Bright, shiny and new

The reopening of an old mall has inextricable tied me to my neighbourhood once and for all. The crappy old mall from long ago has had a major facelift and it's back in business looking sharp, bright and shiny, and boasting some big retail names as tenants.

With all my material needs easily taken care of just a short distance from my own doorstep, there is no more need for me to go gallivanting any further. Hung out there already, twice in two days, and it has been an effort to not buy any more stuff (especially from the electronics haven on the ground floor!) than just a quick meal. Just because things are available doesn't mean I have to get it all now, right?

Yes. Life in the North...

An Arts House wedding

Congrats, Yee! Attended his wedding at the Arts House this afternoon. It was a very pleasant, easy-going service led mostly by Yee himself before he relinquished the microphone to a good-natured JP who presided over the legal formalities. Each of his guests received a personalized gift for attending based on his impressions of us or what he could recall of us. For instance, I received ice-cream vouchers due to a couple of escapades with him at Haagen-Dazs, and June got a pretty egg-shaped music-box (no, not a Faberge, quit drooling) because he remembered she likes music boxes. Yee knows how to put his personal touch to events he organizes. Would have loved to stay and hang out longer, but there was a turkey in the fridge that needed roasting.

Haven't done a Christmas thing at our place for a long time, so now that we've got our new digs, there was every reason to play host again. June wore the chef's hat tonight. She has the recipe for the roast turkey and ham nailed down, but she's been experimenting all week to discover the secret of a good pumpkin soup. With me as guinea pig, we ascertained a couple of key factors: it has to be butternut pumpkin (ours came from Mustafa, cheap and good), and it needs a sprinkle of powdered nutmeg and hand-squeezed OJ to take the edge off. There's still some in the fridge, along with the turkey leftovers. Guess what we're having for dinner tomorrow night?

Christmas. Wet. Dream.

I'm dreaming of a wet Christmas

Just like the ones in Singapore.

Where umbrellas mushroom

and thunder goes, "boom,"

As the Mon-soon visits us once more

I'm dreaming of a wet Christmas

With every pressie that I buy

May our dollar maintain as high

Though the forecasts say it's gonna fry.

(with apologies to Irving Berlin)

Early Christmas at Porta Porta

The Days of Feasting have begun! June and I are celebrating the season early at Porta Porta, a quaint little Italian eatery roughly opposite Changi Prison, if you are looking for directions. I haven't been here in years, but the place is as charming as I remember -- an oasis of old-time Euro tucked away in this odd out-of-the-way location.

Mussels are turning out to be our favourite starter! Here we have a deep dish of mussels in red sauce. Must say, the sauce packs a lot of body, a good thing to counter the mussels which were a little on the chewy side.

June went conservative with her usual spaghetti vongole. I was craving MEAT and the leg of lamb did not disappoint: boneless and all-lean, yet so tender, just so faintly pink and juicy. It came with a side of eggplant which I do not like, generally, but somehow I can stomach it if it's done Mediterranean style. Don't ask why.

All that and a bowl of minnestrone came up to a hair over $50 per person. Not too bad considering we're celebrating Christmas for two. Mass gorging with family commences tomorrow!

He who carries the biggest stick

I went to watch The Day the Earth Stood Still with no high expectations and true enough it turned out to be quite mediocre. I'm tired of the number of morality plays that tell us to curb our excesses and give a thought to our planet. Yes, I know it's an important message and I buy into it a great deal... well, sort of... but I've heard more exciting versions of it in more exciting films already.

DESS is a remake of the 1951 movie of the same title, with roughly the same message: to stop our nonsense (violence, resource depletion, pollution, you name it) or be exterminated as a favour to the rest of the species who share our planet. It's parallel to the biblical tale of the Ark and the Flood in which the whole earth gets scrubbed clean of the mess people have made of it and then life gets to start afresh all over again.

Interesting enough premise, I suppose, but where things go wrong for me is the misplaced sense of scale in the struggle to convince Klaatu, the alien... um, assessor being, that humanity still has a chance to atone for ourselves before the "Flood" washes us all away. Given the impending disaster is global in nature, it does not make much logical sense for Klaatu to base his judgement simply on the behaviour of the two individuals he has made some meaningful contact with. 

Statistically, the sample size just isn't representative enough of the entire human population to make that kind of a decision. Nor is the time scale sufficient -- what, 24 hours? -- to make such an earth-shattering pronouncement on the people of the earth. For a being representing many advanced civilizations, Klaatu seems a bit over-anxious to make up his mind about us.

