, fine; but the you of today has nothing on the you of yesteryear. Because while you're bleating mindlessly that "youth is wasted on the young", at one and the same time there's your younger self looking at you through the glass, thinking: look what I've become, look what I've become.

Lesson #10: Know when to stop; it's a big world out there

"Be careful what you set your heart upon - for it will surely be yours." So said James Baldwin. Whoever he was, he was right.

And so - I am done, for now. It's time to do other things. Since I am not entitled to have an opinion on almost anything until I know more than just nothing about it, it behooves me to go find out more about everything. But in the meantime, please go buy the game. It might well change your life.

"A Lover's Vows Are No Sooner Soft Made ..."

2010-10-11T03:20:00.014+08:00

by thegreatsze

A lover's vows are no sooner soft made
Than truths from universes unravel;
In eternal clay half a seedling laid
Drawing above and below, and level.
Heaven it drinks up destiny
In soil a buried uprising;
The sun it sinews to'ards calumny
Whilst winters it wears unweeping.
So Time's fell hand defaces ev'ry ban
In ev'ry voice that indulges whisper;
Across the years and lips of ev'ry man
Dances a quiet existence without Her.
A lover's vows are so made and broken
Would that we had left ours but unspoken.

The Assholes In Your Office Are Not Unique

2010-09-10T22:52:00.010+08:00

Every office has them, hooray!

***

#1 The "I'm Too Good For This"

Mr X is not an employee like the rest of us. No: Mr X dictates to his boss what he feels he should be doing at work.

Mr X: Sir, this project, I think enough people are on it already?
Boss: I want you on it as well. It's a small project but I want to make sure there are no mistakes.
Mr X: But sir, surely the main tender bid needs more help? I understand this year there is quite fierce competition.
Boss: ... you want to join in with the main tender bid for the development at Ridout?
Mr X: Yes sir, I think my experience would be beneficial for the bid.
Boss: You have an English Literature degree. What are you going to do, make sure that the tender document got no spelling errors?
Mr X: And that the engineers don't make any inappropriate references to Desdemona. It might detract from our overall position.

Translated -

Mr X: Sir, I want to be important important important noticed important. This one you assign me, not important enough
Boss: But I said so
Mr X: No not important enough the other one more important can I do the other one
Boss: You want to do the other one ...?
Mr X: Yes I think I can one just let me try give me chance I want to be important
Boss: You will be useless there leh, I think
Mr X: No I won't be let me do it let me do it please I need to be important
Boss: OK then I will blurly allow you to do the other important one and make all your colleagues unhappy and mark myself out as a lousy boss ... enjoy dude will promote you asap because you are so noticeable
Mr X: Thanks boss

Solution: Bosses need to wake up!

#2 The Lazy Liability

I advocate laziness as much as anyone, but when your laziness results in more work for other people, you are a lazy fucker.

Boss: Can you go and do more research on this point. You cannot just say elephants are blue without any substantiation. Even my mother can do a better job than you.
Mr X: OK boss.
[two hours later]
Mr X: Here boss.
Boss: This is a picture of an elephant, coloured blue by you.
Mr X: Yes boss. Blue elephant boss.
Boss: And you didn't even colour inside the lines.
Mr X: Boss I masturbate too much I cannot hold my pencil properly.
Boss: Get lost.
Mr X: Boss you want pink colour I also can.

Solution: Ask your mother better

#3 The Nice-to-Superior but Shit-to-Others

These are all over the place. It's easy to spot them: they are the ones who have transformed the most since you last saw them at school. Having taken on their boss' soporific interests, they are suddenly now incapable of performing menial tasks themselves.

Mr X: Hey, boss! The Brut d'Orsay '72 is really good!
Boss: Heh, haha, issit? I never try before.
Mr X: (grandiloquent gesture of disbelief) How can that be, boss! I am sure you have. You just have so many good years in your cellar you must have lost track! Ha Ha Ha! (sycophantic laughter continues for 10 seconds)
Boss: Er, no, really. I ... don't have a cellar.
Mr X: You don't?
Boss: No. (changing topic) Anyway that report I asked for yesterday, have you gotten it done already?
Mr X: Oh, my secretary is typing it out now. It should be ready soon. (starts to fiddle with fountain pen with special super-duper ink that must be bought in bottles with quill motifs on them one)
Boss: Your secretary is typing it out? What did you do, dictate to her on tape?
Mr X: Uh, haha, yah I did! Easier that way, my thoughts flow more naturally also ... like this Cyan-Magenta Mont Blanc Meisterstuck Solitaire!
Boss: Sure whatever but I need the report quick. How much longer?
Mr X: She said should be about half an hour more, but I will rush her. She got to work late lah, said got traffic jam from Punggol ... I guess HDB property, you get what you pay for ...!
Boss: I stay HDB.
Mr X: ... oh??? Hahahaha!!! (sycophantic laughter continues forever)
Boss: That's why I don't have a cellar.

Solution: Every employee must clean toilet one day per week. This gives them a proper outlet to brown-nose

#4 The Coveter

Not so much different from #1, but this one gets mistaken for having "initiative". Examples: the subordinate who claims back weekends for a junket; the female co-worker who assumes ownership of the corner office, under cover of night and ostensible authority; the colleague who uses others' milk in the pantry fridge.

Why are these behaviours contemptible? Because they are not other-regarding. These persons only consider themselves, and they universalize their standards onto everyone else. They do not wonder why it is that they are compelled to do all their furtive acts secretly - they do not see the hinted paradox there. Instead they think: "It's a dog-eat-dog world. I must do what I can. Others will do the same." No, dipshit. Others are too busy being considerate and countenancing more humane value systems to indulge you and your Hobbesian foreplay.

The main variations here are the Credit Whore (consolidates work of peers into one email, bearing only Credit Whore's name), the Favour Player (a stranger in the office for most part, but oozing honey in their time of need) and that old standby, "O$ but never P$". We've heard too much about those already, though.

Solution: Just stay away. Chances are these secretive and self-augmenting "professional" types will also delete their Facebook accounts before long, so interactions can well and truly be kept to a minimum. (Just be sure to occasionally ask them about their salary and bonuses.)

#5 The Proud Incompetent

"Yes, yes, I know, I know, I thought of it already, yes, I know." And two days later you still get the same piece of crap handed up to you.

It is one thing to be proud. It is another to be incompetent. But if you are proud and incompetent, you are nothing but a waste of space. Is advice really that difficult to take? Is doing a task properly really that difficult? Do you know how many fives make thirty-five? Do you know that Pluto is no longer a planet? Do you know that you are an idiot? Oh you didn't know that one, did you. Well, here's my advice -

Solution: Get them involved in a task that is simple to do, but with a massive downside upon failure (e.g. goalkeeper).

***

But the bottom line is that people are too concerned about their own bottom lines to give a shit. They say to themselves: "This doesn't affect me that much, it's no big deal, I'll just find some other avenue. My job is too important to jeopardize for some nebulous notion of social justice." And so an entire cabal - no, society - of assholes is propped up, because we're all practicing the fucking virtue of forbearance. How great are we? Oh, sorry - my language offends you? I see.

What Do You Think

2010-08-24T02:49:00.009+08:00

“A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.” - Robert Frost

A jigsaw piece cannot think. As such, the meaning of a jigsaw piece's existence can only be assessed externally. For most of us, such a meaning is largely found in its part in the completion of a jigsaw puzzle.

A squirrel can think, to a certain extent. However, it does not think beyond foraging for the next winter. This leads many of us to conclude that a squirrel's existence only carries as much meaning as its survival past the next famine. Certainly the squirrel has not yet posed (nor will it ever be able to) itself the question, "What is the meaning of my existence?" As such it cannot offer any more attractive an answer to the questions of being and meaning.

A human being can think for himself. He is a veritable sandbox - with the capacity to entertain multiple possibilities for self-determination, the human being is infinite in meaning. Everything he wills to mean, will mean; everything he dismisses, wanes. An external effort to impose meaning on something or someone essentially self-directed would be as futile as my childhood attempts to make my neighbour's dog meow.

The usual question, then, becomes somewhat incongruous. What is the meaning of life, we ask, hoping for analogies to specimens of little or no mental capacity. We'd probably be better off asking about the meaning of Starcraft.

Is there any value to labeling things "good" or "bad", then, when logically we define our own purposes, values and meaning? Outside of antisocial suicidal tribes, it is probably good to value life and to treat people well. But most else is borderland. This barren waste, devoid of presumption and free of the weight of yesterdays, would best be navigated with calm exposition. As we describe our worlds to one another, listening as patiently as we might speak, we could perhaps grow to rediscover the idyll of a Pangaea once lost.

I've said my piece; now's the turn for yours. As best as we can, let us try to finish the puzzle. I'm sure we'll all fit.

Professionalism

2010-07-28T23:02:00.005+08:00

What is professionalism?

Is it the self-acquitting ignoring of peers as a higher-salaried person speaks? Is it the unhesitating cancellation of prior plans upon the casual invitation of a perceived superior? Is it the setting aside of one's personality - and even humanity - in pursuit of an allegedly valuable supplication?

Like any other office, my workplace is largely Hobbesian. There are limited opportunities for one to "score points", so every chance that presents itself is handled with care. Going upstairs to see upper management? Tie and jacket, please. A chance to carbon-copy those that matter? Better put them in the main addressee list. Going to be absent from a particular lunch meeting? "Please help me reflect my absence fairly - I am unable to make lunch because I will be doing [namedrop event here] for [namedrop personage here]." And, later on, proceed to e-mail the person reflected to directly anyway.

It used to be that good work ethic simply meant a certain level of industriousness. Not anymore. These days, being professional means being able to dissemble at will. The hard work can come later, if at all - first you have to show that you have absolutely no personality whatsoever. People hold their cards to their chests, citing "privacy" and "professional conduct" as totems against inquiry. "I don't believe in letting my personal life affect the quality of my work," they say, persistent in their automatism. "No matter how boring, predictable or meaningless my telegraphed existence, I will be professional to the last."

It is possible that "professionalism" has outgrown - rather unhealthily - its humble moorings. To be professional, surely, means no more than to possess a healthy attitude towards an assigned task. Such an individual would not require gymnastics in the face of ill-reason, or capitulation in the absence of the same. Professionalism would not dictate a de facto preference for everything that comes from above, nor a proclivity towards an as-of-right disdain of the familiarity that comes from below. Certainly, a professional would not have to be in possession of a 20 page long CV, or a marbled mouth full of yes. He would simply be himself, plus a certain degree of task-oriented discipline.

A friend today was bemoaning the loss of his free life upon the advent of a mandate for his professionalism. "I'm not much freer than the non-professional, those people who live with little opportunity cost," he reflected. "Given how I have to conduct myself these days, it seems like I've merely traded in possibility for security." He wasn't sure if his balance had been properly struck, or if the correct variables had been taken into consideration in the first place.

When we rearrange our faces for our superiors, we aren't just altering our demeanours. We are denuding our very souls, twisting necessary difference into ostensible agreement. In the process, each and everyone of us turns into something less than human; we become pieces of software, interacting to maximize, keeping our counsel so well that we fail to disclose, even to ourselves, that we are alone. And so life goes on, with no one any the wiser.

Why is this a pity? My primary objection is and always has been that professionalism is a lie. It is the first step towards a promised wonderland - maintain the persona, get the promotion, enjoy the variegated luxuries. But there are only people here on Earth, with the few desultory objects interspersing them. Professionalism focuses us on these objects, while at one and the same time severing us from the people that matter. "I won't comment, because that might keep me from my objects," says the professional. "I prefer to sacrifice genuine intimacy with my fellows instead." One gets used to this aspect of the professional, and before long one realizes - that really is all there is to the professional.

I reject this paradigm. I would like to be able to spend as much of this life being interesting and interested, talked to and talked about. None of us really knows for sure why we are here, but we can certainly spend our time finding out; or at the very least, finding out about the other sentients who have been placed here with us. A lifetime of illusory accumulation and one-upmanship? Without any pejorativeness, that is not for me. Perhaps you would like to ask the gentleman seated at the chessboard by the window? He's been at that game all through thirty summers.

A Phnomenal Time

2010-07-23T22:04:00.011+08:00

After my shower I go down to see the hotel concierge, uncertain about transportation in this strange new city. "How do I get from here to the river front?" I ask the deeply tanned Khmer man standing behind the bell. He is trussed up in a western waistcoat and has his hair slicked back, quite unlike any of his countrymen from the airport. But when he speaks he is one hundred percent Cambodian. "Sir, go river front, tuk-tuk sir," he says. "Four dollar."

I am later to learn that "four dollar" to the river front, from my hotel, is robbery by Cambodian standards. But who can really keep count in a country as poor as this? As my tuk-tuk driver muscles me towards the river front, I take the opportunity to absorb everything around me. There are no buildings. There are no old people. There are no sharp suits, no ostensible tertiary industries. People loiter at every street corner, talking, waiting, playing games on Nokia 8250s. Motorcyclists stop to chat at traffic lights, before driving off in separate directions. I observe that nearly ninety percent of the population is in flip-flops; the other ten percent, barefoot. Every single topless male has a six-pack and a waistline to shame Gisele Bundchen. Every other female - each, on average, no more than sixteen years of age - appears to have a baby (or three) in tow.

So this is what nation rebuilding - as opposed to nation building - looks like. Phnom Penh's streets are free of stress, and the air is only slightly tinged with tension from the presence of men in uniform (many with rifles). The populace know what happened during the genocide, and they know what labours are required of them for complete restoration. They will start from nothing, and they will expect nothing, not for at least two generations. No matter - a chicken is on the boil, and the boys are waiting to start their chatek match. If we don't finish building this world, our children's children surely will. We just have to make sure everyone has enough for dinner.

Signs of an unsophisticated, hard-scrabble existence abound. My American note is rejected because there is a slight discoloration at its top corner; the shopping centre where this rejection takes place has two entire floors devoted to pirated intellectual property. The only other fully air-conditioned shopping centre in Phnom Penh is not much different, except for a particularly putrid stench. Construction workers off Street 63 carry on working well into darkness - without lights to illuminate their environment, workers shout to each other to gauge when to stop lowering each girder. People in the adjacent street have stopped to watch a drinks stall dispute in progress - a young woman is arguing with an even younger girl, ostensibly over payment. There is foot-stamping and much phonecall posturing, but nobody actually does anything. In the meantime, everyone is oblivious to the construction men, five storeys high in blackness without harnesses.

It is a hard life, but the Khmer don't show it. The waitress at the hotel stops me from bringing my muesli bowl into the conference room, saying: "My boss will complain me." I start to look worried, but she interrupts with a smile: "No worry. Is no problem. I take for you." She lifts the bowl out of my hands with the lightest of touches and places it on a magically materializing serving plate. Similarly at the food court at shopping centre #2, my chicken rice is smudged with some sauce near the rim of the plate. I am happy to accept it (all food gets messy anyway) in that condition but the stall girl pulls the plate back from me, draws out a new sheet of tissue and begins to wipe furiously. The plate is returned to me pristine: I smile at her and she smiles back, her teeth as bright as she is dark.

There is community in this country. People have not yet started selling their mothers to get ahead; the closest indicators are the tuk-tuk drivers who yell at your back at every conceivable opportunity: "Boom-boom?" But even they are, outside the presence of fresh meat, entirely sociable and principled. Outside shopping centre #1 my companion and I are angling for a lower rate back to the hotel. Driver One points to his tuk-tuk and says, "Three dollar." We laugh and turn to Driver Two, fancying a sure bet: "Can you be cheaper than three dollars?" Driver Two shakes his head. "Three dollar, correct," he intones. "You take three dollar."

Back on the river front, my tuk-tuk has deposited me outside a bar. There are friendly waitresses inside, and the ang moh I start a game of pool with does not seem to mind their company. They are polite with me, however. Observing my reticence, they ask whether I like girls. "Yes," I reply, smiling. At this, one of the waitresses sighs theatrically, and the others in the group begin to giggle uncontrollably. Curious, I ask what just happened. The sighing waitress makes a clucking noise. "Because I ladyboy. You no like boy, you only like girl."

I am gobsmacked - she certainly is no worse a looker than all the other girls. Tactfully, I ask if she has had the operation done. She laughs, a big hearty laugh. "I no money," she says after calming down. "How I do? Next life I come back do."

The very essence of the country, crystallized in the inadvertent mouth of a transvestite from the boondocks (literally). Bereft of resources, cheated of guidance and devoid of means, it will nonetheless take more than just death to do Cambodia in. They've been there and done that - now long may its people reign.

"Singaporean Men Cannot Make It One Lah"

2010-07-01T01:30:00.014+08:00

Singaporean girls like to use the phrase "cannot make it" to describe Singaporean men. They wrinkle their noses and act all surprised when you suggest, ever so gently, that perhaps Singaporean Male X might be a suitable mate. "Huh?? Cannot make it lah, he." A few years later they marry Singaporean Male Y, who looks and sounds exactly the same as Singaporean Male X.

Why are Singaporean men all so ostensibly "cannot make it"? I do not know the answer to this question, for I am reasonable. However, I do have suggestions for the men. To become a "can make it" Singaporean male (without having to resort to plastic surgery), one must achieve a certain level of competence at the activities I shall be listing out below. Ours is a small, closed society; the traits that mark one out for worthwhile reproduction are easily and quickly discernible, if one pays proper attention.

1. Must be good at computers and computer games

Strangely, being good at computer games appears to be more impressive to the average Singaporean female. If you are good at computers only, you are taken advantage of for most part. If you are good at computer games, however, you are a badass potential protector. Compare:

You: OK, upgraded to Windows 7 already.
Girl: Thanks so much! (thinks: the software did everything.)
You: You're welcome.
Girl: Can help me install antivirus?

with

You: ALL RIGHT 25 KILLSTREAK!
Girl: Huh?
You: Nothing. I just kicked your boyfriend's ass.
Girl: Orh. (stands over shoulder and watches very fast paced game and thinks: aiyah why my boyfriend so lousy.) Can help me install Windows?
You: Sorry not interested, I am aiming for 35 killstreak
Girl: (subconsciously registers lack of punctuation as sexy) Oh. Kill kill kill ... so manly.

As a general rule, the hierarchy is such: first-person shooter, versus fighter, real-time strategy, turn-based strategy and then everything else. MMORPGs occupy a value system of their own, but in general their gentle learning curve reduce street cred. Anngry Birds and Bejewelled FTW for now though.

2. Must be good at pool

There is nothing else to do in Singapore. Get good at it, you will be spending a lot of time in these places. Don't just chalk your stick - chalk some victories while you're at it. Ah-lians will be watching.

Must-learns: jump-shot, English, doubles.

3. Must be good at one team sport

So that you will look good next to the other doddering dodos. Football obviously occupies top spot, but basketball and water polo work too. Volleyball is for girls.

Girls find it easier to come down to support team sports, because they can rationalize their conduct diffusely: "I'm here for the TEAM." Let them have this. You know what they're thinking when you're ... scoring.

4. Must be good at one individual sport

While girls find it harder to support these because you are alone and therefore very bo sei for them to come all the way down, the simple fact that you are involved in some sport somewhere is already very "can make it". Walk around with your lacrosse bag slung over your shoulder or your tennis shoes carelessly dangling from your backpack. When they ask about your sport, just make vague references and knowingly use terms of art.

Girl: Where are you going?
You: Oh, practice.
Girl: What practice?
You: Kallang ... today we're doing slice serves.
Girl: *tingle down spine* Ohhh.

Few other people will be able to challenge your authority, since these are individual, recherche pursuits. Exploit the opportunity.

To avoid: ping-pong, badminton (everyone thinks they can play these)

5. Must be musical

GUITAR for individual, DRUMS in a band. Girls are quite dumb one and they like to see action jackson. You bang bang the drum, they happy. You stand around and pluck a few strings, nobody knows what you're doing. Of course, if you are going to do the serenading thing, it will be guitar without question.

Tip: When serenading, pretend to be practising (when you actually practice sui sui at home already). Always choose a current song, so people will bite. If you play More Than Words for the 238645823648243234th time, people confirm lose interest one. And don't look at anybody when singing, otherwise they will feel that you are "invading" them. Don't "invade" anybody. Just let them listen to your ostensibly unassuming music. Confirm plus guarantee plus chop will have results.

6. Must be able to do math

A guy who cannot do maths is like an eunuch. He is not a man. In Singapore especially, even our girls are damn good at maths. So you better be super damn good, so you can explain to her how to divide her parts.

One better: PHYSICS. For some reason, applied stuff is harder for girls. So take physics and ace it. Then later on, toss in puns about how you two have such great chemistry, you want to explore the geography of her biography in a physical way. "Your body is a wonderland," you will coo. "Do you want to read my literature or should we just start making history?" Just don't show her your mother tongue.

7. Must have good sense of direction

A guy who has no sense of direction is a girl. The end.

8. Must drive and must be good driver

DRIVE. And for fuck's sake, practice that parallel parking thing. Girls always tell themselves that they are not lousier drivers, just more careful/cautious/whatever. But despite that ALL OF THEM STILL CANNOT FREAKING PARALLEL PARK. Become tok kong at this, heighten the gender difference, enhance the sexual tension. Ooh yeah baby.

By the way, European marques please. The Singaporean lady does not want to be seen rolling in a Hyundai.

9. Must be laconic and listen to her drivel

Ya. It helps. Srsly.

Singaporean girls think they are really interesting, and maybe they are. Who knows? We aren't really listening. But you don't really have to - just nod every 10 seconds. And then say, "Really ah." I just did this today. It is fricking awesome. You can abidicate responsbility for having a brain.