OK, I know it's pointless to argue movie logic, but there isn't much excitement to carry us through either. Klaatu (and his bodyguard, the 40 foot tall cyclopean G.O.R.T.) represent an unstoppable force none of our terrestrial weaponry and technology has any effect on. Herein lies the big cosmic double standard: Klaatu say you all play nice with one another and with me, or G.O.R.T. will unleash such violence upon you the human race will not survive to see another day. So really, he who carries the biggest stick gets to walk the softest of us all.

It doesn't help that Keanu Reeves has finally succumbed to all the jokes made about his acting and has been cast to play the entirely wooden, expressionless Klaatu. There's a role written especially for him! I couldn't connect with him, nor any of the other characters so I didn't particularly care how it all would turn out in the end. That, I think, is the greatest tragedy in this script.

On the plus side, dinner was quite enjoyable. The Mussel Guys at Vivo serves up a fabulous cast iron pot of steaming Belgian Mussels in white wine sauce. Never before have I had such succulent mussels in such a potent soup -- all garlicky and almost herbal in flavour. There's a 2-for-1 deal for Citi card holders this season, but too bad neither I nor June have one. The accompanying seafood pasta we ordered was so-so, but at least now I know where we can get good mussels. Yums!

Read any Questionable Content lately?

I think my GRADUATED students and older readers would enjoy "Questionable Content" (QC) as much as I. That is to say, current students please wait till you have left college before you pick it up -- it'll be more meaningful to you then.

The characters in QC are familiar, reminiscent of my own circle of friends who are young, single, and dealing with the issue of relationships themselves. There's always a tension between platonic friendship and sexual attraction, and because that often leads to awkward situations there's a lot of humour in how the main characters balance respectable restraint with careless flirtation, the fun they have in each others' company and having conversations laced with graphic innuendo.

Much of the humour is wry and dry, but there are the occasional laugh out loud moments as the reader gets blindsided by a bizarre comment or response. The dialogue is witty, clever and sharp; and it's been a page turner for me 'cos it's fun to see how far Marten and Faye will get on with each other as friends and housemates, but never as lovers though it's obvious that they so want to.

Actually, I know how it turns out for them since I discovered QC only recently, but I've been reading QC from the very first strip to understand the circumstances in which they and their supporting characters are in now. I'm taking it in blocks of 50 strips a day so far, and it's still going to take me many more days to catch up with the current content (as of today, QC is at the 1297th strip). NBS will pedantically calculate it to 26.5 days now that she has the relevant data.

It's also interesting to watch an artist develop his art. Jeph Jacques has been drawing this webcomic for nearly five years now and in that time his initial crude line drawings have evolved into more realistic-looking people. Also, he's put in many more characters and created a more complex relationship web, but it's the consistency of his characters that make them believable: their expressions, postures and gestures are apt and emote well with the dialogue.

I don't really know why I find QC so engaging. Perhaps it's because the characters are easy to identify and identify with. They live regular, mundane existences but they get by with a little help from their friends, and that's what gets to me most. There's nothing like having a small, tight circle of good friends to keep one sane in this world.

Things that make my wife scream

I dunno, turning the living room TV into a 42" PC monitor just might be one of them!

We could have been neighbours

How come when I was living here, little eateries such as this one did not exist in the neighbourhood? The Char-Grill Bar only showed up after the Big Push North. Well cooked, reasonably priced, restaurant-standard cuisine: I would so have been a regular customer! The staff may be a little new and hesitant, but there's no denying the quality of the food. These following quick shots from my mobile phone cam and the lousy kopitiam lighting do no justice to the dishes, but trust me, they're yummy!

 
Three pretty, tender lambchops that went well with what tasted like freshly made mint sauce. Sides pictured here are cheese pasta and seasonal veggies. Somehow, this combo worked and made my mouth happy.

 
This is June's mixed grill. Odd that we were just saying how hard it is these days to find one, and here it is. Pork chop, lamb chop, a big sausage and a sunny-side up. The garden salad with the mayo applied like that reminds me of somebody's rib-cage :p. I'd say the only thing that didn't work for me was the egg which somehow took on the teflon flavour of a new frying pan, which probably was the case.

Hard to find good, cheap food (each dish was $9.80 including choice of two hot and cold sides) so I hope they made the right decision opening up here at 417 Yishun.

Bolt, the super non-super dog

The huge blockbuster movies of this year are full of big action. They're about individual people who rise up from the crowd and be a hero for the helpless and oppressed. Think Iron Man, The Dark Knight, and the other super-movies that have been raking in the big bucks these recent years: movie-goers love to be transported out of the mundane and experience moments of triumph over injustice even if it is only in fantasy.

Disney's Bolt completely reverses this notion. Super dog, Bolt, has been psychologically screwed with by the producers of his TV action series to believe he has super powers. It makes for stronger realism and heightened drama, his demented producer thinks. Living all his life on a movie set (a super-canine version of The Truman Show) he suddenly encounters the real world when he becomes an accidental stowaway in a packing crate bound for NYC. It takes a while, but what he believes about himself slowly crumbles away and he has to cope, not with new and unexpected super-powers but with new and unexpected normalcy.

This is a parable that we can expect to recur for us many times over, going by the state of our current world economy. Many of us may once have been high-fliers, performing tasks that seemed important, critical even, to saving if not the world, then our families or even our self-esteem. But with mass unemployment as  a Damocles' Sword over our heads many of us are going to have to adapt to a life that isn't defined by our jobs any more. Finding and living with a new identity, that's a tough one.

What keeps Bolt going on his road trip back West to Hollywood and home are his ability to make use of the strengths he already has as an ordinary dog -- courage, smarts, and doggy-eyes. What drives him forward and gives him a purpose and a plan is the one belief that cannot be shaken: the love of his co-star, Penny, for whom he will do anything. What gets him through hard times -- and occasionally into hard times -- are his unlikely friends, Mittens the cat who keeps him grounded on reality, and Rhino the Hamster who's loyalty and indomitable "I can!" spirit makes magic happen.

May we who face dark days ahead likewise find our own way home.

Oh yeah, and I watched Bolt in 3D too! Unglam glasses but the illusion of depth on screen made Bolt all that much more pat-able.

How are things in post-apocalyptia?

Awesome, is how. And that's how you describe a game like Fallout 3 too.

Combining RPG with first (or optional third) person shooter, it's runnin' and gunnin' with a point. Gameplay flexibly accommodates the player's personal style, whether playing as a sickeningly polite do-gooder, a snarly kill-everything-that-moves psycho, or shades of grey in between, the game responds accordingly. Actions have consequences and NPCs and quests open up differently depending on the player's past deeds.

The setting is a nuclear-blasted wasteland, presenting a huge, open play area traversable only on foot, though every checkpoint discovered puts a marker on the automap that the player can instantly jump to as long as there is no enemy activity nearby. Walking to discover new checkpoints could be tedious if not for the many opportunities to encounter enemies, stock up supplies and watch and participate in many set-pieces that add interest to the trudge. For example, there's the opportunity to release a Super Mutant Behemoth to see how it will take revenge on its captors (of course, that means having an enraged Behemoth to deal with after) and here was this bunch of Raiders in the act of punishing one of their own -- I tried to rescue the poor guy but he turned on me and I had to shoot him anyway, the ungrateful wretch.

What's fun is that the game world feels like it's living and breathing. There are enemies to kill but there are lots of other people to interact with. A few actually join as a partner -- including a dog by the stupid name of Dogmeat -- depending on their regard of the player. Dogmeat will join up regardless.

Lots of quests to keep the player occupied. Apart from the main quest, there is a long list of side quests, some of which are quite involving in themselves. And it's fun to hear your exploits being reported on the portable radio you carry as "news" reports that depending on your performance will have you praised, villified or questioned by the rather self-righteous sounding DJ.

But it's 3Dog, the DJ, who is the player's constant companion and conscience. The music he plays is far preferable to the "rival" radio station which pumps out insane propaganda messages and Sousa marches. The music 3Dog plays is oddly from the 1940's by artists like Bing Crosby, The Ink Spots, and Roy Brown. My personal favourite track is "Civilization" by The Andrews Sisters with Danny Kaye, a comical and strangely appropriate song for post-apocalyptia as it is today. For the moment I have a bunch of songs older than me playing in my head. They're catchy and the melodies sound quite simple, but I discovered very difficult to sing along with due to certain intricacies in the music that I just don't... get. Weird.

I could go on to discuss the merits of V.A.T.S. and S.P.E.C.I.A.L. (basically an innovative enemy targetting and a character customization system respectively) but they're easier to play with than explain. I will say that I'm a little disappointed that my character is already maxed out at Level 20 and I'm halfway through the main quest only. Yes, there are a ton of rare items to find that can help me increase individual stats and combat survivability but it's a little limiting to think I've reached my maximum potential already when there's so much more left to accomplish. Heh. Sounds like real life.

House warming :)

This ol' house has never seen so many people before. So good to see the brekkie people past, present and some with spouses or partners making our usual lively commotion within these walls. It's the last opportunity for us to meet this informally before they make good on their vacation plans this year and I'm thrilled we made the best of it. Even Mel Skyped in via Amy's Mac and got a real tour of the place including a virtual staring contest with Maui whom we happened to catch 'live' on webcam.