The bottom line is that by keeping silent, you allow her to project her preferred self-image onto you. She is interesting, so therefore you must be interesting, since you are absorbing her everything. How cool is that? I love lady logic.

10. Must know DIY

"I hammered her and her friend last night, we had a good screw. Talk about nailing two in one night! Of course I bolted the next day, but I will always be ready when their pipes need further unclogging."

Euphemisms aside, you must know DIY because other penises will try to undermine you with their own DIY knowledge. Especially contractors who overcharge. If you are fleeced in any DIY-related matter, you are not a man.

This is also perhaps the origin of the phrase "cannot make it" - a man who "can make it" can make ... things. With hands and tools. He probabaly also knows how to instruct the girl on how to rectify a swollen ball-cock.

11. Must speak dialect

My biggest regret, I cannot speak dialect. In lup-sup KTVs and Warrant Officer messes, I am the lowest of the low. With contractors, I am a freaking pony with "Kan Me" on my forehead. Why is dialect so important for the Singaporean male? Primarily, it establishes street cred. Denizens from below must look up to you before any female will find you worth apprising. Importantly, also, dialect is crass; crassness establishes contrast, and in contrast we find admiration.

12. Must not be below PES B

Or at least finish normal BMT like everyone else. Nobody really knows whether OCS or SISPEC is tougher, so you can elide that easily.

If you had a buay gan army life, try not to talk about it at all. Girls know one. They all have "a friend" who was a commando-officer-parakeet. They will compare you like they compare their Prada bag with the other girl's Miu Miu. Don't become an object!

If you were a star in the army, also don't talk too much about it. Girls just want to know that you were good, and that you were not a jellyfish. The rest is still for you to prove - funny, rich, smart etc. Prove it.

13. Must have "ambition" and "passion"

Most Singaporean girls have a vague notion that their man should be "successful" or aim for success of some sort. For themselves, they have less concrete ambitions. Use this to your advantage. However, only hint (not talk) about your plans. For instance:

Girl: So, what's next for you?
You: I've had several offers ... well, we'll just see where it goes. I have a pretty clear idea of what I want though.
Girl: What's that?
You: Haha, it will bore you. Let's not talk about me. Do you like baby blue or pink?

Once they know you have "plans", they will stick with you, regardless of what those "plans" are. Make sure you always have "an idea" of what you are going to do. When in doubt, obfuscate and pass off a successful person's life as your own.

14. Must say nearly every other girl is "cannot make it"

This is by far the MOST IMPORTANT ITEM on the list. Singaporean girls like a guy who has "standards". Secretly, the standard for every girl is HERSELF. This is not a cardinal scale, there is no relativity. Instead, on this mystery scale there is THE GIRL IN QUESTION, and then EVERY OTHER FEMALE ON EARTH. She will make cursory concessions for Angelina Jolie and Megan Fox (the latter usually grudgingly), of course, but DO NOT BE FOOLED. She just wants you to think that SHE is the prettiest and THAT IS IT!!!

If, however, you are unable to lie barefacedly, you might want to go with a less extreme approach. You must say that girls SHE LIKES AS PEOPLE are pretty. NEVER SAY THAT PRETTY GIRLS ARE PRETTY! Girls are unable to divorce looks from personality. It would be unwise to do so, therefore, in their presence. A good sample discussion would run as follows:

Girl: Do you think Girl X (ugly but liked) is pretty?
You: Yes, she has a certain je ne sais quoi that I find charming.
Girl: (pleased) Really ah? I think so too! Not like that Girl Y (pretty but disliked).
You: Oh, Girl Y. Cannot make it lah. Act cute buay cute.
Girl: (ready to give you blowjob liao) I ALSO SAY!

Have you ever noticed that girls thought pretty by other girls are really not pretty at all? And hot, sexy girls are almost always labelled "sluts", as if that were a bad thing? Important hint: Do not address the girl on these points. She does not want to confront her inner evolutionary demons.

Well, that's the list. A tall order? Yes, but a worthwhile endeavour, if we are not to lose all our women to the cast of The Last Airbender. We can make it one.

Where Are Your Manners ... From?

2010-06-15T03:29:00.005+08:00

A harmless phrase is making its rounds within my office. In response to any piece of information, however neutral or pejorative, the average co-worker in my office is liable to respond with: "I see I see I see." No commas, soothingly intoned, and always three times.

The phrase originated from one of the kindest and most pleasant of my colleagues. It was adopted initially as a joke, partly because of the adorable pleonasm, but primarily because we knew that the originator would be able to take the gentle joshing (he is, after all, one of the kindest and most pleasant around). But now, increasingly, it appears that the phrase is here to stay. We use it outside work; we use it with our bosses; we use it without the slightest hint of irony, even amongst ourselves.

It was only a matter of time before my wife observed to me: "This speech tic of yours, 'I see I see I see', it's one of your more pleasant catchphrases. Why don't you hang out more with nice people and learn their good habits? You always say you don't know how to talk like a normal human being."

I responded: "What are my unpleasant catchphrases?"

Wife: "Wah so many. 'Wellrr ...', 'Unnoe ...', 'I don't think so that ...', 'Sacrificeeeeee', 'I juz a little dolphin', 'Truth, if it exists at all ...' aiyah you know that irritating quote that doesn't make sense."

Me: "I see I see I see."

With the inauguration of my first pleasantry, I feel much more well-adjusted to the world, which - truth be told - was heretofore quite inscrutable. I would talk to people and offend them in less than three exchanges; I would dispense advice and the odd witticism and wind up with an audience of tears; I would point out what everybody wanted to say, only to have everybody pillory me in response. "She's stupid." "So bad!" "OK then you're with stupid."

Well, no more of that. Now, if anybody says anything idiotic, I can simply whip out my handy new standby. One plus one is three? I see I see I see. You want to go on leave at the same time as me? I see I see I see. Mama you want me to drink this tasteless and nutritionless soup? I see I see I see.

It will only be a short jaunt from here to absolute political correctness. Other platitudes I have in my crosshairs include: "That's interesting", "Really!" and "We'll see how it goes". Far more than abstract hedges, these phrases make things easier for everyone. What, after all, would be the point of cornering your conversational partner in any fashion? Better to give up intensity for breathing space, for both parties. The tradeoff is quite likely the quality or interestingness of the conversation; but if you want lively, engaging interactions, there are countless avenues on the Internet, if your heart is in the right place (Reddit, anyone?). Certainly targeted forum-shopping (or what they call "finding your tribe") would beat the roulette of shitheads life provides you at work and in school.

And the gains? Peace of mind knowing that no one thinks you're a dipshit. This must be how Dexter feels - writ small.(Separately, I've just seen a video of myself in conversation. Talk about a sneer! I need to stop hanging out with myself.)

I hear the thoughts of Thomas. "This will never work. You will never go beyond spouting the phrase. In your head, you are still thinking that person stupid."

Ah. Is that what you think? I see I see I see.

Fork My Life

2010-04-21T00:28:00.009+08:00

Traffic lights used to conspire against me on weekday mornings. I swear to God and Allah (there are too many deities in most of the other religions, and Buddhism is laid-back one), I would get stopped at virtually every junction on the way to work. Even the Goh Chok Tong traffic light (along Dunearn Road, opposite the Hwa Chong Institution hostel), which comes into operation only twice a day (thrice, if Goh Chok Tong need to rush home to pang sai - or should that be four times? cos after that he need to come out again), had a 50% chance of stopping me on my morning commute.

That all changed when I discovered the One And Only Secret To Life. My friends, the key to enlightenment, elephants and everything else lies in multi-tasking. I don't just mean alternate tabbing - although that is certainly good for most friendships in the long run, particularly as between tightwads. I mean instead, quite literally, doing two things at once (or at least, purporting to).

Since I had so much extra time idling at traffic lights, I decided one day to wear my socks and shoes in the car, instead of prior to getting into the car. And what a day that was. Near well every single traffic light turned green the minute I drew close. As for those few reds brave enough to defy the laws of reverse psychology, they only stayed that way long enough for me to get but one toe into cotton.

I got to work that day, not well-shod at all. But I was early. (Goh Chok Tong sleep late also.)

Since then, I've embraced the One And Only Secret To Life wholeheartedly. There hasn't been any time to look back, so few are my moments of waiting and respite. Today I call the process - out of convenience and punning potential - "forking". In chess, when you fork someone, the poor sod has to choose between losing Piece A or Piece B. In other words, he is forked. Applying the analogy, if you fork life on a daily basis, life gets forked. And you get your way.

Don't believe me? Here are a few more examples, in handy un-segued list format:

(1) Girl who spends time looking for man (single-mindedly, ha-ha!) does not get man. Girl decides, in a moment of frustration, to do other things with her time. She signs up for Klingon lessons. 10 months later she gives birth to nerd baby, and has nerd husband for life.

(2) Girlfriend is shopping very long in Chomel. Boyfriend is bored out of his mind and contemplating affair. Suddenly, he remembers his PSP. In a minute, he is Kratos, Destroyer of Worlds. Suddenly girlfriend is out of Chomel, saying: "This place is too cheap for me!" Boyfriend looks longingly at PSP screen before turning it off.

(3) Boy is studying Japanese textbook very long. Nothing is going in and he very sian. He decides to watch some Japanese anime. Before long he has mastered a string of useful new vocabulary: "Yamete!" "Itai!" and "Kimochi!"

(Actually that last one wasn't forking at all. Did you fall for it?)

(4) "Hi" "Hi" "Would you like to - " "Sorry not interested" "But wait suddenly I am talking to this other person, another female" "Oh cool what you up to" "Are you interested now" "Yes maybe a little" "Heh you slut" "Heh I know"

(5) Pot is not boiling. You watch TV instead of pot. Pot boil. Burn your hand.

And so on and so forth.

As it is with our nascent youth, then, it seems that increasingly for one to get what one wants, one has to declaim against that selfsame thing. This is most strange; perhaps our social sophistication has bred a quality of cynicism that requires a show of unhappiness as a prerequisite for everything, including happiness. That would be very unfortunate indeed - surely we are unhappy enough without the added pretense?

Ah well - fork it.

"Never compromise. Not even in the face of Armageddon."

2010-04-14T01:03:00.013+08:00

[Outside, in the snow, Rorschach comes across a copy of Jon standing in the snow]

Rorschach: Out of my way. People have to be told.

Jon Osterman: You know I can't let you do that.

Rorschach: Suddenly you discover humanity. Convenient.

[Takes off his mask]

Rorschach: If you'd cared from the start, none of this would've happened.

Jon Osterman: I can change almost anything ... but I can't change human nature.

Rorschach: Of course, you must protect Veidt's new Utopia. One more body amongst foundations makes little difference. Well, what are you waiting for? Do it...

[Jon hesitates]

Rorschach: DO IT!

[Jon makes Rorschach explode into a pile of blood]

***
The inevitable end for principle: should we be surprised? Utopia after utopia, age after age, life after life - slowly it dawns on us that departure from principle merely prolongs and reiterates without bringing about change. Yet principle itself - as embodied in Rorschach above - is finite in its ability to effect any real change. At best, it changes its agent, along with the few lives touched by that same agent; at worst, it ends in any number of ways far less inspiring than a bloody molecular explosion.

It appears, then, that we have a choice: to prolong the insipid, without either condoning or condemning its fitness for longevity; or to cut to the chase through adherence to principle, with the vain (in both senses of the word) hope of leaving a worthwhile legacy, if only for a few, and for a time.

Whichever choice one makes, however, the world still turns, the stars still shine, and the memories still all fade. The questions of choice remain, however; they have been with us since the beginning, and they will see us to our end, and to the end of this galaxy's next great civilization. And even then they will linger, beautifully and perfectly unanswered.

Ressun

2010-03-29T00:14:00.014+08:00

Another Sunday, another lesson.

I'm not sure how much I learn anymore.

We were all somehow tired this week. Fujiwara-sensei, recovering from the awkward class outing the week before, was particularly downbeat. "Moshikashitara," she droned, as we tried our best not to give in to the pathetic fallacy beating at the windows. Someone - was it Coyve? - had pointed out early on our teacher's penchant for emotional oscillation. I was appreciative of the clairvoyance, but his gift was little more than cold comfort at this juncture: whether we liked it or not, it appeared that we were going to have three excrutiating hours ahead of us.

Abruptly, however, the rain outside pattered to a halt. Andrew, the precocious boy behind me, awoke with a start. A few other students coughed unconsciously to break the newfound monotony. Fujiwara-sensei, her back to us only a few moments before, turned from the whiteboard. "Ara," she said, looking out at the Orchard Road skyline. There was a smile playing at the corners of her lips. "Minna, sora o mite!"

Everybody, look at the sky. So we all looked, each searching for the thing that would perish his or her own late afternoon stupor, his or her own disappointment with life. But nothing came forward to volunteer: no helicopters, aeroplanes or transient rainbows. No banners or fervent human activity, however conceived. There were only clouds, and sky.

I looked back at Fujiwara-sensei, who by now had abandoned her lugubrious teacher-mode. For the first time today, she was smiling - she had smiled at us all as we filed into the classroom, but this was a real smile. Her eyes, normally dwarfed by profuse applications of lady's crayon, were radiant and alive. I felt my body unclench as I watched her unbridled unfurling. And then I turned to the window and saw, immediately, what it was she wanted us to see. What she wanted herself to see.

The sky, tinged a slight sunset orange, was somehow still the bluest and clearest it had been in recent years. It was a blue that spoke to the depth of the profoundest oceans; a blue that told of tales between eagles, ages and satellites. The clouds, from ponderous forms, had resumed their fluffy consistencies and appeared almost to have been painted on by Vettriano himself. In that instant, the bare briefest of moments, I heard in my mind's eye the music that would accompany me to my grave, the final lullaby that my children's children would never come to hear, know or love. And in that moment I was content.

I turned away from the window and, for some reason, wound up meeting Fujiwara-sensei's gaze. She had her own appreciation of the sky, her own understanding, I was sure. But in that merest of moments, I saw her; her soul, her history, her unmitigated, yet unqualified truth. A young, ambitious lady of 24, momentarily resigned to the fact that however far she tried to escape the land of the rising sun, that same sun would set just as beautifully in any country, over any sea, in the company of any people. In that scintilla temporis I was certain she saw herself too: the futility of her running, the pointlessness of her desires, the shamefulness of her perpetual struggle against equanimity.

And just as suddenly as it had come on, the spell came to a precipitate end; and as one we all turned away from transparent joy to opaque agenda.

"Moshikashitara," Fujiwara-sensei repeated, her short, grateful surrender already long forgotten. Feigned enthusiasm was once more the order of the day, and she evinced no self-pity in serving. "I probably cannot ... do something. I probably cannot."

I looked down at my notes, but all I could feel was a slight tingling at the ends of my fingers. There had been something there, for that slightest of moments, something ... It had tiptoed to the edges of life's meaning, I remembered, a microcosm of anything and everything that ever mattered; and yet it had been distant, remote and cold, a universe away from everything that I wanted in life.

"Dou iu imi desu ka?" Something else ... something.

Another Sunday, another lesson.

I'm not sure how much I learn anymore.

人外有人，天外有天

2010-03-24T02:52:00.002+08:00

Sometime in secondary school, I did the unthinkable: I accepted that there were people better than myself. Instead of sinking into a mediocre, humdrum existence, however, life started getting ... interesting. Smart people started to share their thoughts; knowledgeable folks began expounding that much more; and even leaders appeared keen to deposit confidences. My horizons were broadened in ways that I never could have anticipated.

There are no winners in life. If you are not the best (and you probably aren't), simply assume that you are the worst. This sets people's minds at ease, and instead of competing with others you might actually be able to learn something from them. In time, I am certain, you will come to enjoy a fuller, more varied and fulfilling life. (My goodness how earnest is this?)

The alternative: To become constantly furious at not having self-imposed, self-entitled expectations met. To look at your objective betters and to think that actually, you had a chance - it was just the cosmos screwing you over. To compare, not openly but secretly, your achievements with everyone else's - and to come away no more edified nor enlightened.

What kind of existence would that be? And even if you "win", from time to time, so what? The opportunity cost of those momentary leaps above mediocrity is a lifetime of learning and kinship, understanding and support.

Win? I'd say there's a loser if there ever was one.

The Loss of Innocence and Genuine Behaviour

2010-03-23T15:56:00.004+08:00

When we say, "Nadya is kind, sweet and caring", what exactly are we saying? Do we know for a fact that Nadya's inherent nature comprises kindness, sweetness and concern for others? No. We do not. We know only what we can observe. And what we observe is her apparent gentle nature, and we are pleased.

But Nadya, as an intelligent free agent, has in all probability chosen her kindness. She knows, like the rest of us, that sometimes doing the wrong thing can get her some very nice things. She knows that dancing close to the dark side usually pays dividends for an eventual, ostensible light side (Vaapad!). Nonetheless, Nadya has made a conscious decision to operate under a convenient heuristic: she has chosen to be kind.

In that sense, Nadya's behaviour is no longer genuine; not in the sense that a baby's cry for milk is genuine. Instead, Nadya's conduct of herself is a continuous, self-analyzing and reflective amalgamation of calculations. She has chosen kindness for reasons of status augmentation, for purposes of harmonious participation, for the twin ends of convenience and recognition - exactly the maximand, we do not know. One thing is for certain, however: Nadya is no longer innocent.

This in itself is not altogether a bad thing, but modern society is such that subterfuge in any form is often frowned upon. We like to believe that the world is black and white, that someone is either "nice" or "not nice". Someone pretending to be nice because they have lost their innocence will not do, for too many categories would require an appreciation of complexity, a fervor for nuance. We can't have that: we need the brain capacity for Taiwan Long Juan Feng at 11:30 pm!

So we continue to hew our extremes, and to castigate those who let slip, for the briefest of moments, the veils shrouding their experience. "Assume a virtue, if you have it not," Polonius once exhorted. This piece of advice is honoured in the observance to this day, but certainly nobody thinks to pass it on specifically. A pity, for the alternative - to simply have true virtue - is well nigh out of reach for every single one of us fallen virgins. There is simply no returning to innocence.

But is that really such a bad thing? Already we herald personalities that are completely phoney: celebrities in "exclusive" newspaper interviews ("He's actually very down to earth!"), band members in rock concerts ("We really enjoy visiting Singapore!") and even someone as common and everyday as your boss ("Mr Wong is very reasonable one, he always pay for the staff annual dinner ..."). If we all get used to the idea that we are all pretending, and that the most virtuous is the best pretender, what is the loss? Perhaps the romance of virtue, the fuzzy feeling that humans are capable of superhuman grace and goodness. But in return we arrive at a powerful common understanding, and we rob the shrewdest tacticians amongst us of that most dangerous of edges: our trust. I'll play.

Moving Things Along

2010-03-16T23:20:00.013+08:00

So there you are, conversing away, when things hit a bottleneck.

Girl: "Did you just say that you think Siew Hua is prettier than me?"

Boy: "Uh ... I mean, different lah."

Girl: "But Siew Hua has such a fat neck!"

Boy: "Aiyar ... different lah. As long as your boyfriend thinks you're pretty, can already right?"

Girl: "... you know you're not the first one to say that? Jason said it too. What is *wrong* with you people?"

Awkward pause. Awkward pause continues. Awkward pause about to turn into awkward -

RING RING RING RING RING RING

Girl: "Hello? Oh hiiii, Siew Hua! That's funny, we were just talking about you! Haha ... I'm with Shiyao at the moment. Yah, we're just having coffee. You - oh, you wanted the original version? Okay okay, I'll send it to you once I get home. Okay dear, see you soon! Bye!"

Boy: "Wah lau. That was totally fake lor."

Girl: "OH MY GOD can you believe it she wants ANOTHER favour? I mean, no wonder she has a fat neck, she has such thick skin ..."

Et cetera et cetera.

And so once again, the occurrence of a "thing" - the intervening phone conversation - saves two people: from awkwardness, from ennui, from their own prideful selves.

The above example is, of course, one of particular kismet. But other instances are not difficult to imagine:

* Two women, one pregnant, are arguing. Suddenly, the pregnant one's water breaks. (Ugly Betty)

* Tension at the dining table. Father has just said something to rile mother. Grandmother starts to scoop food into mother's bowl, remarking on how salty the fish is. (Every single fucking Asian family)

* Luke discovers that Vader is his father. Awkwardness (and lots of screaming). Suddenly and very conveniently, he falls into into a Cloud City air shaft. "Boring conversation anyway", maybe. (The Empire Strikes Back)

* Fang Jiayi and Huang Zhizhong are having an argument. Suddenly, Lin Anna rushes in and declares that Pingchun is having a fit! (Taiwan Long Juan Feng)

* Boromir wants the One Ring. Frodo refuses. Suddenly a bunch of Uruk-hai come and kill Boromir. (The Fellowship of the Ring)

* GDI and NOD want to kill each other. But the world is coming to the end, so they cooperate to prevent said end. Very macro-scale example but you get the idea. (Command and Conquer 4)

At bottom, all of these are examples of how people need external events to provide them with an excuse for adopting a particular conciliatory course of action (except for Boromir, poor Boromir). The event gives these people the impetus to say, "Wait, there are things bigger than us, let us get over ourselves", without actually having to say it (or, honestly, even think it).