June was very efficient in getting the salad and punch operational as soon as she got back from work. M-i-L pulled out all the stops helping us with the fried noodles, a vicious red curry chicken and a bonus banana bread. Everybody brought a little something: KL made a green chix curry, Jo-jo with a sushi platter, Amy and B-lo combining with a pair of Sarpino's, Wayne brought two bottles of red, and lots of dessert items including Sha's fabulous trifle, NBS's cheesecake and Fen brought the birthday cake for the December baby among us.

Even with the help of Derek, HP, Sheikh, Vince, Linc, and KL's family, there was too much food! We really missed To*ny's appetite last night! Eventually many of our guests had to take home almost as much food as they brought, and we still have a stockpile that would last us a nuclear winter, if only it wasn't perishable within a day. As hosts, we'd better start estimating our rations better.

Hangin' with the guys really helped lighten my mood considerably. See? No pix! Too busy flitting from guest to guest to bother with the cam for once. Sometimes, the best images are the ones we store in our brains.

Downhill slide

Entries have been rather erratic lately. It's a case of too much happenning that isn't exactly worth writing home about. Even when there are days I can spot blogging potential, I'm like, whatever, I'm on vacation.

So yes, there's been a downhill slide into the doldrums, though I can't put a finger on a direct cause.

One big factor, I suppose, is the big move up north. Yes, I have a lovely new house and all, but the transition to get here has been month after month of additional stress dealing with financial, legal and housing authorities, agents and the people they represent, our renovation works and making sure every little detail is tweaked to absolute perfection. The sad thing is, all these details actually went smoothly, everyone was nice, and everyone did their best to either accommodate or help us, and I still got my nerves frayed over it.

Through it all, some routines that I use to keep myself sane like blogging and breakfast have been disrupted, there have been some unexpected changes in staff deployment that have been rather distressing, and now that I've moved into the new place I have to get used to some new routines that are going to make it difficult for me to recover my old ones.

Without going into detail, it's like this: Living this far north, it feels like I've been cut off from everyone, everywhere and everything. There's no reason to drive anywhere because everything's here: food, entertainment and public transport if I want to go anywhere further (though why would I want to?). It's a self-contained enclave, up here.

The other thing is, I'm kinda' used to living in a rat hole, basically, and the supplier of our flooring summed it up best by remarking that the type of laminate we chose "is meant for high class people, you know?" When others are talking about the collapse of the economy being due to people living beyond their means, I can't help but think they're talking about me.

Currently undergoing "Fallout 3" therapy, taking it all out on those poor Super Mutants and their ilk, though I'm pretty sure this form of treatment is not a very healthy way to deal with my baggage.

Hopefully, I'll get used to life up here soon. Then hopefully I'll recover my good humour. Till then, somebody sing me a Bob Marley tune, please?

Heck in a handbasket

The world is going to heck in a handbasket real fast. What with the global economic depression and all the nonsense in Thailand, India and in the Gulf of frakkin' Aden it looks like we've finally lost our minds and we're bent on self-destruction.

Nothing makes sense. An unhappy political minority is destroying their own country because they got outvoted at the last election which they themselves forced -- and lost anyway. A bunch of teenage hoodlums plan and execute a most effective and heroic military operation against several non-military targets resulting in a most impressive kill ratio but only because their targets can't shoot back. I'm sure there's a medal there for you boys, though it'll probably be your parents who'll have to receive it on your behalf, posthumously. And over in the Gulf of frakkin' Aden grand-scale armed robbery has become a profitable multi-million dollar business. I suppose that's one outside-the-box means of protecting oneself from the financial crisis.

What do these people want? They want to be shot at. They're militants, they're prepared for war. They have the logistics, they have the ordnance, they have the strategy. Their only problem is that no one is shooting at them to justify their raison d'etre. So if the mountain won't come to them, they must go to the mountain. And unfortunately for us, to get to the mountain they have to get through us first.

It's stupid.

Belt-tightening

While I've been occupied with adjusting my life to accommodate new schedules and new living arrangements, my virtual life has been languishing. No updates here, my online pets are neglected and are probably starving to death right now, but I still can't muster enough will to care.

Too much is happening in real life, and perhaps I'm not as capable of adapting to all these changes as I might once have been. The current financial crisis necessitating all these belt-tightening fiscal measures makes me wonder if I've spent too much too quickly in recent months. I was counting on a year-end bonus to boost my bank balance to a more reassuring level, but that's not going to happen in this current atmosphere of pay cuts and other more drastic cost saving methods.

Still, as long as I have a job, money can be earned back. And I don't owe anyone any money that urgently needs repaying. That is to say, my installment plans are still manageable, so perhaps what I'm worried about is the lack of excess, resources set aside for a rainy day, mad money to throw away on frivolous expenses.

Still, it's a new lifestyle to adapt to, having to think twice about needs and wants. Learning to forego when we're so used to buying on impulse; making do with what works rather than trashing it for the sake of an upgrade; squeezing every last bit of value from every cent we spend; and making sure we do our jobs well so that what we demand of others we deliver to them as well in return; that's how we're going to ride out this long winter of discontent. Financially speaking, anyway.

Die, monkey, die!

I've been holding this back, waiting for just the right time. And that time is now! To celebrate one big monkey off my back, let's all sing the "Hut Sut" Song!

Getting upset with the casino

Meant to put up this link since NBS and I were discussing something like it this morning. It's called, "A Visual Guide to the Financial Crisis".

And no, in our discussion we weren't particularly sympathetic with the so-called "investors" who lost money on their "investments" in High Notes and their ilk. To us, those guys being so upset and demanding compensation from the bank is like losing money at the craps table and getting upset with the casino.

Sigh. Our people are so sheltered and mollycoddled that they have lost sight of reality. Everyone expects the profits to keep rolling in, but when it's time to shoulder the risk, it's always someone else's fault.

Survivor

Look at that! Yummy, tempting pack of Oreo cookies just waiting to be dunked into an icy cold glass of milk; luscious cream begging to be oh, so gently teased out with a tongue tip tracing the gap between the twin halves of the delicate, crumbly, brown cookie sandwich. What a treat!

Then, consider that this package has been sitting on my dining table overnight already, fully exposed and accessible to the hungry cats marauding through my house. Consider the pristine condition of the package, with nary a puncture mark anywhere on it's surface. No edible material has survived five minutes of unsupervised time with the cats around, yet this brave little blue pack has already survived 24 hours and still counting.

Could it be that Oreos aren't actually food?

Where to find the cats

While the unpacking proceeds, the house may be liveable but still in an unsightly condition. The process is slow and painful, and it may yet be several more days before we throw up our hands in exasperation and decide to trash everything that we haven't yet found a place to store, stow, or conceal.

Then there are the cats who are beginning to adjust to their new environment. One coping mechanism is having a hidey-hole to bolt to when another stranger walks in to make some funny loud noises with smelly machines. Happened to catch the three cats together this one time. Must be playing 'sardines'.

Volunteer job: library courier

A morning with lots of books. First, the second phase of Project Deliver-Me, in which volunteers such as myself take library books over to the residences of disabled people and collect the books they are done with.

I got a different recipient from the two I selected books for from last week. Just so happens, she lives around the corner from campus. Probably a polio victim, roughly my age (hence you are to infer "not too old"), warm and interesting... someone I might not have minded spending an afternoon with, if she didn't seem like she was busy.

Instead, I just did my job -- deliver, collect, sign here, sign there, "thanks ma'am, my pleasure, ma'am!" The expediency at which I picked up my bag of to-be-returned books and walked down the 6 stories -- as she had directed me to -- back to M2 sorta' felt like I was running away from her, though that was not my intention. I also get the feeling she had played some kind of joke on me, making me walk down stairs while she had to get by on crutches... ironic and subtle, very subtle.

While at the library, I borrowed a couple of other books -- play scripts just to see what possibilities there might be for next year's Drama Night. Also bought another couple of books, one on ethics and the other on systems. Oddly, I don't seem to care too much about fiction any more. Maybe I prefer watching it to reading it these days. Oh, well.

Training continues

When was the last time I went bowling? Seems like forever since the Boyz fell flat on our collective faces and imploded. And no, I'm not interested in a revival tour. Let dead dogs lie, as they say.

Doesn't mean I can't keep up the training, though. Happy to say that rusty as I am, I hit the lanes today and still did pretty ok. Six game average 165 including a high 213, low of 130. Funny that the only time I break 199 is after a long break, then I settle back to my usual game.

Sigh, no consistency. Still gonna have to keep my day job for a while yet. Heh.

She'll chew your ear off

I have sound from both speakers when I use the DVD and FM receiver, but I only get a mono channel when I use the cable TV set-top box. I've checked all the connections and everything's fine. I re-checked the settings on all equipment, and everything is as per manual recommendations. Still, I only get sound from the Left side when I watch cable. Odd.