This principle of "unspoken understanding" works for many other situations as well, some of them largely non-conflict based. The ang-moh with his arm draped over his polygot for the night, steering her amidst banal conversation to a dingy hotel room; the lawyer who cannot bring himself to say anything other than "a certain course of action"; Jeong Ae Ree, confidently taking the arm of her Romanian louse of a companion, safe in her convictions about the exchange of favours. People do not like to have to face up to the pointlessness of their egos; so they invent little dances like these, happy that others also subscribe to the same narcissistic value system.

Were it otherwise. In a certain utopia, one would be able to simply "go and have a conversation somewhere" instead of having to "go for drinks"; one would be able to say goodbye for good without having to "catch up with you sometime"; and one would be able to "spend time with you because I find that I click with you" without having to "also be a really big fan of flower origami". In this utopia, compromises to ego would be a thing of the past.

But no, we persist. We persist in thinking that "things" have a particular hold over us, that we require their permission before we can become big people ourselves; and that un-sordid platitudes, for whatever reason, are worth resorting to despite their inherent obfuscation and disingenuousness. We baulk at the prospect of simply walking up to somebody and apologizing, and we recoil at the mere thought of having to say what we really feel, at any one point in time.

It is a pity. We have risen from the dinosaurs, but our sophistication is wearing us down. Maybe one day a giant comet will hit the earth and we will all have the perfect excuse to get over ourselves, once and for all. Maybe.

Rich Bitch

2010-02-25T18:41:00.010+08:00

I've just bought a new apartment. It's actually situated along Alexandra Road, but I tell all my friends (and enemies, especially enemies) that it is in the "Tanglin-River Valley-Jervois" vicinity. This makes me feel very happy and rich (on the odd occasion I tell them, "off Bishopsgate" - as a preposition, what does "off" really mean? language is such a vague thing), except that sometimes people actually want specific directions to get to my place. Then the contortions become slightly more elaborate.

Colin: Hi, I'm along Jervois Lane now. Where is your place again?

Me: Oh, er, just drive straight down. Down JERVOIS Lane.

Colin: Alright, I'm at the end of Jervois Lane. I don't see any condominium.

Me: Uh, are you sure? Look in the direction of Tanglin. TANGLIN. Can you see some tall buildings?

Colin: No. I see Alexandra Road, though.

Me: I live JERVOIS.

Colin: Yes, but I think this is a good class bungalow area. I don't think they'd have condominiums -

Me: They HAVE. Look carefully.

Colin: Oh - did you mean the Tanglin View condominium? The 99 year leasehold one that's already run more than 10 years of its lease? I see its dilapidated silhouette, standing only slightly apart from similar-looking HDBs in the background.

Me: (pause) No. I stay Bishopsgate. Bungalow.

The above exchange might mark me out to be a status-conscious Singaporean, but nothing could be further from the truth. I am the least materialistic person I know (when in doubt, employ subjective arguments). I work in the public sector, drive a Korean car and eat almost exclusively in food courts. My preferred pastimes include sitting on the toilet bowl and reading bargain-basement books (often these two activities happily coincide). My father is an engineer, my mother is an engineer and my brother was an engineer. OK I'm not sure what that proves, but you do get the drift.

So it came as a shock to me when, the other day, someone attempted to expose my ostensible ostentation:

Exposer: So, where you stay last time?

Me: Uhhhh ... Sixth Avenue.

Exposer: Mmmm, Sixth Avenue ah! Rich one ah!

Me: OK lah. My father is an engineer.

Exposer: Nao hia! (To this day I still do not know what this phrase means.) Engineer lemgineer ... stay Sixth Avenue, sure rich one dey! Now stay where?

Me: Tanglin.

Exposer: Fwah! From Sixth Avenue move to Tanglin ... wu ngiah boh? (Ditto.) Your father engineer, but your mother made of gold is it?

Me: Actually, my mother is made of fat. She always eat the egg yolk -

Exposer: Eh, nah bei, dun try to clever clever with me ah. You rich say not rich, hao lian say not hao lian. Just like a char bor, act cute buay cute!

Me: Char bor act cute is quite cute wor? You don't like?

Exposer: Uhhh ... Donch know leh. I guess sometimes quite cute lah, heh heh. Like the Jolin Tsai, she obviously all fake fake one, but wah liew still steam!

Me: In any case your analogy is not very accurate. When the char bor acts cute and is subsequently not cute, her actions are at all times assessed objectively. When I am hao lian but say I am not hao lian, my actions - or words, to be precise - are entirely subjective. As a result, the proper analogy is to a char bor who acts cute and then later says that she does not, in fact, act cute.

Exposer: ... wah ... hadouken

Me: Anyway, where I stay surely is not the final arbiter of whether or not I am hao lian. I might stay in Tanglin, but I have not changed the grey pants I am wearing right now in two weeks. I force my wife to eat McDonald's with me all the time and I refer to people who can only talk about upcoming, concrete events and happenings - as opposed to people who can engage in conceptual discussion - as "lifestylers".

Exposer: Is that the Bomfunk MC song?

Me: No. But how do you know Bomfunk MC?

Exposer: I think he stay Tanglin also. Last time.

Me: I see.

Exposer: Yah, he rock the rock the rock the micrrrrrrophone during Chinese New Year.

Isn't it a drag when people just want to tell you that you are nothing but the sum of your inheritance? But then again, according to Robert Nozick, we are! Of course Nozick was more handsome than he was right, for most part, so we must take his views with some circumspection. Nozick or otherwise, however, there is something to be said for simply adopting an accepting attitude in this regard.

I once had a colleague who got married very early. The aunties in the office gave him stick for this non-stop:

Annoying Auntie: Wah, get married so early hor.

Rich Colleague: Early meh? 24 ... OK what.

Annoying Auntie: Heh heh, for you is OK ... for the rest of Singaporeans, where can so early get married one? Where got money?

Rich Colleague: Savings?

Annoying Auntie: Aiyo, savings can at most buy HDB in Punggol? But you staying Newton ... where got people got rich parents like you!

Rich Colleague: (irritated) We ... took a loan. My parents helped with the downpayment, but we'll be paying them that back.

Annoying Auntie: Haha, don't bluff la, in the end your parents die, the money still go to you. So good one, I wish I have. Life is not fair la, hor!

Rich Colleague: ... I guess. Sorry, I need to do some work now.

Annoying Auntie: Eh, you so rich, why still need to work? Just put in bank and watch the interest grow lah, haha!

Rich Colleague: (fake laugh and leaves)

In my fantasy world, conversations like these are very easily handled:

Annoying Auntie: Wah, get married so early hor.

Me: Yar, not like you, 50 plus still not married. Maybe even still virgin, haha! (Borat voice) Hi-fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive!

Annoying Auntie: (at loss for words) Uh ... for you is OK ... for the rest of Singaporeans, where can so early get married one? Where got money?

Me: That's true! I am very lucky to be born into a rich family, and to find a wife who is not money-grubbing.

Annoying Auntie: So ... your family rich, you just happy happy take parents' money ah? Don't want to work hard to make your mark in the world ah? Don't want to be your OWN MAN ah?

Me: Well, I have taken a loan for $750,000 from the bank ... they have helped with the downpayment, for which I am grateful and will pay back. But other than that, I have to accept what you say. You are right.

Annoying Auntie: Chey. Life is not fair, hor? Some people have all the luck.

Me: It's true, life isn't fair. If I wasn't from a rich family I'd probably be motivated with a different set of priorities, I don't doubt that for a minute. We can only live according to our individual, specific situations, surely? Because how else can we live? I everyday watch Winter Olympics but I never think "Wah how come I never got good at curling". It's just lan lan, Singapore don't have ice. Life gives you lemons, are you going to fly to Denmark to steal pastries?

Annoying Auntie: Your hua1 yan2 qiao2 yu3 is only qiang3 ci2 duo2 li3 one. I dowan to talk to you oredi.

Me: To me, someone who is already very rich already but whole day still scheming about how to get richer, that seems like he lose the plot already lah. But OK, you want to end the conversation the minute things aren't going in your favour, sure. Bye. Nao hia.

Of course, the other extreme is undesirable as well - I used to say to another colleague of mine at lunchtime: "Let me pay lah, I stay Sixth Avenue, you stay Jurong West." Now I know (at great cost): this sort of statement is very extremely kiam pah, and largely disingenuous. All one really needs to get through life, rich or otherwise, is to know one's place, treat people kind, and not to take any one thing too seriously. Contingency is, after all, never really anybody's fault.

John Gardner and Morons

2010-02-09T23:57:00.011+08:00

I had the dubious privilege of watching a smart person explain something to a stupid-happening person today. In many ways, the process was akin to a top-tier academic pre-empting threshold objections to an otherwise unassailable theory (think American realists vs Rawls): the painful earnestness and devotion to detail, with every possible contingency and iteration projected and covered, all lost on a brain too small to comprehend its own uninsightfulness and unimportance.

Until smart people achieve eminence, they are always at the mercy of happening people. This is why extremely smart people nonetheless desire to be happening, often even after they have "arrived". But even then theirs is a calculated, self-conscious sort of happening; it does not come as naturally to them as to those born as deer into headlights. These smart people do not possess the same unintelligent capacity to dismiss everything they do not understand; first because they are intelligently curious, and second because there isn't much that they don't understand anyway.

The result is both just and unjust. Smart people grovelling at the feet of people dumber but ostensibly cooler than them: this image surely rectifies the historical, if cosmic misallocation of entirely non-entitled grey cells. But something feels amiss, counter-intuitive if you will; while the misallocation ab initio must have been evolutionary accident, the subsequent decisions of the collective pursuant to that misallocation are, to my mind, wholly open to moral judgment. It is unfortunate, therefore, that things have transpired the way they have. With stupid people forming the core of the lowest common denominator, each individual in society is compelled to communicate on those terms - or risk losing a sizeable support or validation network, and along with that most of what makes life bearable. Maybe the American realists didn't lose after all.

Imaginary Matters

2010-01-21T01:55:00.007+08:00

I wanted to finish this conversation from earlier today -

Zevran: Everything is either meaningful or pointless.

Alistair: No. Some things matter more than most.

Zevran: But that's completely contingent.

Alistair: So what? Life is contingent.

Zevran: So who decides which contingencies matter?

Alistair: You, I guess.

Zevran: Then life is too easy to mean anything.

Alistair: You will find a difficulty level to suit you.

Zevran: Then you are saying I have no say in the matter.

Alistair: ... in a sense. You decide which contigencies matter, but you will intuitively not choose the extremes.

Zevran: I.e. I have no say.

Alistair: Don't be so extreme.

Zevran: Is this where you say this particular contingency is pointless?

Alistair: This is where I say knnbccb.

Zevran: Haha. Actually I assumed that life has to be hard to mean something - did you get that?

Alistair: Interesting. But you can inform yourself all about nice theoretical symmetries, but you'd be bummed if all you did was bum.

Zevran: Yes, to employ your language I do "intuit" that.

Alistair: Fuck you.

Zevran: I intuited that one too.

***

Our basest emotions, they come and they go, swiftly and silently, impervious to anticipation and post-hoc rationalization.

Maybe this is why people fish.

(Photo credit: dannychoo.com)

"He XXXed Her, His Very Own Flesh and Blood"

2010-01-15T23:06:00.005+08:00

... where XXX is something very terrible, it doesn't matter what. I have chosen the feminine pronoun on a whim.

So which is worse - to XXX someone else's daughter (i.e. a stranger), or to XXX your own daughter? The conventional phrase implicitly reflects society's aggravated censure when one XXXes one's own offspring. Nobody ever says, "He XXXed her, John Muraowski's daughter" with quite the same sort scandalized vitriol.

But is this knee-jerk reaction justified? From a utilitarian standpoint, XXXing your own daughter might be preferable because one less family member, ceteris paribus, would suffer grief and disutility (namely, your good XXXing self). From a Kantian standpoint, both actions are equally reprehensible; we do not treat people as means to an end but as ends in themselves, so whether I am XXXing your daughter or my own daughter makes no difference. So wherefore this plebeian reaction?

A threshold point before we proceed: "The exaggerated reaction is one that speaks of our disgust, rather than our sanctimony." But these are surely one and the same thing. One is disgusted more by something that one feels departs from acceptable, proper and correct norms; and so we are more disgusted by the mass-murderer than the mere murderer. Disgust, in other words, factors into our overall calculus for censure; otherwise we'd have innumerable qualitative categories, depending on individual SAT verbal scores. But how then do we explain our greater disgust at a rabbit rapist (as opposed to your run-of-the-mill rapist)? Rabbits are sentient and can feel pain but their disutility tapers off after a point (say, they do not worry about their reputation and how their husbands might feel). Actually on this point, I demur; I'm not sure who I'd rather be locked in a room with.

OK, digression past. A possible explanation would be that parents owe duties to their children - loving, raising, caring, nourishing and all that jazz. To XXX one's child would, therefore, be to spit in the face of all that - and then some. This argument is premised on the concepts of trust and betrayal, and insofar as cuckolded husbands everywhere are justified in their irateness, this explanation must be serviceable on some level. But is it enough? Maybe Morrigan can tell me.

Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted

2009-12-10T14:25:00.021+08:00

Some people make up their minds early on and spend the rest of their lives defending their point of view. Not Ezio, though. Ezio doesn't believe in defending. Only attacking, dismembering and killing.

I was speaking to my friend Sten the other day. It was an illuminating exchange.

Sten: We were sent here to Ferelden to investigate the Blight.
Me: By whom?
Sten: The Ahkoraqi. They are the keepers of wisdom amongst my people. They instruct us in the proper ways to perceive the world.
Me: Doesn't that mean that your perspective of the world becomes, ah, somewhat skewed?
Sten: Compared to what?

Indeed, compared to what? You have your point of view; I have mine. Between us there are a million and one other perspectives, all of them possible, none of them true. "Nothing is True, Everything is Permitted" is the famous aphorism attributed to Hassan-i Sabbah, the apocryphal father of the assassin trade (if we are to believe the hype). The aphorism was first popularized by Friedrich Nietzsche in his 1880s work Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Like Aleister Crowley's "'Do what thou wilt' shall be the whole of the law", this phrase is often interpreted in its most literal sense to mean that objective reality does not exist and therefore that free will is unlimited. More broadly, however, the phrase is also taken to mean that there is no such thing as an objective truth outside of our perception, and that therefore all things are true and possible.

It is a frightening - to not have truth in one's life. Every word, action and thought becomes fraught with infinite regress. You tell yourself that you really hate socialite parties, because they are tiresome, insincere and boring; then you decide to be intellectually honest, so you concede that you wish you had the skills to flourish at such parties; and then, at the next party you go to, you are bored and realize that you really, really detest these parties and all the skills that are concomitant; however, on reflection back home at 2 A.M., you regret that you did not better seize the opportunity to develop your socialite party skills. And so time trudges on, and so your mind wears with its soles.

People like to say that amorality is easy, that without a strict moral code one can do what one wants, often at great cost to others. But these people do not realize that not having any moral code, or failing to be compelled to any particular one, means that we really don't know what to do with ourselves anymore. I want to do X but maybe I don't really want to do X but maybe I really want to ahhh help what is the truth what do I really want to do? Moralists conveniently (and often snarkily) speak of hindsight rationalization; amoralists simply change their minds, with nothing pejorative or praiseworthy in the countenance. They have no trouble shrugging off closed-system traps ("Your declaration that you are not insecure only goes to show the extent of your insecurity!"), convinced as they are of their unfalsifiability (and hence worthlessness).

Which is the better way? The amoralist doesn't care; it is not a matter of choice for him in any case. Positions shift, facts change, winds blow. We complain when other people make assumptions about our views. We take great pride in saying, "My views can't be labeled." In fact, we pigeonhole ourselves far more often than others pigeonhole us. We approach the world from fixed principles and when faced with a new problem we run for cover under them. Instead of judging the issue directly, we determine how it fits into our ideological framework. For instance, you read about a new increase in welfare payments to keep pace with the cost of living. Whether you approve or disapprove will probably depend not on the merits of the policy itself but on whether you see yourself as politically conservative or liberal. Subliminally, you ask yourself: "How am I supposed to think about this issue?" Your ideological positions determine how you judge most issues: abortion, military intervention, pornography, affirmative action, homosexuality, and so on. Loosen up your presuppositions - your views don't have to come in prepackaged sets. You can be opposed to both sexual permisiveness and a hawkish foreign policy, in favour of legalizing drugs but not flag-burning. Confusion is not the end of wisdom, but rather its beginning. It takes conscientious effort, but you can start thinking - really thinking - again. It's not enough to have thought.

This post was adopted from and inspired by Dragon Age: Origins by Bioware, Assassin's Creed 2 by Ubisoft and Everyday Ethics by Joshua Halberstram.

Far, Far From ZZZ-Land

2009-12-07T19:13:00.007+08:00

Zombieland
88 Minutes
Woody Harrelson, Jesse Eisenberg, Emma Stone, Abigail Breslin

The premise of Zombieland is straightforward enough: an insiduous virus takes over the entire world, turning mankind into a race of slathering zombies. Four nameless stragglers survive, and despite beginnings rooted in distrust and mutual discomfort, they somehow find a way to make a living among the dead - and to visit an amusement park.

The above paragraph is a disappointing one. Zombieland is an awesome, awesome show - think Superbad meets House of the Dead meets Aliens (the second one, where there is much ass-kicking). It is the rare film that straddles multiple genres - humour and horror, action and romance, pop culture and timeless morality. Whatever your question, chances are the answers can be found here.

Should you exercise? How long should you wait before trying for first base? Can girls be trusted? When everyone else is dead, is the proper course to hope for death? What is the legal status of someone who will soon turn into a zombie? Why do we lie to ourselves? Which was the bigger 80's phenomenon, Garfield or Ghostbusters? What principles should govern the endorsement of euthanasia? Is Bill Murray on top of the B-list or right at the bottom of the A-list?

Columbus, our smitten beta-male protagonist, struggles for much of the film to tell raven-haired Wichita how he feels about her. The exchanges are earnest and capture (quite remarkably given the backdrop of zombies and severed limbs) the heady feelings of a nascent, unprepossessing love:

Columbus: [Columbus and Wichita are drinking wine] 1997. Was that a good year?
Wichita: Yeah! 1997 was a great year! I saw my first R-rated movie... Anaconda. Got my first tattoo, a porpoise. Fake. Had my first kiss... Scotty Lynch.
Columbus: Did you guys...
[gestures with fingers]
Columbus: ...use tongue?
Wichita: [laughs] Maybe. Why, are you jealous of Scotty Lynch?
Columbus: Yes. Actually, I think I'm jealous of your whole 1997. Let me see... I think... 1997 I had my first orthodontist appointment... bastard gave me headgear... I got my first B...
[Wichita laughs]
Columbus: ...almost as scary as Anaconda... went to my first dance. Sadie Hawkins, so it was ladies' choice...
[pauses]
Wichita: And nobody picked you?
Columbus: Well, it was ladies' choice.
Wichita: [pauses in disbelief] ... No! Those bitches! No, I will not stand for this.
[stands, offers Columbus her hand]
Wichita: On behalf of all the eighth grade girls, I would like to dance with you.
[Columbus looks at her, takes another swig of wine]
Wichita: Don't worry. Scotty's old news.

Heavier themes are handled with equal subtlety. Tallahassee, the manly man of the bunch, keeps a picture of his dead son with him in his wallet. It is a touching conceit, but one that lends no assistance to Columbus when the latter prepares to go off in rescue of Wichita and her kid sister, Little Rock. Frustrated and disgusted at Tallahassee's indifference in the face of lives hanging in the balance, Columbus delivers a line that is as moving as it is acerbic: "Those girls were in someone else's wallet too, you know."

For most part, however, Zombieland simply delivers a rollicking ride of a good time. I could go on, but this is one flick where words simply do no justice - go watch, really. As Columbus learns, amidst some deeper philosophy, sometimes it's best just to sit down and shut up.

Columbus: You know there's a place untouched by all this crap?
Tallahassee: Out east, yeah?
Columbus: Yeah.
Tallahassee: Out west, we hear it's out east, out east they hear it's out west. It's all bullshit. It's like you're a penguin at the North Pole hears the South Pole is real nice this time of year.
Columbus: There are no penguins in the North Pole.
Tallahassee: You wanna feel how hard I can punch?

People

2009-11-27T21:05:00.011+08:00

I've just gotten off the phone with Yuanjie. He'd called to check to see if I'd taken my King of Fighters PS3 arcade stick from the restaurant. I had, of course; and, feeling bad at my own scandalized tone, I'd apologized for interrupting his Skype session with Hiyoko. "That's OK," he'd said. "She says hello, in a very sweet voice. Hur hur hur!"

I feigned an awkward goodbye at this and hung up. But I can feel it now, growing quietly and contendedly, spreading from the pit of my satisfied stomach to the tips of my smile: the warmth of a human being who has just had a pleasant interaction with other human beings. It is a good feeling, one that I would care to have a lot more of on a daily basis. But that is, unfortunately, not quite happening.

I love people. I really do. I might not think of you when you're not around, but when you're there in front of me - or saying hello to me in a "very sweet voice" - I really, really do love you. I want to hear what you have to say, I want to ask you about your life, I want to know why you prefer mom to dad, I want to discover your proclivities and preferences, to see your future through your dreams and to persuade you that your past is more than just regrets. I want to get to know the you that you think you are, to hear the heartbeat that you feel is in rhythm with your true soul. I want, in short, you.

But of course none of this ever comes out in everyday interaction. It might have been easier if I had been born female; as luck would have it, however, my father shot only "Y"s. This means, unfortunately, a lifetime of posturing and mooching for me. How can I say "I want to get to know you" when all I am allowed (because I have defied social norms before and it's been nothing but heartache for me so please this line of thought can stop right here thank you sir) are grunts and suggestions to optimize variables? How can I initiate conversation that goes beyond "River Gate $1,700 psf siao" when all that is required and expected of me is muscles, commitment and penis?