Asked our electrician, Ben, to have a look at the system and see what he could make of it. It wasn't immediate, but he spotted the one thing I overlooked: the stereo cables themselves... almost chewed through by itchy feline teeth!

Should have known. Same thing happened when the washing machine sprang a leak due to a drainage hosepipe that someone had turned into emmenthal cheese, and I know who it is.

There is a gremlin loose in the house, and its name is MOMO!

Peevish

Not been feeling particularly sociable lately. My grouchy, irritable state has rendered me all the more monosyllabic in my responses to others. Somehow, I just feel that everybody is talking to me only to tell me to do this and do that; nothing but instructions and imperatives, reminders, memos and decrees. I've had quite about enough of it.

Fortunately, this week I get to dictate my own time. For the next few days, unless anyone has anything interesting to talk to me about, get lost!

Perhaps a few days of silence will improve my mood :(

Books to go

What a week! Between official assessment duties in the morning and cleaning/unpacking/installing duties at night, I feel like I've been running without stop. And looking at the mountain range of -- things -- that's currently occupying my guest room, it doesn't look any better for next week either.

But I did get a little break today, as a volunteer selecting and then delivering books to the disabled. Today was the selecting of books phase, so armed with my recipients' list of book preferences, I gaily happily parked myself at the arts and crafts section picking out books on crocheting and knitting, and attempting very hard to imagine which titles would fascinate them the most.

Based on their topical choices, I guessed that they would have been little old ladies who probably wanted to express themselves creatively. But I didn't want the books to be so simple as to be insulting, yet I didn't want anything too difficult either so that they would get bored and perhaps try to find other ways of expressing themselves creatively with knitting needles.

There were also other considerations like, I wanted to get something uplifting, but I didn't want them to think I thought they needed uplifting. I wanted to get something humorous, but I didn't want them to think I was making light of their situation...

It's kinda' like the decisions the media corporations have to make selecting the media content that would appeal to the widest audience. Like them, I chose the blandest sounding titles which were the least likely to offend anyone, although I did take a chance on on of the old girls by selecting for her Jeph Loeb's "Blue", one of the best Spider-Man stories I've read focusing on a tragic tale of a romance cut short in between trading punches with an assortment of costumed bad guys. Well, she did include 'Romance' and 'Short stories' on her list...!

We'll get the books delivered to them next week, so I will only know if I'm going to get the books chucked back at my head, of if I'm going to be offered a cuppa and a nice chat then.

In the meantime, through all the gripes, grumbles, whines and tantrums, I finally have a house to live in. We brought the cats back from Dom's, so the whole family is back together again! The unpacking will still go on for some time, but our place is an operational domicile at last!

Down to the minor details

Things seem to have come to a standstill with the renos. All the heavy, noisy work is complete but now comes the perod where we have to deal with all kinds of minor issues -- the fine tuning. Small faults like overlooked unpainted bits, the tracing down of the source of the electrical trip, small fixtures that still need to be installed, that sort of thing. And until we're absolutely sure another bunch of tradesmen won't come knocking on our door, we can't really say we've moved in yet.

And the unpacking! Everything we hastily threw into our packing crates now have to be organized back into their permanent places in the new house, and that's still going to take a while yet. Meantime, there're boxes everywhere with their contents spilling out while we figure what's what and what goes where.

Hope to get my home back by the weekend...

Still homeless and roughin' it

Perhaps too optimistic about being able to move in to the new place by last Friday. There're still various workmen buzzing around getting this and that done, and the nightmare of being temporarily homeless seems to be extending interminably. It's even worse for the cats since we're projecting that they can't come home till about Thursday, when we've finally been able to cat-proof ourselves sufficiently to accept them back with us.

Meantime, we're still squatting at M-i-L's, and Q-tip is starting to become accustomed to the new routine of life here. That's not a bad proposition, really, because there's a chance we can put here here in future while we go out to work and collect her when we come home in the evening. She'll be cared for and given regular walkies, like a doggie day-care. The cats can look after themselves.

Took the kids to watch "Avenue Q" today. I'm planning to watch it again with June closer to the end of the run, so I'll review it another time.


Also, congrats to Sha who tied the knot this evening. A relaxed and easy affair at the Fort Canning Centre. A loosely Bollywood theme complete with a troupe of energetic Bhangra dancers who wowed us with some tandem spinning manouvres that were quite risky for the tight space they performed in.

All-you-can-eat briyani and naan to go with a spicy variety of curried meats. I focused on the mutton -- lovely flavour and have eaten myself silly. Burp!