So, my friends. I have to resort to typing this out. You don't want me to have to say this to your face, right? Okay, so I love you. I love that you bought me a PS3. I love that you have lunch with me. I love that you entertain my inadvertently retread conversation topics. I love that you don't judge me when I judge other people for being boring and intellectually unadventurous (probably the only people I can't say I love). I love your vitriol, your psychomotor skills, your leadership qualities, your areas of esoteric knowledge that you are all too willing to share with me. I love that you drive, that you are good to your girl, that you try to think for your man, that you book tennis courts. I love that you put up with my bad Japanese. I love that you took over my OS list. I love that you indulge me, I love that you love Peter Andre, I love that you remembered my birthday. I love you all so very much.

Am I crazy? Are you? Are you going to spend the rest of your life trying to hide the fact that you love people from them? You can't. It just won't work. People know. They can smell it. If you didn't love them you'd just kill yourself, because your self still exists as a concept (and if you don't love people that's really all that your self amounts to, a pointless, adventitious concept) whether alive or dead. You need people, so you love them. We all do. I don't really need this King of Fighters PS3 arcade stick. I don't really need these wonderful birthday presents (although the 500D is pretty damned awesome). All I need is for you to realize that you need me too, and that we should all be wonderful to each other from now on. It's not that hard, if you can leave behind the allure of being hard-to-get.

Come on, don't go all jadedly goose-pimply on me. We're far too young to be old, and the world really isn't in that much of a hurry. Sit with me awhile, and we can talk and love until the stars come out. They'll wait and wink for us.

Photo from The PhotoSock - thanks Socks! :) No permission asked but you know I love you right.

Catch This Fox

2009-11-23T15:39:00.010+08:00

Fantastic Mr Fox
87 Minutes
George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jason Schwartzman

Most of us like our fairy tales in black and white. We know our protagonist will and expect him to face down evil; we know he will and expect him to have a tough time; but at the same time, we also know that he will (and want him to) emerge triumphant. Sometimes, there is a simple moral for us to take away; sometimes, we just have a roaring good time.

This animated adaptation of Roald Dahl's modern-day fairy tale, however, gives no such satisfaction. Fantastic Mr Fox is a rich and complex philosophical tale, once you dig beyond the stellar voice cast and wondrous stop-motion technology. The plot is straightfoward enough. Our dear Mr Fox, tired of the life of a wife-imposed white-collar, decides to try his hand once more at his original profession: thievery. He enlists the aid of Kylie, a useless possum, and together the duo manage to steal successfully from Boggis, Bunce and Bean, a neighbouring trio of ostensibly evil farmers. The three B-men do not take kindly to theft of their livestock, and a battle of wits ensues between them and Mr Fox. Later on, the general animal community join hands to assist Mr Fox, but the consequences for them are far more dire than expected.

The movie takes liberties with Road Dahl's book. Where the novel ends with Mr Fox successfully building a network of tunnels beneath the farms of Boggis, Bunce and Bean to ensure a constant supply of food from the three farmers, the movie actually has Bean flushing the underground network with cider, rendering them homeless and bereft of supplies. This artistic extension, however, is a welcome one. The ending for the novel was too nice, too pretty, too perfect; Mr Fox gets his own back at the farmers who were only rightfully protecting what actually belonged to them, ha-ha. In the movie we see that Mr Fox's actions, however roguish and delightful, are ultimately harmful to himself and those he loves around him, borne as they are in the first place from less than scrupulous intentions.

It is not only the main plotline that provides for interesting moral themes. The entire film brims with grey-area ambiguity and ostensible conflict. Mr Fox is himself a swashbuckling liar; Mrs Fox, a motherly tart; the Rat, a loyal traitor; Ash, the son of Mr and Mrs Fox, a manly effeminate; and Ash's cousin Kristofferson, a disciplined natural. We are never told who is or represents what definitively; instead, the conclusion is left to us, to be gleaned from the beautiful dialogue that peppers much of the film.

Even the caricatures of Boggis, Bunce and Bean are fleshed out to a certain extent; we see that both Boggis and Bunce are ensnared by their fear of Bean, while Bean himself is a victim of his own obsessions. Evil is short, fat and lean, but evil is also human (literally) and not quite as one-dimensional as the book had made it out to be. We should be glad for this added nuance; everyone has their reasons, and it is entirely possible that all that separates Mr Fox from Mr Bean is rakish charm and a sense of humour.

The film ends with not just logistical and practical issues nicely tied up, but also matters of identity and the heart properly resolved. Ash realizes the error of his envious ways and acknowledges to Kristofferson that he has been childish in being mean to his better; he knows, innately, that it is better for him to be himself (this is nicely indicated by him drinking grape juice while everyone has apple). The Rat, at the very end, reveals - or realizes? - his true self - that he had all along been denying the truth and himself, and despite Mr Fox's skepticism over his redemption, we are comforted to know that it is never too late to change.

Most dramatic of all, Mr Fox realizes that he doesn't have to be quite so fantastic anymore, going forward; he learns that what is important is to be good to those around him, and to care - genuinely - for them, instead of only his ego. On the drive back from Boggis, Bunce and Bean, the intrepid adventurers encounter a wolf, black and regal against the arriving winter distance. Mr Fox is frightened of wolves, but on this occasion he waves to say hello - and the wolf waves back, quietly, before leaving. It is a lovely canvas of contrasts, a beautiful finish to a beautiful film. The fox, who did everything, and the wolf, who did nothing; the fox, who was fantastic, and the wolf who merely waved and was more than good enough.

April Showers

2009-10-05T00:14:00.006+08:00

April Bride (余命1ヶ月の花嫁, Yomei Ikkagetsu no Hanayome)

137 minutes
Nana Eikura, Nagayama Eita
Directed by Ryuichi Hiroki

How many ways can you love someone?

Many, it seems, according to Ryuichi Hiroki's latest offering. You love someone by finding their mistakes endearing; you love someone by eating something they don't know you dislike. You love someone by hiding your illness from them; you love someone by breaking up when they find out. You love someone by taking care of them; you love someone by being easy to take care of. You love someone when you tell them loving lies; and you love someone by letting them believe that you believe those same lies.

Nana Eikura plays Chie, a young twentysomething who falls in love with Taro (Nagayama Eita) after a mixup at a business conference. They move in together soon after and are the perfect picture of modern love until things start falling apart, along with Chie's hair. It transpires that she is ill, very ill, and needs treatment. In a fit of self-inflicted denial, Chie leaves Taro to find a "better woman" to replace her. After the necessary operation, Chie goes off to Taro's coastal hometown to mope. Predictably, Taro shows up soon after, and from then on he is the paragon of devotion to her. From seaside to bedside, he follows Chie and does his best to ensure that she is loved every step of the way until the very end.

Hiroki is earnest in his presentation, perhaps too much so; but what the film lacks in subtlety, it makes up for with genuine feeling. Eikura and Eita do a very good job of portraying jaded youth, and they are spot on in conjuring up the happiness and wistfulness that is young love. The film hits home, at several junctures, the essence of a true, pure love - only when there is nothing more to lose, can one even begin to do justice to the abstract notion of "love".

It is Chie's father, however, who exemplifies best this elusive quality of love. Grim-faced and sullen, quietly living through a prematurely deceased wife and a terminal daughter, he goes through the motions for both the women in his life with equal parts affection and duty. It is only when Chie is out on the town, and he is alone in her ward with Taro, that Chie's father reveals the depth of his feeling. After sharing some cake with Taro, he turns to the young man and says, repeatedly with a voice taut with emotion: "Thank you. Thank you. Thank you."

This is the climax of the show; we know we have seen true love, and all of the remaining pomp and pageantry will have nothing to match this. Taro recognizes this too, despite his best efforts; a few months of romantic headiness and a fairytale wedding (complete with breathing apparatus) simply cannot show up a lifetime of complete suffering and self-sacrifice. As he watches the video that Chie has left for him, Taro, his eyes streaked with longing, is racked with tears and guilt. Tears, because he has just lost the love of his life; and guilt, for he knows that he has a long way to go before he can love Chie the way her father loved her - enough to let her go, on her terms.

Black Coffee Dessert Bar

2009-09-01T01:02:00.006+08:00

Once you go black, you'll ... keep going back.

Others I thought of that were rejected:

1. Hate Monday? You'll love our black Mondays.

2. "Why the black face?" Hell, why not?

3. If "black" offends you, have a cup of chocolate on us.

4. Black - be the minority.

5. Black bean sauce anyone?

6. Black - stay up longer.

Tone Deaf

2009-07-22T15:22:00.011+08:00

Ricky and Charles had gone to queue for the toilet. It was a popular watering hole, and they had both drunk more than their fair share.

Suddenly, a plump Indian lady materialized before them. "Are you guys waiting for the toilet?"

The question struck me as odd - what else could they have been waiting for? An ang ku kueh to drop from the sky? Or maybe the end of selective double standards in society?

"Yes," said Ricky deliberately. "We are waiting for the toilet."

"Oh," the woman started, disappointed. "Can you let me go first? I've been looking at the toilet for a long time. I'm seated over there." She pointed vaguely away from the toilet, her face pulled in a pained expression.

Ricky, usually generous and gentlemanly, shook his head. "Huh? We also need to go leh. We've been queuing for some time also."

Charles nodded impassively.

The woman was genuinely surprised. She began sputtering - incoherently, but loud enough for the men at her table to sit up and take notice.

"For God's sake, what's happened to all the gentlemen?" piped up one of her number. He was white, and proud to eschew local speech patterns. "Let the lady go first, for crying out loud."

Bryan, seated next to me, turned and stared. Noisy white boy fell silent. Shortly he downed his pint in an oddly defiant manner.

Ricky returned from the toilet soon after. By this time the woman had already gone across the road to another string of pubs. We assumed that she had done so to use the toilet of some other establishment. When Charles emerged from the toilet, however, the woman was already back in the queue for the same toilet. It appeared that she had met with little success elsewhere.

***

There is no question that if the woman had asked for toilet priority with a different tone, Ricky would have capitulated. For instance, she might have said: "Excuse me, I'm sorry but I do need to use the toilet urgently. Would it be alright if you I went first?"

We accept that double standards exist in society. Indeed, the phrase is a misnomer, because similar standards only apply to similar things. Men and women are not similar. We are quite, quite different. But that is a discussion for another day. The point here is that even accepting quite happily that ladies be given preferential treatment, there remains a case for that acceptance be not taken for granted.

The counter-argument to this rolls off the demagogue's tongue: if women are to be given preferential treatment anyway, why are they not allowed to demand and expect it? If preferential treatment is removed the minute women come to expect it, then what sort of preferential treatment was it to begin with? How can this preferential treatment be premised on a condition precedent? It is then no longer bestowed, the argument runs; it becomes something that has to be earned, and in that it becomes indistinct from other privileges that are earned (rather than gifted as of right, via simple attribute).

This argument ignores the fact that social rules, like preferential treatment for women and priority for the geriatric, exist in an organic society where people like you and I run on emotions. These social rules have arisen from these same emotions. Sympathy, pity, empathy - they can be overrun where our intuitions detect their redundancy. No sympathy for a genocidal octogenarian, no compassion for a homicidal lesbian. You cannot insist on availing yourself of these social norms when you yourself are behaving outside them - in our example above, if you do not behave like a lady, you are not treated like one.

We can go into what norms ought to beset or avail a lady, but that would be a subjective exercise. I am not interested in too much content here. The bottom line is this: the mindless adherence to self-serving norms is a symptom that you are operating outside what is normal. Accordingly, the probabilities of these norms working to your favour become diminished.

Caveat Number Two: "Even if the Indian lady had expressed her wishes in the tone you suggest, she could still have been thinking - 'This is my entitlement.' Indeed, it is this precise thought that emboldens her to make her request, however phrased."

Manipulation is part and parcel of life. Once we gain awareness of ourselves and the situations we find ourselves in, we are automatically initiated into the ways of artful dodging. The tactful amongst us are heralded "charismatic leaders"; the less tactful, "users".

When Indian Lady says "Can you let me go first? I've been looking at the toilet for a long time", she is indulging in a very specific frame of reference: namely, her own. In her universe, no one else needs the toilet. Even though she has sat there, not announcing her need for the toilet, it does not cross her mind that the same permutation of circumstances might apply for any other stranger in the pub. Only she could have "look[ed] at the toilet for a long time".

It is here that I state, perhaps controversially for some - I prefer the empathetic manipulator to the gormless, self-referencing moron. The empathetic manipulator has, at the very least, gone to the trouble to recognize (and to respect) all the social elements at play - queues should not be cut, women have only prima facie priority in toilet situations, and people should be spoken to without their answers having been telegraphed for them. The gormless self-referencer, on the other hand, ignores these subtleties that, really, form the backdrop of social life, of society. Wherefore any sympathy then? I can love these people outside of a social context but in a pub, interacting with other members of the public, these gormless morons have to be held to the standards of society, of the average social being.

One might argue that these gormless dolts "can't help it" but the same argument would apply for empathetic manipulators, surely. Can an intelligent person help his choices as much as a stupid person? Given his circumstances, an intelligent person will be coerced into making certain decisions that fall within a limited, predictable spectrum - exactly like in the case for stupid persons. We aren't that special just because we're smart (or think we are). Abandoning a career in law to pursue a cake shop is not "different", it is merely at the further end of the spectrum of results. Abandoning a career in law to become a road sweeper - that would be more akin to the madness required for not being able to "help it".

The difference is that the consequences of the gormless idiot not being able to "help it" take him outside the sphere of social reckoning. Consequently, the argument runs, we are not permitted to judge him, as he falls without standard yardsticks. Again, I am skeptical. How can this person, able to apply rules of logic and grammar to form complete sentences, be incapable of envisioning multiple frames of reference? If you can form a sentence with the word "you", you have already displayed empathy. This is true, almost by definition. It appears overly political - and perhaps cloyingly self-righteous - to pander to people who are, in a word, selfish.

The Hands of Time

2009-07-07T05:35:00.007+08:00

When by moonlight I compare
Our fingers, outstretched, and entwined
A whirl of memories unclasps somewhere
The thinking heart, the beating mind.

My right running up your softened calf
Defying protests and fine hairs;
Your left cups gently my weaker half
Easing eels from lukewarm lairs.

They steal the ceiling from the sky
And trace conformity out of joint;
Never once giving pause or wherefore why
For they know - we are the point.

And while each stroke draws a scene
From the future of our past
Fret not my love, for with yours in mine
This present too might last.

Optimus Dies, Megatron Becomes Girl

2009-06-24T02:07:00.005+08:00

Sideways: "Catch me if you can!" (Fitting, for he meets his maker 3 minutes into the movie. And no, by "maker" I do not mean Audi.)

Yes it was that bad.

What is the Plural of Haiku?

2009-05-21T01:00:00.006+08:00

On Japanese hotels not requiring a deposit for advance reservations:

Sushi is waiting
But nobody comes to eat -
They die with the fish.

On why you should wear a watch:

Sometimes life is hard
And sometimes it is easy
What time is it now?

Inspired by an acquaintance who "has a plan" to retire by 35:

Not sure what I want
With all of that money; but
I should be happy.

On potential:

"He has potential."
How does one know that? He could
Be dead tomorrow.

On awareness and guilt:

If I know I know
That I know you know I know
Is that quite enough?

Reported Speech

2009-05-18T23:39:00.007+08:00

Before entering toyshop (where I never buy anything) -

Me: OK. Just be confident. Walk in like you own the place.
Fiona: (points to shopkeeper, the only other person in the shop) Honey I think he knows you don't own the place.

***
In a group, talking about who we respect -

Me: So who do you look up to, Jordan?
Jordan: When I look up, I see nobody. Except maybe God.

***
Manning the Mass Call registration counter -

Me: Hi, what's your number?
Guy: (XX).
Me: Do you need a Christian or Catholic bible for swearing in later?
Guy: Uh ... I'm neither Christian nor Catholic.
Me: Why not?

***
Manning the Mass Call registration counter, Part Deux -

Me: Hi, what's your number?
Girl: Erm, (XX).
Me: That's a really short number.

***
Conversation with my mother -

Mother: Why you cannot talk to me?
Me: (eating) Because sure end up argue one.
Mother: You just WANT to argue with me only! (storms off)

Get Rich or Die Lying

2009-05-13T02:41:00.008+08:00

It's the standard refrain found in every transcendental self-help text (TSHT): "Nobody ever lay on their deathbed wishing they'd put in more time at the office." Despite the glibness, and in spite of ourselves, we are persuaded by this one line to re-examine everything we ever knew about our pitiful lives. Perhaps there is more to life than the hedonistic treadmill, we start to think. Perhaps we should learn to strive less and love more.

This argument proffered by (most) TSHTs, however, overlooks one simple fact about human nature: our capacity for self-delusion. We delude ourselves for most of our lives - that we are "above average drivers", "decent cooks", "alright-smelling", and so on and so forth. We have limitless potential in the realm of hindsight rationalization. Why then do authors of TSHTs presume that we would behave any differently on our deathbeds?

Indeed, there is every reason to believe that the propensity for delusion increases with age. Observe the middle-aged man, hirsute everywhere except on top, barrelling down to the next traffic light in his low-slung speedster. Observe the middle-aged woman, caked in make-up twenty years late and clad in vixen attire, serving herself up to her youngling for some May-December.

We will be no different as we lie dying as in life. Instead of regretting our weekends spent in the office, we will be telling ourselves, in vague and feel-good vocabulary: "I did good work for good people, and I helped people with my work." Instead of pining for lost campouts with the kids on Sunday, we will be thinking (entirely earnestly) to ourselves: "I had to work to give my kids a good future. Now that they have all that money I can die in peace." On the deathbed, justification becomes a genuine matter of life and death. Nobody will want to die unhappy, so everyone tells themselves palatable bedtime stories until they fall asleep.

In any case, living your life thinking about what you might or might not regret on your deathbed has to be the worst case of bad faith ever. In the first place the exercise assumes a knowledge that is impossible to have at any other juncture (than on the deathbed); in the second place, why is there a priority on regret? What about "catching the joy as it flies", or any number of other criteria for living a good life?

So go on, pick a utility function and run with it; you won't live to regret it, so long as you are consistent with your follow-through. In other words, if your utility function can be neatly summarized by your eventual bedtime story, you will stand a healthy chance of dying without regret.

If you've spent time with the kids on Sunday, though, maybe someone else will be there to tell you your bedtime story. And that, perhaps, might be the whole point behind it all.

My Top 5: Basslines in Pop

2009-04-27T20:35:00.011+08:00

How does one define "pop"? I'll stick to the etymology - so long as the song is popular, it qualifies. Tell me if you haven't heard of these.

Caveats: One song per artiste. And ... I'm 27.

#5 Billie Jean - Michael Jackson

So many contenders for MJ - Bad, Beat It, Smooth Criminal ... but this is the only one that doesn't have obviously synthesized bass. And everyone moves to this one, man.

#4 Slam Dunk Da Funk - 5ive

Which other boyband has embraced slap? Thought so. Gimme 5ive.

#3 Waterfalls - TLC

Old school R&B at its very best: slow, groovy and ultra-creative. R.I.P. Left-Eye.

#2 Love Foolosophy - Jamiroquai

How do you choose one song out of the 327462342 that this superlative band has produced? Starchild is brilliant, but no one's heard of it; Virtual Insanity more popular, but the bassline not particularly outstanding. This choice is fairest, but leaves nobody happy.

#1 You Oughta Know - Alanis Morrisette

The finest hour in the history of pop bass: funk finds rock and annihilates it. Flea has never topped this, and I doubt he ever will.

Notables: Lady - Modjo (Kylie Minogue rips this off quite shamelessly in "In Your Eyes" - she just moves the after-chorus to the chorus), Don't Call Me Baby - Madison Avenue (apart from funk, house has the best lines), Play That Funky Music - Wild Cherry (brilliant but a little too generic), Have Fun, Go Mad - Blair (you know the one), I Like To Move It - will.i.am (crazy chops), Don't Wanna Lose This Feeling - Dannii Minogue (not nearly popular enough)

Here's Dannii to increase everyone's utility:

Institutional Competence

2009-04-19T00:29:00.004+08:00

Meet Jane. Jane "excels at her job". She is deferential and obliging to office superiors. Her peers confirm that she is "good at what she does". Nobody questions Jane's capabilities in the workplace. She is always punctual for meetings.

Meet Jane again. Jane does not know how to format her hard drive. She has to drive back home from wherever she is in order to navigate a new destination. Her math is poor and she jokes about it. Everybody laughs about Jane's social tardiness.

Jane is one and the same person. And Jane is everywhere.

Our society keeps score. But between conflict avoidance and social capital maintenance, we only find the energy to judge where tangibles are involved. If there are no checkboxes to fill, no official reviews to collate, then it has not happened, and it is not you. You are a paper quality - no more, no less.

The Janes of this world benefit from this, of course. They are insulated in their extra-professional incompetence. Validation comes in the form of institutionalized occupation - no surprises here, since modern society has inadvertently been structured for most part to that end. The inconsistency between corporate Jane and misplaced-house-keys Jane is obvious to no one, least of all Jane.