Settling in

Refugee reporting in from the homeless shelter. New owners have taken over the old place, new place so close to completion, but not in any habitable condition yet. Cats are totally upset, but they're spending the next couple of nights at a pet hotel (a.k.a. pet shop) while we and Q-tip are bunking in at M-i-L's. Just another day more...

Been checking out the neighbourhood in the meantime. It's only a seven minute walk to the mall, so I went whole hog and did the urbanite thing by getting a new book for the bookshelf (Gaiman's latest, "The Graveyard Book"), and reading it at the Coffee Bean while sipping a regular Black Forest ice blended. I got my watch battery changed, browsed the latest PC game releases and made inquiries about a possible HD upgrade at Starhub. Checked out the cinema on the top floor, and decided there wasn't anything worth watching this week. 

Looks like everything I might need and want is here within easy reach, plus the walk there and back should help burn off some calories while I'm at it.

Look out, sleepy backwater town, your new neighbour has arrived!

Too easy credit

June's cheques are bouncing, and that's odd because there's sufficient funds in her account, but no money is being withdrawn at all. There are no mistakes in the cheques that have been returned either, so that deepens the mystery.

When she called the bank, this is what she discovered: The cheques she was using came from a new chequebook the bank had thoughtfully sent over. However, the cheques in this book were not being drawn from her bank account, they were for a credit facility called "Cashline" which June did NOT sign up for.

Cashline acts like a credit card, except in cheque form, and the cheques June has been signing for our contractors have mostly been above the facility's credit limit, hence the bouncing. However, some of the smaller cheques did clear and, holy #%$@, there's a daily rated interest that accompanies each cleared cheque. That's so unecessary for us since we're paying everything by cash (no wonder we're so broke) and hence there is no need for us to incur any interest charge whatsoever.

Fortunately for us, the bank waived all interest charges after June kicked up A Big Fuss over how the chequbook so conveniently appeared with no proper explanation -- or even differentiation from normal bank account chequebooks -- for its use.

Banks can be too proactive with their services to their customers. Automatic approval is not always a good thing, especially when they approve things they don't inform us of beforehand. So BEWARE when receiving chequebooks in the mail. Check the account number very carefully, and make sure it tallies with an account you are familiar with, before using.

Current status of June's Cashline chequebook: shredded and burned, existing only as a carbon emmission polluting the upper atmosphere.

Thank you for the music

There isn't much music that can truly be described as "evergreen", but if anyone deserves the appellation, ABBA does. ABBA may be a guilty pleasure to listen to now, but their brand of disco was mostly fun and baggage free, and their simple tunes and catchy beats give them extra, if unintended, longevity at the KTV lounge.

ABBA music is easy for anyone to identify with, because underneath all the fluff it captures a full range of emotions that are part and parcel of people's experiences through the many different levels of relationships they have with one another. And Mamma Mia proves that ABBA music really has something for everyone.

Mamma Mia (a.k.a. "My Big Fat Greek ABBA Wedding") essentially depicts a reunion of old friends who have not seen each other for the last 20 years. It is the wedding that brings them back together, and it becomes an opportunity to confront the secrets and issues that drove them apart all those long years ago.

Apart from exploring estranged relationships, the movie also celebrates the rock-solid friendships that have stood the test of time. It is a kind of tightness that the many years of separation cannot wear away. Old friends picking up where they had left off, each having grown in experience doing different things, yet when coming together it's like no time at all between them.

60 is indeed the new 20. The energy output of the main cast fronted by Streep and Brosnan in their dance, and all the running around they do show the great shape they're in. A generation or so ago, 60 was sagely and settled, yet these guys are still chasing dreams and are still looking for "the one". Yay for youth and life even as we grey!

As for the dance sequences, although mass dance plays a big part it isn't quite as Bollywood as some people might have described. If anything, it is both a tribute to and a parody of the Bollywood style in the simplicity of the movements and its occasional silliness (check out the "Lay all your love on me" sequence).

And through it all, ABBA music supports the action. There are a few liberties taken with the lyrics to fit the scene (even then the "Winner takes it all" sequence didn't quite make sense), but generally ABBA writes in a very conversational style such that the songs blend in easily with the spoken script. And yet, the lyrics convey a powerful emotive force, from being young and in love, to being heartbroken, to wisps of nostalgia in watching a child grow up and away.

I suppose for me, Mamma Mia gives me a little hope as I age too. I've never done anything wild and crazy, never done anything I might regret, never been a rebel and explored my own hopes and dreams (can't even remember what they were any more), but with an ABBA anthem in my 'pod and a reasonably healthy bod, I have been assured that it is never too late.