Is it really that bad being Jane? Not really. But the camel's back breaks when Jane starts to think that she is really, really good. This is something of an eventuality in typical cases. Jane becomes an expert at filling up a certain kind of form or report during working hours and gradually she gets round to thinking that she's "above average lah" in most anonymously conducted questionnaires. Subsequently Jane begins to routinely miss her regular reality checkups.

We should really all try to be more like Tarzan. (Though I'd keep him away from the hard drive if I were you.)

Sidereal

2009-04-17T01:32:00.006+08:00

"We are merely the stars' tennis balls, struck and banded / Which way please them."
John Webster, The Duchess of Malfi

Sometime not so long ago
I bumped into a star.
She twinkled into existence
Somewhere near yet far.

"Hello, where are you going?"
I asked a silly question.
"Nowhere, really, I don't think -
Probably predestination."

The star blinked at me
And I was happy in her light;
We laughed together all morning
And stroked soft into night.

We talked and talked of things
We never knew we knew;
And the moons came from far and wide
To see two happy few.

But the other stars soon turned
And I did not know I could follow.
The star began to look wistful
And I started to doubt her glow.

"It takes years for stars to shine
All their way over here;
Maybe when I met you then
You were already someone else's tear."

The star looked sad and smiled:
"Think as you wish, my friend.
This could be just the beginning
Or this could be the very end

"But you don't know how far away
I'm watching you from right now;
And you will have no idea when
Or wherefore, where or how."

So saying the star soon vanished
Resuming her cosmic circuits;
I was left with only empty words
And arms for other orbits.

Now and then I observe
A faraway flick'ring star
I never know if it's really her
Or if it's just the way things are

But I will always have her beauty
With me in memory deep
And sometimes I put pen to paper
So my words might help me weep;

Above all I understand now
Stars burn to live and die;
And while I will always love that little star
I've long stopped wondering why.

Swanning Around

2009-03-23T11:23:00.008+08:00

The disconnect between a life thought and a life lived is well encapsulated in the following extract from The Black Swan, Nassim Nicholas Taleb's second book on the same subject:

The same context specificity leads people to take the escalator to the StairMasters, but the philosopher's case is far, far more dangerous since he uses up our storage for critical thinking in a sterile occupation. Philosophers like to practice philosophical thinking on me-too subjects that other philosophers call philosophy, and they leave their minds at the door when they are outside of these subjects.

...

Every Friday, at four P.M., the paychecks of these philosophers will hit their respective bank accounts. A fixed proportion of their earnings, about 16 percent on average, will go into the stock market in the form of an automatic investment into the university's pension plan. These people are professionally employed in the business of questioning what we take for granted; they are trained to argue about the existence of god(s), the definition of truth, the redness of red, the meaning of meaning, the difference between the semantic theories of truth, conceptual and nonconceptual representations ... Yet they believe blindly in the stock market, and in the abilities of their pension plan manager. Why do they do so? Because they accept that this is what people should do with their savings, because "experts" tell them so. They doubt their own senses, but not for a second do they doubt their automatic purchases in the stock market. This domain dependence of skepticism is no different from that of medical doctors.

Beyond this, they may believe without question that we can predict societal events, that the Gulag will toughen you a bit, that politicians know more about what is going on than their drivers, that the chairman of the Federal Reserve saved the economy, and so many such things. They may also believe that nationality matters (they always stick "French," German," or "American" in front of a philosopher's name, as if this has something to do with anything he has to say). Spending time with these people, whose curiosity is focused on regimented on-the-shelf topics, feels stifling.

***
To be sure, it is difficult to argue against the tendency towards deference to experts - after all, the world is a big place, and invariably we have to depend on people who have utilized their limited resources in areas we have not. But Taleb is probably posturing with this - I am sure he drinks FDA-approved milk. His basic point is nonetheless valuable. Action must suit thought, for otherwise the thought is only what you think, never what you are. Identification can (and should) only begin where both mind and hands cease to be idle.

On Intelligence

2009-03-18T00:03:00.016+08:00

Recent events have turned my peripatetic attention to the topic of stupidity. ( I like to keep entry titles positive.) Apparently, many have gone before:

(Excerpts from various unpetty online sources follow.)

***
"Intelligence" is an umbrella term used to describe a property of the mind that encompasses many related abilities, such as the capacities to reason, to plan, to solve problems, to think abstractly, to comprehend ideas, to use language, and to learn. There are several ways to define intelligence. In some cases, intelligence may include traits such as creativity, personality, character, knowledge, or wisdom. However, most psychologists prefer not to include these traits in the definition of intelligence.

Theories of intelligence can be divided into those based on a unilinear construct of general intelligence and those based on multiple intelligences. Francis Galton, influenced by his cousin Charles Darwin, was the first to advance a theory of general intelligence. For Galton, intelligence was a real faculty with a biological basis that could be studied by measuring reaction times to certain cognitive tasks. Galton's research on measuring the head size of British scientists and ordinary citizens led to the conclusion that head size had no relationship with the person's intelligence.

Alfred Binet and the French school of intelligence believed that intelligence was an average of numerous dissimilar abilities, rather than a unitary entity with specific identifiable properties. The Stanford-Binet intelligence test has been used by both theorists of general intelligence and multiple intelligence.

Intelligence comes from the Latin verb intellegere, which means "to understand". By this rationale, intelligence (as understanding) is arguably different from being "smart" (able to adapt to one's environment). At least two major "consensus" definitions of intelligence have been proposed. First, from Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, a report of a task force convened by the American Psychological Association in 1995:

Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person’s intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of "intelligence" are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena. Although considerable clarity has been achieved in some areas, no such conceptualization has yet answered all the important questions and none commands universal assent. Indeed, when two dozen prominent theorists were recently asked to define intelligence, they gave two dozen somewhat different definitions.

A second definition of intelligence comes from "Mainstream Science on Intelligence", which was signed by 52 intelligence researchers in 1994:

A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience. It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts. Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings — "catching on", "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do.

Another simple and efficient definition is: the ability to apply knowledge in order to perform better in an environment.

Researchers in the fields of psychology and learning have also defined human intelligence:

David Wechsler The aggregate or global capacity of the individual to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his environment.

Howard Gardner To my mind, a human intellectual competence must entail a set of skills of problem solving—enabling the individual to resolve genuine problems or difficulties that he or she encounters and, when appropriate, to create an effective product—and must also entail the potential for finding or creating problems—and thereby laying the groundwork for the acquisition of new knowledge.

Random poster on a forum I define intelligence as being able to learn things from the world around you, comprehend and learn from stuff you read, and being able to apply everything you've learned to your daily life to overcome problems.

***
The brain is like a muscle: Use it or lose it.

That's the growing conclusion of research that shows fogged memory and slowed wit are not inevitable consequences of getting old, and there are steps people can take to protect their brains.

Mental exercise seems crucial. Benefits start when parents read to tots and depend heavily on education, but scientists say it's never too late to start jogging the gray matter.

People have to get physical, too. Bad memory is linked to heart disease, diabetes and a high-fat diet, all risks people can counter by living healthier lives.

In fact, provocative new research suggests these brain-protective steps, mental and physical, may be strong enough even to help influence who gets Alzheimer's disease.

"There are some things that, if you know you have a family history (of Alzheimer's) and you're just 20 to 30 years old, you can start doing to increase your protective factors," said Dr. Amir Soas of Case Western Reserve University Medical School in Cleveland.

It's also good advice for the average baby boomer hoping to stay sharp, or the mom priming her child for a lifelong healthy brain.

Most important: "Read, read, read," Soas said. Do crossword puzzles. Pull out the chessboard or Scrabble. Learn a foreign language or a new hobby. "Anything that stimulates the brain to think," he said.

And cut back on TV, Soas insists. "When you watch television, your brain goes into neutral," he said. So much so that Case Western plans to study whether people who contract Alzheimer's watched more TV throughout life than healthy seniors.

The stereotype of the forgetful grandma has its roots in now-outdated dogma. Just a few years ago, scientists believed the brain was wired forever before age 5, and that over the ensuing decades a person irrevocably lost neurons and crucial brain circuitry until eventually mental decline became noticeable.

Not quite. Scientists now know the brain continually rewires and adapts itself, even in old age; large brain-cell growth continues into the teen years; and even the elderly can grow at least some new neurons.

So cognitive decline doesn't have to be inevitable. Indeed, mental tests given for 10 years to almost 6,000 older people found 70 percent maintained brain power as they aged, lead researcher Mary Haan of the University of Michigan told an international Alzheimer's meeting this month.

What keeps brains healthy? Clues come from Alzheimer's research.

Case Western scientists studied 550 people and found those less mentally and physically active in middle age were three times more likely to get Alzheimer's as they grayed. Particularly protective: increasing intellectual activity during adulthood.

Numerous studies show people with less education have higher risks of Alzheimer's than the better-educated. Haan found less than a ninth-grade education a key threshold; other studies suggest a difference even between holders of bachelor's and master's degrees.

It's not just formal education. Reading habits between ages 6 and 18 appear crucial predictors of cognitive function decades later, said Dr. David Bennett of Chicago's Rush University. The theory: Challenge the brain early to build up more "cognitive reserve" to counter brain-damaging disease later. Bennett is preparing to test that by counting neurons in autopsied brains.

And remember that brain-muscle analogy?

Brain scans show mentally "exercising," which London cabbies do while navigating without a map or pianists do when practicing, makes sports important for those intellectual challenges to grow while less-used regions shrink.

But physical health is important, too. A healthy brain needs lots of oxygen pumped through healthy arteries. Haan studied people who have a gene called ApoE4, which significantly increases the risk of Alzheimer's. Brain function of gene carriers declined four times faster with age if they also had hardened arteries or diabetes. High-fat diets increased the risk seven times, Case Western researchers found.

That means exercising and eating right -- the very things that prevent heart disease and diabetes -- helps the brain, too. And Haan said it spotlights the next research frontier: Testing whether cholesterol and blood pressure treatments might prevent dementia.

***
In general, we live in a world in which things either get better or worse. Things seldom remain the same. If we stop learning we can expect that our ability to solve problems and produce desirable results gradually diminishes - our intelligence declines. By continuing to learn, we increase our ability to solve problems and produce desirable results - our intelligence increases.

...

And what is an "intelligence test?" Life is an intelligence test.

...

Knowledge is what you know; intelligence is what you do with what you know to produce desirable results.

...

The ability to learn is obviously central to intelligence. We can learn from all we do and don't do. It is intelligent to constantly observe what works and what doesn't work. This is a thinking skill - a pretty advanced thinking skill! Can we assume that people who seem unable to observe the difference between what works and what doesn't have a learning disability? What about people who continue to do what obviously doesn't work? What about politics?

Every time you learn anything useful, you increase your intelligence. Every new word you learn increases your intelligence. When you stop learning your intelligence stagnates. You can view your life as a learning experiment. Part of the reason for doing anything could be to learn from it - every action becomes a learning experiment. In addition to thinking in terms of success and failure, you can think in terms of learning from the outcomes of each action.

...

We live in a sea of words. Our perception of the environment, other people, and ourselves is usually converted into words. Much of our thinking is done in the form of words. Much of our communication between each other occurs in the form of words. Many of us take these words for granted, treat them as givens.

To a large extent, most of us, much of the time, react to our word-based interpretations of events, rather than respond to the events themselves in an unbiased manner. Our words color what we see and hear.

Let me suggest that the unquestioning acceptance and use of certain words have a stupefying effect.

***
The bottom line is this: you're nowhere near as smart as even the 793567354th smartest person on the planet, so why be content in your ignorance? Self-doubt, circumspection and unabashed curiosity should rule the day. And changing your mind about non-ethical issues (i.e. philosophical flip-flopping as opposed to reneging on a lunch date) should have zero individual stigma. You can't help what people think, but surely you can help yourself think better.

It is too glib to say, "I was born stupid" (that sentence would not make sense in any other context). Have you tried? If you have not tried to be more intelligent, it is immaterial whether you were born stupid or not. But what does "trying" involve? Here, the words of Bob Heinlein are instructive:

He sighed and went on in a fatherly tone. "You go down to the public library and draw out some books. You don't have any right to opinions on these things until you know something about them."

Robert Heinlein, The Door Into Summer

And on that note, I should probably shut up too.

Pornography

2009-03-09T13:51:00.003+08:00

The best way to distinguish a work of pornography from a conventional narrative is to look at its structure. All narratives, to some extent, are concerned with such things as character, plot, exposition, development, climax and resolution; but in pornography these are merely nods to propriety, threadbare garments which barely conceal the real purpose of the narrative: to deliver a particular kind of gratification again and again. Conventional narratives may head in any direction, but porn always orients itself towards its pet catharsis, and never strays far away.

Imagine, for example, that you were unaware of porn, and watching one of those softcore "erotic thrillers" on late-night cable. Within minutes you would notice that it was no ordinary thriller, that something about the storytelling was a bit off. You might wonder if it was strictly necessary, from a narrative standpoint, for the characters to disrobe and hump each other every five minutes. You might wonder why random, pointless characters are introduced just to be fucked, and why the plot is contrived in such a way as to allow all the leading characters to hook up in every combination a heterosexual male might care to see. To one expecting a conventional narrative, the porn narrative has a demented, obsessive appearance; it is static, repetitive, moves only in circles.

Such was my experience reading Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, which purports to be a classic sci-fi novel, but is actually, I now realise, a work of pornography. Some readers might be deceived by the book's scrupulous avoidance of sexual content, but it just happens that sex is not the particular fetish of Ender's Game: it finds its gratification elsewhere.

The book in fact caters towards two related fetishes. The most obvious of these is geek wish-fulfillment. Ender Wiggin, the protagonist of the book, is a classic Mary Sue — a pre-pubescent boy genius who is simply the best at everything. Compared to his peers at the space battle school for gifted kids, Ender is wiser, more intelligent, more sensitive and loving, better at his studies, a better hacker, a better fighter, a better leader. He is better than all of them, and they hate him for it. They all hate him for it — all except the girls, of course — and they never let him forget it. They want to crush him, humiliate him, kill him, but Ender is better than them, and because he is better than them, he always wins through.

In the best traditions of porn, each chapter is simply a build-up to a catharsis. Ender proves he is better than everybody, and the reading nerd finds a vicarious release. The sequence of catharses begins with revenge over a school bully (whom Ender kicks to death); and then, just as the porn movie raises the bar with more exotic positions, more extended sessions, and more numerous participants, so the obstacles facing Ender become more difficult. The provocations become more extreme, the bullies become tougher, his mentors set him impossible challenges. But Ender always wins, no matter how hard or unfair the fight, no matter how much his enemies conspire to stack the odds against him. He always wins, and forces his enemies to acknowledge his brilliance and superiority — and if they don't, he eventually kills them.

There is no dramatic tension or genuine excitement about any of these encounters; the only tension comes from how long the inevitable catharsis can be delayed. It's made quite clear early on that Ender is the best, unbeatable, guaranteed to fulfil all your geek revenge fantasies; each chapter reliably delivers its load. In each chapter, as surely as the pornstar gets her tits out, Ender faces a terrible provocation; in each chapter, his eventual triumph is as certain as a cumshot, and just as undeniable.

To sustain this pattern, the plot is contrived to make sure that other characters always hate Ender. There is no obvious reason for him to be so despised, at every turn, by his peers: he's a confident guy who excels at games, the kind of guy who would typically be well-liked at school. And yet, people seem to hate him a priori. Every time Ender makes friends, he makes more enemies, and everything he does makes his enemies hate him all the more. This mass of hate is overdone and never convincing: it simply plays into the paranoia of the target readership. Its effect is to enhance the gratification, ratchet up the pornographic tension, make Ender's inevitable victories all the sweeter.

Geek wish-fulfillment is not the only fetish on display in Ender's Game: the other is self-pity, the lonely self-pity of the truly gifted and persecuted. Ender, you see, doesn't want to keep beating and humiliating and killing people. He is always forced into these actions, against his will, by the school governors who keep pushing him to succeed, and by his victims themselves, who just won't accept that he is the best. "Why wouldn't he leave me alone?" he wonders as he kills another bully. After every victory comes an equally cathartic bout of self-pity, as Ender wracks his soul in ecstatic remorse over his situation. Even in this area, he excels. No one can self-pity like Ender!

In the final one-man gang-bang of wish-fulfillment, Ender is tricked into fighting an alien fleet against impossible odds: he ends up destroying the fleet, the alien home planet and indeed the entire alien species. But all this time the aliens have been preparing a special message for him and him alone: it turns out they were nice after all and didn't mean any harm. This brings us to a final sustained orgasm of self-pity as Ender understands the message and realises the horror of what he was forced to do; he knows then that he must travel the galaxy with the aliens' message, pitying himself for all mankind. It's really quite breathtaking. If you get your jollies from self-pity, this must be the most arousing thing imaginable.

But then again, if you get your jollies from self-pity, you are sick and need help. The same goes for geek revenge fantasies. This is the real problem with Ender's Game: it's not just porn, it's sick porn. Whatever one might say about porn that fetishises sex, at least sex is a healthy and natural impulse, at least sex is usually a pleasant thing. The fetishes of Ender's Game, by contrast, are not healthy. We all feel sorry for ourselves at times, we all occasionally like to fantasise about being the best and proving it; but if you dwell on these feelings to the extent of the protagonist of Ender's Game, if you buy into the book's message of "everyone hates me because I'm the best" (which is delivered without the least sense of irony or introspection), if you see your life as a tale of unending persecution by your inferiors, then you either need to get some perspective, or get some help. Those who claim that Ender's Game truly captures their own childhood feelings are revealing a bit too much.

(from a review of Ender's Game by Stephen Bond)

***
Interesting - a denunciation of a book I thought undenounceable, from someone I once thought (do I still?) intellectually credible. To be certain, the cracks do start to show in Ender's Shadow, so at least this final paragraph might not be as misplaced as we might think:

In other art forms — music, painting, dance — it's more possible to draw a line between art and artist. These are more abstract arts, and since it is hard to tell what the artworks represent, it is equally hard to tell whether they represent the views or personality of the artist. But writers cannot hide behind abstraction so easily. Writing is always, in some manner or another, an expression of a particular human consciousness. Writing, more than any other art, is a measure of the human being who writes it. And on the evidence of Ender's Game, Card just doesn't measure up.

Probably the Hardest Instrument in the World

2009-03-07T15:51:00.003+08:00

The theremin is an early electronic musical instrument controlled without contact from the player. It is named after its Russian inventor, Professor Leon Theremin, who patented the device in 1928. It was originally known as the 'termenvox' or 'aetherphone', the former of which was subsequently anglicised to 'theremin' (sometimes misspelled theramin). The controlling section usually consists of two metal antennas which sense the position of the player's hands and control radio frequency oscillator(s) for frequency with one hand, and volume with the other. The electric signals from the theremin are amplified and sent to a loudspeaker.

Easy to learn but notoriously difficult to master, theremin performance presents two challenges: reliable control of the instrument's pitch with no guidance (no keys, valves, frets, or finger-board positions), and minimizing undesired portamento that is inherent in the instrument's microtonal design.

Pitch control is challenging because, like a violin or trombone, a theremin generates tones of any pitch throughout its entire range, including those that lie between the conventional notes. In the case of some string instruments, the range is divided along the strings by use of length divisions (e.g., frets on a guitar). By contrast, in the case of the theremin, the entire range of pitches is controlled by the distance of the performer's hand or fingers to the pitch antenna in mid-air. Precise control of manual position coupled with an excellent sense of pitch is required, since the electromagnetic field around the antenna tends to change slowly over time, resulting in changing positions of individual pitches.

Also, the theremin's continuous range of pitches lends itself to glissando playing, which can be inappropriate to the piece being performed. Skilled performers, through rapid and exact hand movements, minimize undesired portamento and glissando to play individual notes and can even achieve staccato effects. Small and rapid movements of the hands can create tremolo or vibrato effects.

Although pitch is governed primarily by the distance of the performer's hand to the pitch antenna, most precision thereminists augment their playing techniques with a system called "aerial fingering", largely devised by Clara Rockmore and subsequently adapted by Leon Theremin and his protege, Lydia Kavina. It employs specific hand and finger positions to alter slightly the amount of capacitance relative to the pitch antenna to produce small changes in tone quickly and in a manner that can be reliably reproduced.

An alternate and controversial "hands on" technique is called "angling" in which the pitch control hand is actually set on the top of the theremin which violates the "no touch" creed of traditionalists. It employs changing the angle of the hand and fingers to alter the pitch and repositioning the hand if the pitch interval is too large for "angling". By touching the instrument, the effect on pitch of extraneous movement is dampened. This permits the use of steady pitches without vibrato and without remaining perfectly still. There is also a way to ensure that when moving around, unnecessary sound is not produced, by using the pitch knob on the side of the instrument, and turning it until no sound is made when a body is around the instrument. (this is beneficial for members of a band that play more than one instrument, but sacrifices a consistent pitch reference, since the instrument is thus tuned to the relative environment, and not to the player's body, so the distance of the tones varies according to the venue.)

Equally important in theremin articulation is the use of the volume control antenna. Unlike touched instruments, where simply halting play or damping a resonator silences the instrument, the thereminist must "play the rests, as well as the notes", as Ms. Rockmore observes. Although volume technique is less developed than pitch technique, some thereminists have worked to extend it, especially Pamelia Kurstin's "walking bass" technique.

Skilled players who overcome these challenges by a precisely controlled combination of movements can achieve complex and expressive performances, and thus realize a theremin's potential.

Find out more here.

Nice 2 Mit U

2009-02-25T11:59:00.014+08:00

Last night we lay in bed and looked out at the stars
You told me of your troubles, I let you see my scars
How you never wanted pity, and how I'd raise my kid
And how they never understood, how we always did.

You told me of your childhood, and what it took to make
A day of quiet happiness - an oven, mitt and cake.
In my secrets I sought you, but soon I knew you knew
All the way back when before, before we were two.

Or should that be one? - For sometimes I'm not quite sure
The things you say shortly after I hear them in my ear.
Yet at times you are far, a distant quantity
Content for me to uncover unfamiliarity.

But last night in my arms, you were nicely far yet closer -
Here's to ten more years of acquaintance, you lovely perfect stranger.

Obfuscation

2009-02-18T10:30:00.008+08:00

"Because I'm superficial (or any other flaw) that way."

Acknowledgement of idealized social norm and concession of transgression, but at one and the same time absolute and unapologetic justification (lack of substantiation notwithstanding).

"I thought that you might like to __________."

Subtle recognition of another's unique traits buttressing a request masquerading as a tailored suggestion.

"You're good with these things, which is why I wanted to ask your opinion on this matter."

Shameless flattery culminating in shameless plea for assistance; the two shamelessnesses cancel out, leaving behind tasteful compliment and a not unpleasant role of hero to fill.

"That's just your opinion."

Statement of the obvious deliberately or inadvertently unsympathetic to the possibility of prior reasoning or logic.

"That's a good idea, but its execution requires the gift of __________, a talent which I unfortunately lack."

False humility and ostensible understanding offer shelter to the twinned vices of laziness and irresponsibility.

"You might want to get some of the materials from the others. I was terrible with my attendance and I really don't know how I passed to begin with - I'm totally the wrong person for you to be asking!"

Deep-seated hubris, hidden beneath grandstanding modesty and a shallow tendency towards inaction precipitating sufficient confidence to impliedly encourage the defiance of conventional wisdom in supplicants.

Should it Have Ended at Ender's Game?

2009-02-17T23:50:00.010+08:00

Some people seem to think so. I guess I'll find out soon.

***
Alai nodded soberly. "Always my friend, always the best of my friends," he said. Then he grinned. "Go slice up the buggers."

"Yeah." Ender smiled back.

Alai suddenly kissed Ender on the cheek and whispered in his ear, "Salaam." Then, red-faced, he turned away and walked to his own bed at the back of the barracks. Ender guessed that the kiss and the word were somehow forbidden. A suppressed religion, perhaps. Or maybe the word had some private and powerful meaning for Alai alone. Whatever it meant to Alai, Ender knew that it was sacred; that he had uncovered himself for Ender, as once Ender's mother had done, when he was very young, before they put the monitor in his neck, and she had put her hands on his head when she thought he was asleep, and prayed over him. Ender had never spoken of that to anyone, not even to Mother, but had kept it as a memory of holiness, of how his mother loved him when she thought that no one, not even he, could see or hear. That was what Alai had given him; a gift so sacred that even Ender could not be allowed to understand what it meant.

***
"It goes deeper than that. Being here alone with nothing to do, I've been thinking about myself, too. Trying to understand why I hate myself so badly."

"No, Ender."

"Don't tell me 'No, Ender.' It took me a long time to realize that I did, but believe me, I did. Do. And it came down to this: In the moment when I truly understand my enemy, understand him well enough to defeat him, then in that very moment I also love him. I think it's impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them -"

"You beat them." For a moment she was not afraid of his understanding.

"No, you don't understand. I destroy them. I make it impossible for them to ever hurt me again. I grind them and grind them until they don't exist."

***
"I am not a happy man, Ender. Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf. Survival first, then happiness as we can manage it. So, Ender, I hope you do not bore me during your training with complaints that you are not having fun. Take what pleasure you can in the interstices of your work, but your work is first, learning is first, winning is everything because without it there is nothing. When you can give me back my dead wife, Ender, then you can complain to me about what this education costs you."

***
There was no doubt in Ender's mind. There was no help for him. Whatever he faced, now and forever, no one would save him from it. Peter might be scum, but Peter had been right, always right; the power to cause pain is the only power that matters, the power to kill and destroy, because if you can't kill you are always subject to those who can, and nothing no one will ever save you.

***
"I know what you're thinking, Ender. You're thinking that I'm trying to control you as much as Peter or Graff or any of the others."

"It crossed my mind."

"Welcome to the human race. Nobody controls his own life, Ender. The best you can do is choose to fill the roles given you by good people, by people who love you."

(Excerpts from Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card)

Modern Life is Rubbish

2009-02-12T00:03:00.004+08:00

Broadly, this is how I feel about modern society.

***
He remembered a conversation he had had with Barry. "We're living on the top of a pyramid," he had said, "supported by the massive base, rising above it, above everything that has made it possible. We're responsible for nothing, not the structure itself, not anything above us. We owe nothing to the pyramid, and are totally dependent on it. If the pyramid crumbles and returns to dust, there is nothing we can do to prevent it, or even to save ourselves. When the base goes, the top goes with it, no matter how elaborate the life is that has developed there. The top will return to dust along with the base when the collapse comes. If a new structure is to rise, it must start at the ground, not on top what has been built during the centuries past."

"You'd drag everyone back into savagery!"

"I would help them down from the point of the pyramid. It's rotting away. The snow and ice from one direction, weather and age from the others. It will collapse, and when it does, the only ones who can survive will be those who are free from it, in no way dependent on it."

- Kate Wilhelm, Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

The Paradox of Choice

2009-02-07T02:34:00.009+08:00

Cars I have test-driven to date:

Renault Megane
Peugeot 107
Hyundai i30
Mazda 2
Mazda 3
Nissan Latio
Mitsubishi Lancer EX
Chevrolet Optra
Ford Focus
Opel Corsa
Fiat Punto
Honda City
Citroen C4

Am I going to be happier with my final decision? Really, I couldn't say.

Status Messages

2009-01-30T14:41:00.001+08:00

Xin: Good pics on fb!

Sze: thanks!
you have very pensive gchat names

Xin: what is so pensive about the long view?

Sze: you are preparing yourself for death

Xin: hahaha
wow i never thought of that

Sze: what were you thinking then!!
"in the long run we are all dead"

Xin: this is the long VIEW

Sze: "i see that in the long run we are all dead"

Xin: well - it's not really interesting

Sze: it must be sufficiently interesting for you to ANNOUNCE IT TO THE WHOLE WORLD

Xin: no lah nobody notices - EXCEPT YOU
well it was really in relation to writing a policy
which is not to be too reactionary
and to take the long view

Sze: aww
nobody notice
you scream silently for attention
.. and you get it from the wrong parties

Xin: yeah
*tear

Xin:
i weep silently
or loudly
it makes no difference

Sze: try to take the long view
do not be so reactionary and sensitive
dry those tears

Xin: you are just telling me to look forward to death!
why do you not have gchat statuses - do you consider them too much silent cries

Sze: i guess i like to seek my attention directly
none of this passive-aggressive shit

Xin: i dont like facebook statuses, but i'm fine with gchat ones - i'm not sure why

Sze: the two are, in lawyerspeak, indistinguishable

Xin: i guess it's cos people usually have interesting gchat ones - like a quote or something
but people's fb statuses are usually just stupid

Sze: the people on your gchat are your intelligent friends
the people on your FB are your no-choice-but-to-approve "friends"
so the statuses vary accordingly
well DONE!
you have distinguished one from the other

Xin: no, you have - you are the true lawyer

Sze: i have gone one step further - i have tried to credit someone else for it. this separates me from the lawyers - i am just a good human being.

Xin: i wouldn't go so far
if you were really a good human being, you would have insisted that i deserved the credit
and then paid me for enlightening you

Sze: AH HA! caught me there!! it is true, i am merely a good lawyer!!!

Xin: ...

Sze: before we get into meta-meta stuff
this short exchange has thrown up an interesting insight
that of seeking attention directly rather than passively
passive attention seeking is more reprehensible

Xin: but i was not seeking attention

Sze: because it allows the attention-seeker to pat himself on the back and say, "i was laid back and cool, things just came to me"

Xin: i msged u first!

Sze: which would be a lie

Xin: i win!

Sze: yes, you failed with your passive strategy

Xin: !!

Sze: and succeeded with your direct one
which goes to show that
the passive one is inefficacious AND reprehensible!

Xin: sigh

Sze: my insight is bolstered
your inadvertence is appreciated

Xin: you're welcome

Xin: what if i put on my msg PAY ATTENTION TO ME?

Sze: that is direct already

Xin: what a subversion
oh

Sze: then again
that situation must be distinguished from you msging everyone on your list "pay attention to me"
ok it is indirect

Xin: exactly
thanks

Sze: isn't lawyering fun??

Xin: it's great

Sze: but i think there are shades of grey here
because
"PAY ATTENTION TO ME" is in imperative form

Xin: SHADES OF GREY!?

Sze: it compels attention
whereas
"the long view"
is dainty and useless and pointless
it compels nothing

Xin: true

Sze: and is decidedly passive
someone who enters "PAY ATTENTION TO ME" as his status message
can hardly avail himself of the "i was laid back, it came to me" excuse

Xin: but if its passive and useless
its like not having a msg at all
in which case i am indistinguishable from you

Sze: no!

Xin: you too, are passive and useless!!!!!!!

Sze: therein lies the condemnability of the "passive useless" message
it LOOKS passive
but
if the girl who has the message is PRETTY
or the guy, as the case may be
people will still msg anyway!!

Xin: oh

Sze: people are looking for excuses to interact with good-looking people

Xin: sigh, blame the cleft lip... (Editor's note: Xin is very insecure about her cleft lip.)

Sze: so this good-looking person can feel like it came to her still!

Xin: then the people are cheap lor

Sze: for ugly people it works only to the extent that the ugly person's friends of the same gender are polite

Xin: hahhaha

I Defy You Not To Watch This

2009-01-26T20:39:00.007+08:00

Defiance

137 minutes
Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell
Directed by Edward Zwick

21 January 2009
Shaw House Preview Theatre

Based on a true story, Defiance tells the tale of resistance in the face of overwhelming odds. Starring as the blondest, bluest-eyed Jew ever to grace the silver screen, Daniel Craig turns in a fine performance as Tuvia Bielski, the eldest of three brothers who escapes a Nazi-occupied Poland to form a famous partisan army in the forest of Belarus.

Along with his two younger brothers, Zus (Liev Schreiber) and Asael (Jamie Bell), Tuvia at first makes a hasty getaway with only self-preservation in mind. However, word of the inadvertent brave deeds of the brothers soon spreads, and other wretched Jews come flocking to Tuvia by the truckload. The brothers are hailed as heroes who stand firm against the Nazi threat, and slowly they build up a peripatetic community of contrasts amidst the trees. Young and old, infirm and hale, male and female; all the leftovers of the German incursion come to Tuvia for food, shelter and, perhaps most importantly of all, hope.

The film is a long one, and concerns itself with several themes, some less obvious than the others. We are treated into an inquiry into what it means to be a hero: staying and fighting, or running and caring for the less able? Is it heroism when there are other underlying motivating factors at play, such as vanity or vengeance? Issues of sibling rivalry are also placed before us: what makes authority so, except for the fact that it was born first? And the contingency of love is investigated to some depth: is there anything wrong with the concept of a "forest wife"? Is there really true love, or do we make the best of what we can, particularly when we are out in the woods with women who need us and our wives are dead in concentration camps miles away?

Perhaps the most arresting question we are asked as viewers, however, is this: in a war, far and away from the level of egos and command, are there any true innocents or wrongdoers? If we fight for a potato and one of us is killed, has one done wrong? Is this not merely the order of nature and the animal kingdom? Humanity, without society, appears nothing more than a slightly more complicated food chain; is the Defiance concerned, then, not that against the Nazis, but rather against our own Hobbesian states of nature?

As a result of the weighty issues it grapples with, the movie is at times draggy and labourious. But it pulls the viewer along nonetheless; one is not bored but rather transported into the winter of 1941, conscious of how fortunate one is to stay in a condominium with running water and balconies. You feel time slowing down, but you are still in the movie, engaged. Much like the charges of the Bielski brothers in the film, there are no moments where one is tempted to leave, regardless of how unhappily circumstances are changing.

Western Plaguelands at Dusk

2009-01-25T02:26:00.004+08:00

On the path to Hearthglen
This game ... it just takes your breath away, every single time. (Come to think of it, it's always dusk in the Western Plaguelands.)

Review: 2009 Honda City (Singapore Retail) - 1.5 LX Edition

2009-01-18T10:53:00.014+08:00

The first thing that strikes you about the 2009 Honda City is the restyled "arrow shot" front end (as described by its designer). It was at least the first thing that struck me; and believe me, it's never felt so good to be struck by an arrow. Not that I have, of course. (Been struck by an arrow. I have felt good on several occasions in my otherwise unhappy and meaningless existence. One time after school I managed to get the last packet of chocolate milk, and that felt very good indeed.)

But soon you notice that the rest of the City's exterior has been redone as well, and in a good way. The headlamps are reminiscent of the Honda Accord (European version); the rear lamps try vaguely to resemble a previous generation BMW's; and the roof of the passenger compartment has been lowered to look less like a protrusion and more like a gentle swell. In every respect the new City looks better than the old City (sorry Zhenhao and Chee Tung), even if it takes its styling cues from other more upmarket models.

Inside, the City has also been massively upgraded. Dual auxiliary inputs - either via a 3.5mm jack or a USB dongle - will please iPod and portable music player buffs, even if they are eventually too stupid to realize the functionality. The S.O.P. Honda steering wheel has not been compromised, and the 5 cupholders all over the interior will ensure that you will be stopping for toilet often enough. Underneath the rear seats there is an umbrella stowage compartment, and the 60/40 rear seats do not just fold down to accommodate your bicycle - they can also "recline" into a very comfortable, sleep-inducing position!

The trunk of the new City is cavernous. Without folding down the rear seats, up to four golf bags can be stowed away with no problem.

Just one complaint about the interior - the very lacklustre and ugly audio/air-conditioning controls, right in the middle of the dashboard. Yes, big buttons very nice, very easy to press, but did it all have to look so 1980s?

On to the driving experience - all in all, a mixed bag. While the City's new engine is amazingly super chao zi silent (I didn't know the engine was running when I first got in) and fuel-efficient (15 km/l), and while it accelerates most satisfyingly when I floor the pedal, and while the paddle shifters are a whole load of fun, the steering on the whole was less responsive than I would have liked. Normally, a good car (to me) is able to follow the curve of the road very comfortably with only a few intuitive inchings of the steering wheel. With the new City, however, you really have to gelek the steering into position each time a new bend, however slight, comes around. To the extent that this makes the driving process deliberate, there is a significant drop in utility. There is no "oneness" with the road - you are at all times conscious that you are "driving a car along the road", as opposed to "driving along the road".

The City's brakes are another point of concern. At normal travel speeds, the brakes are a tad too sensitive. This might be a small issue, if not for the fact that as you slow the car down to a halt, the brakes actually become more insensitive. So there you are, feathering the brakes gently (because you think they are sensitive) when you see traffic light, but suddenly the rear of the Mazda 2 in front of you is rushing at you and then you realize you have to press the brakes very very hard because at low speeds they are insensitive! I don't really need this sort of mindfuck when I'm driving, thank you very much.

Of course, these are the sort of things that one gets used to pretty quickly after driving a new car for some time. What one may not get used to, however, is how the City - inevitably - feels vulnerable and tin-can-like over long distances, and how its suspension feels more taxed than not over bumpy surfaces. Once upon a time, these would've been easily written off with "You pay continental price, you get continental car; you pay Japanese price, you get Japanese car". But nowadays you can get the continental experience with Japanese prices: the Ford Focus 1 ($59,000) and the Citroen C4 ($60,000), for example. And these aren't even tiny, scaled-down versions of cars; these are full fledged family hatches, in the same class as the City.

In the end, it all boils down to practicalities. With the City you get a car that is the most fuel-efficient in its class, boasting a ridiculously high Japanese-car OMV (close to $20,000) that only Honda can command. You also get a very spacious and gadgety interior and a price that is eminently reasonable ($58,000 for the luxury auto version). You sacrifice some of the driving experience, but that's just because we take our reference from Europe. You're not going to be better off in an Altis (incidentally: boring) or a Lancer (incidentally: gas guzzler), so really the question is: why not the City?

Shakespeare in Love ... is Rather Morbid

2009-01-17T01:12:00.007+08:00

When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced
The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.

Skater Boys and Girls

2009-01-15T00:13:00.008+08:00

Massive ollie

Skater chick

Skaters are cut

This guy is great - he cheered me on the last time

Ethnicity: unknown

He skates, I'm sure

The only proper way to capture a kickflip 50-50 in a still - later and it's only a 50-50, earlier and it's only a kickflip

You think you know what he thinks you're thinking

450D

2009-01-14T00:26:00.007+08:00

Unrelated Observations

2009-01-09T22:22:00.021+08:00

Me: "The night is almost over, but not quite. What should I do?"
Shawn: "Blog lor."
Me: "Good idea!"

***
In a simultaneously competitive and cooperative group, if one member of the group requires assistance, he will invariably choose not to approach the top dog in the group. He will instead approach those in the middle, so that he may pass his inability off as "convenient laziness", and continue to tell himself that he actually could have done it himself (since people around the middle can do it, so can he).

To approach the top dog directly would signal to everyone in the group that (1) he needs a lot of help and (2) he is shameless in troubling the most capable (and presumably most busy) person in the group. There might also be murmurings of sycophancy.

The illusion seduces both illusionist and audience; the rest of the group thinks nothing of an ostensible peer-to-peer interaction. There is none of the relief that would have been obvious had the group member approached the top dog.

***
Comments on a Facebook photo of two good-looking men:

(names have been changed)

Natasha Pok at 10:08am April 15
who's the new dude charlotte?

Chloe Kang at 3:46pm April 15
that's hong kai on the left. clive's friend (:

Natasha Pok at 7:11pm April 15
he looks like some christopher lee , Li Nanxing Crossbreed
LOL!

Chloe Kang at 10:04pm April 15
hahah nat! you are right! (:

Yolanda Tan at 2:31am April 16
he's single, nat

Chloe Kang at 1:07pm April 16
oooh...

Natasha Pok at 5:41pm April 16
sorry yolanda, im taken :)

The confidence of this last sentence befuddles me. "Sorry yolanda, im taken"? Wherefore such presumption? Does she think that Hongkai would fancy her? Does she not spare a thought for the possibility that Hongkai prefers eating maggots to going out with her? Why is there no self-awareness, no situational awareness? If she is willing to throw out painfully indirect, deliberately discounted compliments, she should know that internally she has assessed Hongkai to be a quality male. If so, why then the self-assured "Sorry yolanda, im taken"?

Perhaps as a convenient escape route from a potentially embarrassing conclusion on a publicly viewable thread? Or maybe she has to tell herself this to keep alive the possibility of Hongkai - "I'm taken ... otherwise Hongkai would have had a chance with me!" (The language in her mind, however, would remain firmly ball-in-his-court, I-am-the-laidback-one.) Or perhaps she needs an ego boost after being confronted - self-induced or otherwise - by someone out of her league? ("No Hongkai lah ... but at least I have some chump.")

There is of course always the generic interpretation: She genuinely thinks of the Li Nanxing - Christopher Lee connection with no positive inclination or relative inferiority complex, and is merely deflecting sexually tense inquiries with breaking news of her own attachment, phrased as it were in a self-aggrandizing manner.

But that would be boring ...

***
KB Toys is being liquidated. I was sad when I found out, but then I asked myself why I was sad - and realized that if I was single, I probably wouldn't have been sad at all. KB Toys was special to me at the time, I thought, because I liked toys. But as a store it is faceless and emotionless and now I realize it only carries significance because I have allowed it a place in my heart. And it only has that place because I went there with her; week after week, we would enter store after store, with the helicopters twirling on the ceilings, the little remote-control cars on the floor, the earthy staff preoccupied with tagging and each other ... I liked KB Toys then because I was creating memories, and I like it now because of those memories, still playing in my mind and tugging at my heart.

"Life is meaningless without you"; an overwrought cliché if there ever was one, but now I understand its import. KB Toys is meaningless in that it elicits zero emotional response on its own, but with her it becomes something that I care for, regret and love. Not all meaning resides in emotional response, it is true, but it is during those responses that I feel the most alive. I could go through life with no emotion, calmly reacting to perceived nothings, but would that be meaningful? Is it not a prerequisite of meaning that something has to stir within you? If nothing ever made me happy or sad, why would any of it mean anything at all? To be sure, it doesn't matter that we don't know exactly what that meaning is; all that matters is that we know what it means.

The Potential Bias

2009-01-04T23:11:00.008+08:00

"The 'O' Levels don't test anything important."

"PSLE scores don't mean a thing."

"'A' Level results aren't an accurate indicator."

So the victors and the vanquished are contented in their reasoning. The disgruntleds encourage themselves, while those who did well lay down a path of false humility to provide against - and pre-emptively justify - future mishap. Everyone leaves with their ego either augmented or galvanized.

But what exactly are these results meant to be an indicator of? Some form of "ultimate" intelligence, some "true" and stable measure of ability? But how do we even know when that measurement should be taken? If not at Primary Six, not at Secondary Four and not at the second year of Junior College, then when? University? Two years into working life? How would those indicators be any more "true" or "reliable"?

"Working life is the real world. School is just play." Why? There are lazy people in school, just as there are at work. There are muggers in school, just as there are ambitious ones at work. The playground is mirrored in the commercial district; just that instead of literal merry-go-rounds we have figurative ones.

"In school, you don't know what you want. Once you start work, you do." This can hardly be true. At school you know - you should do well. At work you also want to do well. You might be more nebulous about your goals in school but that will hardly prevent you from doing your best at the Chemistry mid-years.

All of this stems from the fact that humans have a need for a coherent story to make sense of their lives. We all have our life stories in our heads, consciously or subconsciously - we need to understand our place in the world by putting things sequentially, logically. I was born. I grew up. I did stuff. Now I am where I am today. And tomorrow I will be headed to such-and-such place. One day I will wind up as something important. And then I will die (this last part of the story is usually omitted unconsciously).

Naturally, most of us want stories that show us improving. But why is this "natural"? Why are we prejudiced against past accomplishments? "Don't rest on your laurels," we are told. "He's over the hill." "That's a woman living on her former glories." Why are these phrases so much more common than "He's on the ascendancy, poor thing"?

Implicit in our reasoning is the assumption that improvement begets improvement. If that were true, why would those who have "fallen from grace" fall in the first place? They were improving, improving, improving - then they regressed. "Over the hill," we say, at one and the same time happily looking on at the next achiever improving away.

We do not see the irony, because we want so badly for improving stories. We want it for ourselves. Women marry men for potential; pundits tip for the "next big thing" in whichever field. "Now" is always past tense and the future is always more promising - by definition or otherwise. We cannot see that improvement ends, and that stagnation and decline are but the necessary corollaries of progress.

Nobody would want to start life with a bang and decline slowly throughout until death. Nostalgia is frowned upon as day-dreaming, unproductive and self-congratulatory. Given 100 points one would allocate progressively more to the future than to the past. No one is going to create a character with 100 Past 0 Present 0 Future.

But to improve into the future, while eschewing nostalgia or the past, would surely be an incoherent position. Someone like that would say, rather nonsensically: "I am improving for the sake of improving and for no other reason; when I have reached my destination I will not look back at what I have achieved, I will just keep improving until I die."

The truth is that most of us prefer to look to the future, as opposed to the past, because the future - paradoxically - reminds us less of death, of everything ending. The past draws in our minds an uncomfortable parallel - "That is an era that has ended. Soon this era will end. Soon I will end. Aaaagh". On the other hand, any thought of "future" is comforting - we do not know what will happen and we intuit that anything is possible. For this reason it comes as no surprise that people prefer not to know their time of death (hypothetical survey conducted in England, I think).

This bias in favour of potential and future accomplishment is understandable, but it is hardly healthy or intellectually coherent. If the examinations mentioned above barely test anything worth testing, why do we base the grooming of our youth around them? (Social control? A possibility, but surely there are other more elegant ways to attain the same goal (without involving the payment of royalties to the University of Cambridge)). People who self-righteously declare themselves to be exempt from the vagaries of earlier results draw validation at one and the same time from results taken at a later date. "I am no good at performing at a setting with eight subjects in an environment where people are interested in playing football in the basketball court," they say. "But I am good at doing one task very well and talking very nicely to people twice my age in suits. Therefore, I have improved."

An examination tests your ability at that particular point in time; no more, no less. If you have done well, it was only for that moment; and if you have not, it was also only for that moment. If you do well in your job, the success appears more entrenched, the potential more realized, only because you have no more examinations to take and no one can really quantitatively accuse you of being or becoming inferior. By and large people employ heuristics and once you have established your brand name in the office the rest is pretty much smooth sailing (confidence, I have grown to realize, usually takes precedence over ability in most success formulae). But don't think for a minute that any real improvement is trending; you've grown older, but not necessarily wiser.

Facebook Psychoanalysis

2008-12-30T23:58:00.007+08:00

Some people I know stay off Facebook because they are afraid of privacy loss. This, in itself, is analysable: these folks think really, really highly of themselves. In any case, if they are to be internally consistent, they should cancel their mobiles and get a P.O. Box. Otherwise, they're just late adopters.

But on to the more obvious ones:

People who post pictures of their family: Have pedigree and want to flaunt it. Probably have gorgeous or successful cousins or siblings that they want associated with them. Might also think that such photos will dissociate them from the absence of rectitude that usually permeates Facebook albums (partying, nightlife, etc). A further possibility: family albums appear to throw the spotlight off the individual and on to a community, thereby precipitating in the poster a false humility to simulate "virtue".

People who write "Hey I tink I saw u ..." on others' walls: Have eyes, but no brain.

People who untag themselves from photos: See my first paragraph, except that these people are even worse in that they aren't even committed to their position. It is also possible that these people untag only photos where they look bad or unhappening. I don't really know what to say in response to this sort of behaviour - will words suffice? And don't think it's only the ladies who do this.

People who respond with a private message after you write on their wall: Very keen on appearing "cool" and "laid-back" to the public. These people usually also have status messages that go: "XXX is finally going thru months of unread FB msgs. Down to 250 now. (Hint: Email me instead!)"

People who update their status messages every other minute: The question is, what could the change in status be? From "At my computer, updating status message on FB" to "Still at my computer, updating status message on FB AGAIN"??

People who scan in photos and upload them: Really, really want people to see how cute or "interesting" they were previously. Alternatively, these people are really, really boring now. Nothing inherently wrong with this though, proficiency with a scanner is a dying art.

People with 1000 friends: Live for approval. Both senses.

People who poke a lot: Unsure of their verbal ability, these types return to being animals. If pressed, they usually respond with acronyms: "LOL! BRB."

People with 32243 profile pictures: You gotta give it to them, these people believe their own myth. Usually also found commenting on photos of themselves put up by others.

People who are in a relationship but are not listed as "in a relationship": They will claim "privacy", but is this something that would really affect your prospects at life? Come on, come off it, you're looking for other options, aren't you?

The Strong Ones

2008-12-30T01:19:00.006+08:00

There are some people who simply do not need anybody. They keep to themselves and are content with the unrealized cachet they carry. When they walk into a room, having not had regular contact with any of the people present, they know possibility and they are satisfied. At night, with no one to greet them at home, they do not go online, nor do they reach for the phone. They turn instead to their latest diversion and immerse themselves, and at the next tangential social gathering, they find themselves slightly more fascinating - but never more fascinating than for those outside looking in.

Every now and then they allow someone a peek into the truth of their lives; but because the glimpse is so brief, and so rare, their routine appears almost magical. The blessed person comes away with an even stronger impression, but they are happy simply to allow the potential to deepen. Never having anything realized in their lives, they are buoyed along by the complete absence of pressure and self-doubt. They are not missed in death, for they have forged no bonds, but part of the world will always continue to wonder.

"In a century, my love, we shall both be dead ..."

2008-12-25T23:35:00.018+08:00

In a century, my love, we shall both be dead -
So do not remember what it was I said
That other day at that forgotten time
With romantic verse and virtuous rhyme.

For what could it matter? We shall be dust
Once memories fade, as surely they must.
Oh, were it not so; were we more enduring!
Love might have proved a favour more inuring.

A year-long bath, a decade of talk
Four score of sunset and a hundred-year walk.
Of these we have naught, but only a fraction
And a blink in action before infinite inaction.

Yet tonight you loved me, and I loved you too;
Eternity understands nothing. This much will do.

Get Whisked Away

2008-12-21T09:06:00.018+08:00

Transporter 3
100 minutes
Jason Statham, Natalya Rudakova
Directed by Luc Besson

19 December 2008
GV Plaza

Not listed in the brochures
Transporter 3 isn't really a movie. It is a one-and-a-half-hour long advertising vehicle for Audi. If you are going to catch the film be sure to look out for the following:

1. Audi cars are waterproof. Drop them in a lake and in less than an hour they will be up and running again.

2. Audi cars can balance on two wheels.

3. Audi cars have amazing brakes that can stop at full-speed right next to a cliff edge.

4. Audi cars are faster than Mercedes Benzes.

5. Audi cars can smash through brick walls without hurting driver, passenger or bonnet.

6. Audi cars produce no engine noise, only a faint low rumble that you will want your car to have after watching the movie.

7. Audi cars can jump off bridges and land on trains.

They really, really liked the car
8. Audi cars are faster than eastern European trains (okay, this might not be such a big deal).

Unfortunately, due to plot mechanics, the following are also observable:

1. Audi cars are slower than a bicycle.

2. Audi cars have appalling security features. If you leave your car for a minute to answer a public pay-phone, anyone can get into the car and drive off.

3. Audi cars will make you explode if you walk farther than 75 feet from them.

Women prefer not to be seen riding inside Audis
4. Audi cars do not have a noticeable effect on women sitting in the car. Rather, women will steal your car keys to lure you out of the car to have sex with them in a green field. Indeed, the inevitable conclusion is that women do not like to have sex in an Audi.

Transporter 3 is also, incidentally, an extended advertisement for Jason Statham. Specifically, not Jason Statham's acting chops, but rather his kungfu chops and in particular his body. Some things to watch out for:

1. Jason Statham's amazing power of non-perspiration, regardless of activity.

OK I lose, you have better body
2. Jason Statham's ability to disrobe in a fight, and to use each freshly removed garment to kill his enemies. Suit, shirt, tie, belt - you will never get dressed the same way again. (I was waiting for his underwear technique but sadly his enemies all died before they could get his pants off. It was left to Natalya Rudakova to finish that job.)

3. Jason Statham's accent (he talks quite a bit more in this movie).

4. Jason Statham's shoulders.

5. Jason Statham's abs.

Where's that @#&^&@#$! dentist
6. Jason Statham's back.

7. Did I mention Jason Statham's back? (No wonder: he used to be an Olympic diver.)

If you've read this far, you deserve a synopsis of the plot (however little of it there is). Frank Martin (Jason Statham) is pressured by an evil man (Robert Knepper) called "Johnson" to drive-nap Valentina (Natalya Rudakova) around until her Papa, a big important man in the Ukraine, signs some environmentally-unfriendly contracts. You can guess what happens next: Frank Martin takes on everybody and wins.

Somebody's got back
Query why Valentina cannot simply be put in someone's basement or locked in a toilet. Query also how Frank Martin manages to drive through nearly the entire eastern Europe without attracting any questions ("You ees English, live een France, and now you drive to Budapest weef Ukranian girl unconscious in bakseat. OK OK, plis pass through. Jagshemash!") Query also why a man called "Johnson" can rise to have such influence. (Ha-ha, I said "rise". I crack myself up.)

Absence and inconsistency of plot aside, the movie is certainly capable of entertaining most average blokes. Ladies, however, might want to stay away, both because of the mindlessness and also the rampant sexism and objectification rife in the movie.

She's not much to phone home about really
Frank: What are you doing?
Valentina: I want to feel sex one more time before I die.
Frank: Give me the car keys.
Valentina: You don't think I'm sexy?
Frank: Yes you're sexy (looking as interested as a mouse confronted with weedkiller).
...
Valentina: Kiss me.
Frank: Muah.
Valentina: Like you mean it.
Frank: Muah muah muah (takes back car keys).

On the other hand, there appear to be a few moments of role reversal ("Women also like to see striptease. Striptease for me now, please") that might make it worthwhile. One scene in particular stands out: Frank takes on a bunch of goons as Valentina sits and watches in the Audi. As the fight progresses, Valentina is treated to a brilliant display of manliness and a fine view of Jasons Statham's important muscles. She tries to soften her praise subsequently, as Frank is putting on a new set of clothes: "You fight good, but you tie bad."

Least onscreen chemistry ever in the history of cinema
However undeserving the franchise is of a trilogy, Transporter 3 does what it says on the box, and does it better than the first two outings. If one corrects one's expectations and leaves one's brain behind, one surely will be transported.

This form of transportation will not catch on I think
Review for Youth.SG

I Am Certain That I Am Uncertain

2008-12-18T23:50:00.012+08:00

Recently two close friends questioned my approach to life (in the most benign of ways, of course).

"Shiyao," began X in earnest. "Don't you realize you're only like this because you feel that you've already been validated?"

"Anyway," said D, "I give you two years. We'll see how long you can stay like this." An authoritative wave of the hand.

What they were referring to was, naturally, my apparent lack of ambition.

The truth is I don't know how long I can stay "like this". Nor do I know whether or not I have been truly validated as yet. After all, how do we know when "final" validation is well and truly here? Each validation leads to the desire for the next, and the next next, and before we know it we're into next year.

We see this everywhere: from equity partners hungry for the next client to last week's winners queuing up for the next Toto, everyone is a slave to respect. Emile Durkheim was right: it is constraints, rather than freedom, that make life worth living. (His study found the highest suicide rates among people with no concrete familial or friendship ties.)

Indeed, I do not even know if I am genuinely ambitionless. Probably not, since I still go to work everyday. Ambitionless people fish. (Super-ambitionless people fish in WoW.)

For me, at this juncture, it seems to make good sense not to strive. Striving clouds perspective, constrains you, and rewards one with only ephemeral pleasure. It is always and at the same time undergirded by its direct opposite, loss. It is, in fact, meaningless without it.

Yet this is only a preference that I recognize for now. Very easily, however, I can think of compelling reasons to strive. For the children; for the medical bills; for the everlasting legacy.

And then again, I dismiss these. My children deserve no more than other children, given that I deserve no more than other people. If one is to die, one should simply die. Clinging is undignified and burdensome. Everlasting legacies haven't yet read Ozymandias.

And then again, I can dismiss those dismissals. Other people will be striving for their children; if I don't strive for mine, they will actually receive less. My own death is easy, but what about loved ones? And what if it is a long, excrutiating illness in a country without legalized euthanasia? Julius Caesar is still known today.

And once more, I can dismiss the dismissal-dismissals. You shouldn't bother with what other people are doing - your principles are your own. Contingent variables outside one's control should never be a basis for principled decision-making. Loved ones should understand the desirability of their own deaths, otherwise they are grasping and clinging and not at all filled with any love for their "loved ones". Caesar yes, but so what? Can he feel it? And what's it to us anyway, other than a historical footnote, a pseudo-moment we experience when we fly into Rome? And what of the others who never made it? Are we to toil a lifetime on a one in a gazillion off-chance?

And so on and so forth. I simply do not know anything. Not for certain, or even for the next few weeks. For now, maybe. But sometimes I fool myself with my own convictions. I think, "Hmmm, this position seems sound. I believe I will adopt it, yeah!" Then I go around quoting lines to people, taking them to task, philosophizing idiotically. A few days later I realize all the holes in my stance and I retreat. But by then I already have a giant hippopotamus in my backyard.

In my more lucid moments I am systematically shocked by how sure the older generation are of their own positions. "This is bad," they say. "That is wrong." "Trust me." "This is the only way." "You wait and see." Or the best one: "Are you proposing a descent into moral relativism?" (Come to think of it, I actually said that to D; the hippopotamus is growing bigger.)

My generation isn't faring much better. There is a self-centred zeitgeist blowing, and as corporations and advertisers laugh their way to the bank we - young consumers all - have come to pride ourselves on mediocrity and un-informedness. Ignorance is no longer shameful; indeed, it's become "my point of view". Paradoxically, with less information there comes greater certainty. Decisions are made easier with fewer variables to consider.

A book blurb asked me once: Do you really think what you think you think? It made no sense to me at the time, and based on everything I've written so far, it doesn't really make much sense now either. I still have no answer.

And yet I am constantly surprised by the people who do. But why should I be? If I am uncertain of the correct answer, how can I rule out their answers? Devil's advocate: because I am uncertain of the correct answer, but I am certain that some answers are wrong. Devil's devil: but how do you know that those answers are certainly wrong if you advocate a philosophy of complete secular agnosticism? Devil's devil's advocate: but those "certain" answers of others also go against such a philosophy, no? Poof.

So on and on it goes. Some self-identified "practical" and "down-to-earth" person might ask: what is the use of all this fretting? Answer: there comes a point when Sonic has to stop collecting rings and ask himself, "WTF am I doing?" For me, this is as basic as needing to drink water, as intuitive as wanting to go to bed. The why of it all.

But many are happy to savour the delights of Green Hill Zone forever. Or they content themselves with nebulous proxies: "God". "Enlightenment". "Square Root of Minus One". Nobody knows what these concepts mean, but everyone is happy to substitute unlabeled unknowns with labeled unknowns. A person genuinely curious about the why of it all, I believe, does not simply stop at instituted societal constructs. If it makes it easier for us to live, that is fine; but we should be aware that in those moments we are looking for comfort, not meaning or truth.

(There of course might be no "why" after all; life on Earth would then be a simple confluence of coincidences, or at least coincidences as perceived by us. This would mean that any interpretation of life would be satisfactory, and I would then be able to stop feeling bad about being uncertain, since uncertainty would be a perfectly legitimate lifestyle choice. Unfortunately, even the possibility of no "why" is shrouded in uncertainty.)

"Buy a car? For what!"

2008-12-16T22:24:00.008+08:00

It doesn't make sense for me to buy a car, she says.

Why, I say.

So stupid, she says. So expensive and impractical.

I suppose, I say.

Particularly in Singapore, she continues. It's just not worth it.

I guess, I say. COE, ERP, parking.

Jams, she says. Petrol. And what have you.

I nod and say nothing. This is trite conversation, and I am a participant.

The next few sentences are a blur. I use words like "cashcard" and "CTE", and she responds with "gantry".

But abruptly she stands up, and I am curious. Where are you going?

Home, she says, glancing at her watch.

Alright, I say. Want to walk to the station together?

The slightest of pauses.

It's okay, she smiles quickly. My sister is giving me a lift.

Leaving Them Thirsty For More

2008-12-10T11:13:00.011+08:00

Twilight
121 minutes
Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson

9 December 2008
Lido 8 Cineplex

This poster prejudices lions
Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart) moves to the sleepy town of Forks to live with her dad when her mother goes on a road trip with her new boyfriend. Everything seems normal at Bella's new school until a ridiculously gorgeous classmate, Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson, also known in a past life as "Cedric Diggory"), begins to show visceral - and very negative - reactions to her presence.

Bella decides to investigate, telling herself that she is curious rather than horny. She finds out that Edward is a mind-reading 108-year-old vampire who keeps to a strict tofu diet. Bella is at once afraid and intoxicated; could this blood-sucking, diamond-encrusted creature be her truly beloved? Or is she going to be his next meal when he realizes that she cannot steam tofu properly?

These idle thoughts turn into luxuries when a proper vampire, James (Cam Gigandet) starts to have a very specific craving for Bella. As nonsensical as this may seem ("I want that potato chip. No, not that one. That other one in the unopened green bag in the Essex Tesco's (Aisle Four) with the slight dent and hole in the top right corner"), it advances the otherwise non-plot somewhat. Bella is taken under the wing of Edward's ridiculously gorgeous family, and begins to look somewhat ridiculously gorgeous herself. They fly from Forks, hotly pursued by James, who must be the most hard-working potato-chip eater in the world. Along the way, issues of inter-species union ("So the lion fell in love with the lamb"), identity ("I don't want to be a monster") and immortality ("Is it not enough to live a long and happy life with me?") are studiously ignored by every single female in the theatre.

And rightfully so; for this is a movie with a ridiculously, ridiculously gorgeous cast that simply cannot be ignored. Edward's father, Dr Carlisle Cullen (Peter Facinelli) is arguably as good-looking as Edward; and even the slightly plumpish Rosalie Hale (Nikki Reed), who is inexplicably jealous of her food, is easy on the eyes. The cast is so good-looking that one finds it easy to overlook the dreadful circa-1987 special effects ("motion blur" is not cool anymore, folks) and the sometimes wooden acting (Pattinson, at times, appears to be modelling his craft after Hayden Christensen).

But we're missing the real point here. The real appeal of Twilight, as was the case with Stephenie Meyer's book, is the possibility of a compulsive and all-consuming love across all borders and reason. The romance between Bella and Edward is a return to the Renaissance ideal, a timely reprieve for girls tired of the cynicism of a loveless "Don't You Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me" generation. In a very strange way, Twilight only replaces superficiality with superficiality - if Edward Cullen had looked like Quasimodo, this would not have been a tale worth telling (or filming) - yet it does so by tugging at the deepest instincts within the feminine psyche. These girls are stupid lambs like Bella, for believing in a possibility so remote, a conclusion so unlikely; but it is this sliver of hope that makes the film something more than your usual.

Mind you - this twilight won't be one fading any time soon.

Review for Youth.SG

Doubt She Was Thinking About Them Shavers

2008-12-04T17:10:00.010+08:00

"According to biographer Angela Lambert, Eva Braun was neither a member of the Nazi Party nor ever pressured to join. By all accounts she led a sheltered and privileged existence and seemed uninterested in politics. The only known instance in which she had tried to play a hand and interest in policy and politics was in 1943 shortly after Germany had finally became a total war economy which would have banned women's cosmetics and luxuries (which was already the case in the Allied countries). According to Albert Speer's memoir, Inside the Third Reich, Eva immediately approached Hitler in 'high indignation', to which an 'uncertain' Hitler instructed Speer to simply and quietly cease production of women's cosmetics and luxuries rather than an outright ban." -Wikipedia

I can just imagine the two men looking at each other, nonplussed: "Mein Führer ... was tun wir mit dieser Frau?" "Ruhig ruhig. Tun Sie ihn ruhig, Speer." *furtive glances around*

"How did you find the paper?"

2008-12-01T23:27:00.007+08:00

"Difficult." - Had a bad one.

"Let's not talk about it." - Had a bad one, trying to make other people feel bad about it as well.

"Doesn't matter, it's over!" - Had a bad one, trying to lie to self.

"Are you talking about the paper? Oh my god, I can't believe you're still talking about the paper." - Had a bad one, trying to compensate with ostensible happeningness.

"Horrible, I'm so screwed!" - Had a bad one, using hyperbole to feel better. (Because eventually one will always do better than "horrible", so this exaggeration thereby permits subsequent positive expectation-defiance.)

"OK lah." - Killed the paper.

"Not too bad." - Destroyed the paper.

"Easy." - Had a good one, but will not be popular.

"Damn easy right?" - Did mediocre, looking for validation.

"I'm not sure ... I had a lot of time left over, something wrong right?" - Secretly thinks he aced it.

"Pass/fail only what." - Hypocrite who studied too much for only a pass/fail paper.

"What's it to you, motherfucker?" This person is not really your friend.

"By calling lost and found!! Ooga ooga blongkang!" - Drew cartoons of elephants on the question sheet for most of the examination, before going to toilet to take a dump in the last 10 minutes.

My Top Ten Transforming Toys of All Time

2008-11-30T13:31:00.015+08:00

Some qualifications:

(1) This list refers to actual three-dimensional and tangible toys, rather than anime-magicked celluloid interpretations (most look good on screen; it's the translation to toy form that is difficult).

(2) The toy must have been mass-produced; having appeared on TV, or having been produced as a 3-piece exclusive at Wonder Festival 1994 is not good enough.

(3) The transformation must involve a robot mode and an alternate mode. (Sorry, MASK.)

(4) Model kits will not be considered toys for the purposes of this entry. Indeed, most modellers are annoyed by that connection.

Without further ado ...

#10 Hasbro Chevy Camaro Bumblebee with Heatshield Deluxe from Transformers: The Movie

The only normal, buy-off-the-rack toy to make it to this list, the Movie Deluxe Bumblebee is capable of some pretty amazing things. Check this out:

#9 Hasbro Masterpiece Starscream

A cheap repaint of the Takara version; nonetheless, great G1 colours and alternate mode (F-15 I think?).

#8 Takara Mazda RX-8 Binaltech Meister/Jazz

I posted this one on my old blog and I'll post it again - Binaltech Meister ("Jazz" was not permitted due to Honda copyright reasons) is one badass Autobot. "Martini Racing" stickers not included, unfortunately.

#7 Bandai Soul of Chogokin: GD-99 DX Project Aquarion

A bad anime series with one saving grace: Aquarion. Actually gestalts shouldn't be allowed on this list, since they strictly don't "transform" individually, but I thought this was a good exception: three different robot modes from three different craft, genius. Shoji Kawamori, the Macross mech designer, worked on this himself.

#6 Yamato 1/60 VF-1S from Macross: Do You Remember Love?

Who can forget this one? The new 1/60 Ver 2.0 is even better than the old 1/48s - no parts need to be removed and every mode looks good.

#5 Hasbro Ford GT Alternators Mirage

It is true, this one is here mostly because of the amazing car mode. The robot mode is decent, but the Ford GT is simply beautiful.

#4 Takara Tomy Toyota bB Binaltech Broadblast

An idiosyncratic choice, but I really really like chunky cars. The robot mode is also arguably the best in the entire Binaltech line, in terms of poseability and ingenuity.

#3 Megahouse 1/15 Yellow Ride Armor from Mospeada

Strictly speaking, not really a "transformer", since the rider has to transform along with the motorbike to turn into a robot. Nonetheless, nobody can deny that the Saber Cyclone deserves its place.

#2 Yamato 1/60 SV-51 Ivanov from Macross Zero

When I first saw this in the anime, I thought - they're never going to be able to make a toy for that. I'm eating my thoughts now.

#1 Yamato 1/60 YF-19 from Macross Plus

Every Macross fanboy's favourite, and I'm no different. Forward-swept wings, beautiful robot mode, insane articulation - this one has everything. We'll have to wait to see if the VF-25 from Macross Frontier can topple it!

It's a Good Game If It Keeps You Up All Night

2008-11-29T13:28:00.005+08:00

Check out 1:08 to 1:18 - now that's thinking outside the box (the red objects suggest your route - but this person probably shaved 5 seconds off that). Prince of Persia, eat your heart out.

Can I still trust Gamespot? This game is easily more than a 7.0.

In recent news:

Boy commits suicide after parents refuse to allow him to change his CCA; parents not present at Coroner's Inquiry, having instead gone on a holiday to "forget".

28-year old Singaporean lawyer killed in Mumbai; manages to phone her husband before death.

Bangkok cut off from the world, at least from the air; waiting game to see who will play bad guy this time.

Retrenched toy factory workers riot in Guangzhou; unhappiness over severance packages favouring those having worked seven years or more.

English man who raped daughters put away for life; names of daughters kept anonymous to protect their children/step-siblings.

LOL

2008-11-25T17:37:00.004+08:00

Nothing beats revision blues like a good laugh.

Anime Festival Asia '08

2008-11-23T09:01:00.008+08:00

Je Ne Veux Pas Travailler

2008-11-21T16:13:00.011+08:00

Old bureaucrat, my companion here present, no man ever opened an escape route for you, and you are not to blame. You built peace for yourself by blocking up every chink of light, as termites do. You rolled yourself into your ball of bourgeois security, your routines, the stifling rituals of your provincial existence; you built your humble rampart against winds, tides and stars. You have no wish to ponder great questions; you had enough trouble suppressing awareness of your human condition. You do not dwell on a wandering planet, you ask yourself no unanswerable questions. No man ever grasped you by the shoulder while there was still time. Now the clay that formed you has dried and hardened, and no man could now awaken in you the dormant musician, the poet or the astronomer, who perhaps once dwelt within you.

- from Wind Sand and Stars, by Antoine de Saint Exupery

When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy.” They told me I didn’t understand the assignment and I told them they didn’t understand life.

- Internet quote

We’d had the conversation before, but this time a new dawning crossed Laney’s face.

“Sweetie, what is it?” I asked.

She began the deep, aching cry that accompanies her saddest realizations, and sobbed:

“I don’t want to die.”

Now let’s freeze this tableau for a moment and make a few things clear. The first is that I love this child so much I would throw myself under Pat Robertson for her. She’s one of just four people whose health and happiness are vital to my own. When she is sad, I want to make her happy. It’s one of the simplest equations in my life.

I say such obvious things because it is often assumed that nonreligious parents respond to their children’s fears of death by saying, in essence, Suck it up, worm food. When one early reviewer of Parenting Beyond Belief implied that that was the book’s approach, I tore him a new one. I am convinced that there are real comforts to be found in a naturalistic view of death, that our mortality lends a new preciousness to life, and that it is not just more truthful but more humane and more loving to introduce the concept of a life that truly ends than it is to proffer an immortality their inquiring minds will have to painfully discard later.

But all my smiling confidence threatens to dissolve under the tears of my children.

“I know, punkin,” I said, cradling her head as she convulsed with sobs. “Nobody wants to die. I sure don’t. But you know what? First you get to live for a hundred years. Think about that. You’ll be older than Great-Grandma Huey!”

It’s a cheap opening gambit. It worked the last time we had this conversation, when Laney was four.

Not this time.

“But it will come,” she said, hiffing. “Even if it’s a long way away, it will come, and I don’t want it to! I want to stay alive!”

I took a deep breath. “I know,” I said. “It’s such a strange thing to think about. Sometimes it scares me. But you know what? Whenever I’m scared of dying, I remember that being scared means I’m not understanding it right.”

She stopped hiffing and looked at me. “I don’t get it.”

“Well what do you think being dead is like?”

She thought for a minute. “It’s like you’re all still and it’s dark forever.”

A chill went down my spine. She had described my childhood image of death precisely. When I pictured myself dead, it was me-floating-in-darkness-forever. It’s the most awful thing I can imagine. Hell would be better than an eternal, mute, insensate limbo.

“That’s how I think of it sometimes too. And that frrrrreaks me out! But that’s not how it is.”

“But how do you know?” she asked pleadingly. “How do you know what it’s like?”

“Because I’ve already been there.”

“What! Haha! No you haven’t!”

“Yes I have, and so have you.”

“What? No I haven’t.”

“After I die, I will be nowhere. I won’t be floating in darkness. There will be no Dale McGowan, right?”

“And millions of worms will eat your body!!” chirped Erin, unhelpfully.

“…”

“Well they will.”

“Uh…yeah. But I won’t care because I won’t be there.”

“Still.”

I turned back to her sister. “So a hundred years from now, I won’t be anywhere, right?”

“I guess so.”

“Okay. Now where was I a hundred years ago? Before I was born?”

“Where were you? You weren’t anywhere.”

“And was I afraid?”

“No, becau…OMIGOSH, IT’S THE SAME!!”

It hit both girls at the same instant. They bolted upright with looks of astonishment.

“Yep, it’s exactly the same. There’s no difference at all between not existing before you were born and not existing after you die. None. So if you weren’t scared then, you shouldn’t be scared about going back to it. I still get scared sometimes because I forget that. But then I try to really understand it again and I feel much better.”

The crisis was over, but they clearly wanted to keep going.

“You know something else I like to think about?” I asked. “I think about the egg that came down into my mommy’s tummy right before me. And the one before that, and before that. All of those people never even got a chance to exist, and they never will. There are billions and trillions of people who never even got a chance to be here. But I made it! I get a chance to be alive and playing and laughing and dancing and burping and farting…”

(Brief intermission for laughter and sound effects.)

“I could have just not existed forever — but instead, I get to be alive for a hundred years! And you too! Woohoo! We made it!”

“Omigosh,” Laney said, staring into space. “I’m like…the luckiest thing ever.”

“Exactly. So sometimes when I start to complain because it doesn’t last forever, I picture all those people who never existed telling me, ‘Hey, wait a minute. At least you got a chance. Don’t be piggy.’”

More sound effects, more laughter.

Coming to grips with mortality is a lifelong process, one that ebbs and flows for me, as I know it will for them. Delaney was perfectly fine going to sleep that night, and fine the next morning, and the morning after that. It will catch up to her again, but every time it comes it will be more familiar and potentially less frightening. We’ll talk about the other consolations — that every bit of you came from the stars and will return to the stars, the peaceful symphony of endorphins that usually accompanies dying, and so on. If all goes well, her head start may help her come up with new consolations to share with the rest of us.

laneypianoIn his brilliant classic The Tangled Wing, Emory psychologist Melvin Konner notes that “from age three to five [children] consider [death] reversible, resembling a journey or sleep. After six they view it as a fact of life but a very remote one” (p. 369). Though rates of development vary, Konner places the first true grasp of the finality and universality of death around age ten—a realization that includes the first dawning deep awareness that it applies to them as well. So grappling with the concept early, before we are paralyzed by the fear of it, can go a long way toward fending off that fear in the long run.

Laney, for better and worse, is ahead of the curve. All I can do is keep reminding her, and myself, that knowing and understanding something helps tame our fears. It may not completely feed the bulldog — the fear is too deeply ingrained to ever go completely — but it’s a bigger, better Milk-Bone than anything else we have.

- from The Meming of Life

Heffy Burpday!

2008-11-19T14:40:00.009+08:00

Fiona sent me one of these each day for the past week. They're too cute not to share.

Re last picture: I certainly do!

*"Punch punch punch kick" (second from last) is a reference to the cheap combo by Pai and Lau Chan in Virtua Fighter. Since the move can end either high or low, the safest option is to block low throughout. Roo, however, appears unaware of this strategy.

At a Loss for Words

2008-11-19T02:39:00.006+08:00

Pictures shall have to do.

For What is Happiness Without Sadness

2008-11-17T16:27:00.007+08:00

Photography DOMINIC Styling SZE T Hair PASSION, USING PRODUCTS FROM GATSBY Makeup CLARENCE Models PAM (T/AVE) & XIUZHUAN (MANNEQUIN)

Ted Baker is a British clothing retail company, known for applying twists to their products, and has become a UK designer label through word of mouth rather than advertising.

Sijin & Thai Chuan: 15 Nov 08

2008-11-16T01:07:00.012+08:00

Articulating Annoyances

2008-11-14T16:21:00.010+08:00

Sometimes, a phenomenon is so difficult to put into words that no matter what you come up with, it leaves everybody, including yourself, unsatisfied. And everyone else will think you're crazy.

Take, for instance, the penchant for the odd colleague to call in sick at the most convenient of times - on Mondays, in the middle of a grueling project, after a public holiday, or just prior to a long weekend. How does one describe why this sort of behaviour should annoy? It is not just the not turning up (indeed that is the least of my concerns here) - it is also the (and here is my unsatisfactory attempt) lack of effort in trying to think up a credible lie.

Of course, this is insufficient articulation! "Lack of effort" does not quite cover the colleague's self-entitlement in thinking that no one else in the office would avail him or herself of this same excuse, them being subject to exactly the same working schedule. The phrase also fails to take into consideration the colleague's complete blaséness (not due to security, but simple-mindedness and a sheer lack of consideration) as to how, in the bigger scheme of things, his or her convenient absence might inspire frenzied theory, it being so easily seen through. Further, "lack of effort" also glosses over the absentee's non-endeavouring to make the lie that much more believeable (usually just an SMS to a co-worker, rather than a phonecall to the boss).

Words simply fail to capture the mental image in our minds: a lazing colleague at home after a nice break, unintelligently complacent in his or her coup, not looking up to confront our phantom glares from miles away; and a return the next day, immunized with gullible "hope you're feeling better"s, with everything couched in an inward, self-satisfied affirmation of what, by now, is no longer placebo.

Okay maybe just my mind.

Japan Breaks Record for Largest Orgy

2008-11-13T00:51:00.010+08:00

What was the previous record again?
I always thought the Japanese had uncharacteristically strong group identity - but this, this ... words fail me.

Corporate blurb: "Soft On Demand's largest ever group sex extravaganza! 250 girls and 250 guys go at it together in a large warehouse. Every sexual action is in sync, so be prepared to fall off your chair from this crazy feature. Japanese amateur lovers will definetely be delighted with this video." Majide!

The Truth Is Out There

2008-11-10T00:31:00.006+08:00

Some while ago, I went around trumpeting this to whoever gave me the time of day:

"Truth, if it exists at all, lies somewhere in the dialectical space between a statement and its antithesis."

I might've been better off parroting The X-Files slogan. Of course truth middles the extremes; given the limitations of human perception, any truth from the natural world would be misperceived by us. To be able to correctly appreciate truth, one would have to be the world - I'm not even sure being "at one" with the world would suffice.

Further, by definition even a mild statement would have an antithesis, and so my statement (well not really mine, it's actually his) would still be unspectacularly correct and obvious: indeed true, if you like.

But that is all set to change now. Yes, enlightenment has graced me, little cupcakes: hear my new mantra, and quake!

"If you reason to no answer, you know you have found truth."

Consider the following:

"Everything in moderation, including moderation."

"You should want to not want."

"Is your certainty in your uncertainty justified? Are you certain?"

These statements, for me, are irreducible; I can't weasel my way around them. Taken at face value, without consideration of their internal ding-dongs, the statements appear to make sense. At the second level of analysis, the contradictions become apparent; yet even though there is no way out, the positions are not unwise. Indeed, one feels at peace being unsettled.

It is arguable that one hasn't actually found truth in these cases; because if you did, you would be able to resolve each paradox and take over the world, having attained enlightenment here on Earth. But does this beg the question? The assumption of a particular form of a truth, perceivable by our limited faculties, surely brings us back to the basic problem of truth's nebulous nature. Could truth not be paradox? But why should it be, if it could be any number of other things in any number of other dimensions? Is this merely a matter of semantics, or is the issue one beyond human definition?

Now I'm starting to reconsider my new mantra. But I don't know what to think - after all, if it's not true, then, well, it's true, isn't it?

Let the Issues be the Issue

2008-11-08T13:06:00.005+08:00

I felt my racism; did you?

(Really should've posted this a week earlier.)

God's Debris

2008-11-06T15:15:00.009+08:00

Highly recommended. An excerpt:

I needed reinforcements. "Look," I said, "four billion people believe in some sort of God and free will. They can't all be wrong."

"Very few people believe in God," he replied.

I didn't see how he could deny the obvious. "Of course they do. Billions of people believe in God."

The old man leaned toward me, resting a blanketed elbow on the arm of his rocker.

"Four billion people say they believe in God, but few genuinely believe. If people believed in God, they would live every minute of their lives in support of that belief. Rich people would give their wealth to the needy. Everyone would be frantic to determine which religion was the true one. No one could be comfortable in the thought that they might have picked the wrong religion and blundered into eternal damnation, or bad reincarnation, or some other unthinkable consequence. People would dedicate their lives to converting others to their religions.

"A belief in God would demand one hundred percent obsessive devotion, influencing every waking moment of this brief life on earth. But your four billion so-called believers do not live their lives in that fashion, except for a few. The majority believe in the usefulness of their beliefs - an earthly and practical utility - but they do not believe in the underlying reality."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing. "If you asked them, they'd say they believe."

"They say that they believe because pretending to believe is necessary to get the benefits of religion. They tell other people that they believe and they do believer-like things, like praying and reading holy books. But they don't do the things that a true believer would do, the things a true believer would have to do.

"If you believe a truck is coming toward you, you will jump out of the way. That is belief in the reality of the truck. If you tell people you fear the truck but do nothing to get out of the way, that is not belief in the truck. Likewise, it is not belief to say God exists and then continue sinning and hoarding your wealth while innocent people die of starvation. When belief does not control your most important decisions, it is not belief in the underlying reality, it is belief in the usefulness of believing."

"Are you saying God doesn't exist?" I asked, trying to get to the point.

"I'm saying that people claim to believe in God, but most don't literally believe. They only act as though they believe because there are earthly benefits in doing so. They create a delusion for themselves because it makes them happy."

"So you think only the atheists believe their own belief?" I asked.

"No. Atheists also prefer delusions," he said.

"So according to you, no one believes anything that they say they believe."

"The best any human can do is to pick a delusion that helps him get through the day. This is why people of different religions can generally live in peace. At some level, we all suspect that other people don't believe their own religion any more than we believe ours."

I couldn't accept that. "Maybe the reason we respect other religions is that they all have a core set of beliefs in common. They only differ in the details."

"Jews and Muslims believe that Christ isn't the Son of God," he countered. "If they are right, then Christians are mistaken about the core of their religion. And if the Jews or the Christians or the Muslims have the right religion, then the Hindus and Buddhists who believe in reincarnation are wrong. Would you call those details?"

"I guess not," I confessed.

"At some level of consciousness, everyone knows that the odds of picking the true religion - if such a thing exists - are nil."

(from God's Debris by Scott Adams, Creator of Dilbert)

Fiona Enjoys a Bit of Bondage

2008-11-05T00:10:00.018+08:00

Fiona: I've finally found one short guy I really like.
Me: Who?
Fiona: Daniel Craig!!!
Me: Huh? He's short meh?
Fiona: He's 1.78 metres only!!
Me: That's my height!

***
Fiona: Daniel Craig is also a Pisces!!
Me: Is that a big deal?
Fiona: Yar (duh)! If I say "Maggie Q is Scorpio", I bet you also happy!
Me: (excited) Maggie Q is Scorpio?!

***
Fiona: Ooh Daniel Craig's wife is also called Fiona!
Me: "Fiona Loudon". Bet she gives him a hard-
Fiona: This is kismet! We have so much in common.
Me: It says here his girlfriend is "Satsuki Mitchell". How can have girlfriend and wife at the same time? Can I also haves? *inquisitive look*
Fiona: (slightly crestfallen) Oh, that Fiona is ex-wife.
Me: Aiyoh. That doesn't bode well -
Fiona: (hopeful and with crazed eyes) Maybe he want another Fiona!!

***
Wait until she discover he is mini-Bond. Then I laugh.

Boring Conversation Anyway

2008-10-29T23:27:00.006+08:00

There are very few people that I am glad to hear from. I don't think this is reactionary on my part - in that brief instant when I pick up the phone and find out it's not one of the few, my disappointment is very genuine. I can't fake that cynicism.

Today someone I didn't care much for called. "Yuh?" I answered. "Uh huh?" soon followed as an impatient prompt after some dithering on the other end. "Okay, okay, bye." During the exchange, I did not think: "I'm very happy that someone is calling me but I can't be too happy because then I will show to myself that I care about popularity and if so I must have been soliciting calls from other friends unconsciously and have failed miserably because nobody ever calls me; therefore I will not be too happy now and I will tell myself that I do not care about and have never worked at gaining popularity and that is the reason why nobody calls me, whew."

Not even subconsciously - I checked.

In fact, I only remember feeling irritated. Would you believe it? Me, annoyed! I mean that - it used to be the case that I would whore myself out for anything social. Things have changed, however. Now I wonder about things that could potentially lose me friends.

Can someone be a friend if I don't really enjoy talking to them? With these in-betweeners I find myself having to adopt a role - safe and familiar to them - in order to keep conversation going. I ask questions I know answers to; I amplify my insecurities so they can say "relax". I look at them for confirmation just after I say something that I've said a million times before. Why do I do this? Probably insecurity, I don't know. Perhaps I'll stop tomorrow.

Who, then, are the people I am glad to hear from? Invariably, they are the ones who can take a situation, however ridiculous, and run with it. When you're open minded, there's a lot more space to run about in. These people talk about things they know about with doubt, and things they don't know about with curiosity; they are also the ones who know that the answer to "What's the point?" is "What's the point of 'What's the point?'?" Everything will pass, after all.

I suppose it's very bleak and remorseless, but it really is difficult finding meaning in historical accident. Meaning is by definition man-made; and by the friends you choose, you choose your meaning - if not of, then for life.