Right to die, not left to die

Would it be a good idea to legalize euthanasia* like today's ST suggests? The process sounds so easy:

"Say you are dying of an illness and your doctor pronounces that you have no more than three months to live. Worried that your last days will be racked with unbearable pain, you ask to die.

Two doctors certify that you are of sound mind and have made the request voluntarily. They administer you with a drug overdose. Several minutes later, you are dead."

That could be the problem. If it sounds too easy, it could be too easy. Do we really want life -- anyone's life -- to end so easily?

Perhaps I'm in no position to judge at this time, but I think that the right to die should be fought for and won, rather than being freely given by the sagely nods of two doctors' heads.

We fight for everything else in life, the right to be free, the right to live, the right to be independent, the right to acquire resources, and after having fought for all that to throw everything away to excercise the right to die seems rather like a waste of everybody's time and effort to win it all in the first place.

I'm not unsympathetic to the plight of the terminally ill. I'm ok with having a process in place that will ultimately get someone what they want. I'm just saying the process shouldn't be too easy (or as easy as what ST described).

Let's go case-by-case. Wanna die badly enough? Then prove how badly you want it: fight for your right to die, win it, then die with some real pride. Who knows? The process itself could be so arduous it might actually kill you, but that's what you wanted in the first place, isn't it? Sounds like win-win to me.

*full story requires subscription

Floored and comatose

Isn't it that the older we get the less sleep we need? So why is it that this week my sleep habits are completely in disarray? Uncharacteristically, my brain has been shutting down earlier in the night than usual, on average at around 2200, and I've more often than not just fallen asleep wherever I am -- usually the nice, comfortable floor. Can't beat that back support!

Hence, I realize, no posts this week. I've been making short, almost daily updates on my t-blog with pix of the renos at the new place. Making pithy small talk with fellow homemakers has been fun, but that's about the intellectual capacity I've been able to muster these last few days.

Hot dog

Took Q-tip for a follow up exam by Doc Casey. Because she's not been exhibiting any unusual behaviour over the last week since her... excitement, Casey reduced her meds by a couple of pills.

He surmised that her unusual symptoms were due to her overheated state, which caused her heart and lungs to stress out to the point of inflammation which caused some minor tissue damage somewhere inside. Guess it was our mistake to take her for walkies in such scorching weather.

For now, we'll be administering a quarter tablet of Fortecor 5 and a capsule of anti-oxidant daily to strengthen her heart.

Next follow up will be in a month's time, then we'll see what kind of long-term meds she'll be needing, if necessary.

Entrances and exits

While there's been quite a progression of development over at the new place, it's quite a major pain to have to clear the old things we've been so comfortable living with and make way for the new occupants of our current abode.

Already, we've cleared out the entire guest room and the new owners are using it to store their stuff which they began moving in today.

The good news, for me anyway, is that they're not doing any renovations to this place but are moving in as is. Plus, they're taking over some of the stuff that we can't take with us, like the 29" CRT TV, our fridge, air-conditioning system, bookshelves and workdesk, otherwise I'd have a problem trashing them all.

Now, if only we could find a taker for the bed frame and the leather Lorenzo sofa. Doubt anyone would want the latter as it's been clawed to bits by MAUI!!!

A spot of gardening

Today was dNYel's turn to perform a little Service Learning, representing our Level on campus.

The place: Labrador Adventure Centre.

Our task: to learn something about the abundant flora that grows all around us in this neck of the woods, then add to it by digging up a plot of earth and planting some shrubbery in it.

That kind of community service is fine with me. I'd sooner pick up a tool and try to make myself useful with it than attempt to strike up a conversation with a complete stranger with baggage in that other kind of community outreach. Heck, I'm awkward enough with my friends already, let alone chat up some troubled personality.

Have to say I'm very grateful to the Photog I handed my camera over to. She took a ton of excellent pix, some of which I've uploaded here. The rest, well, let's just say they're for dNYel records.

The House Bunny

"The House Bunny" is something like a mashup of Snow White and the Seven Cinderellas. Shelley, a Bunny suddenly evicted from the Playboy Mansion, takes refuge in a sorority house about to lose its Charter due to its serious lack of appeal on campus. Its female residents are social misfits, and definitely not the type the other students want to be associated with. But Shelley works her transformative magic on them, remodelling them in her own image and overnight, the formerly outcast Zetas become the belles of the ball.

Much of the humour comes from the skillful play on stereotypes as they interact with one another. These are the people we easily identify on any given college campus, the juvenile jocks, the popular girls, and the socially awkward Zetas. But they don't always conform to "type" as the Zeta girls discover once they learn to come out of their shells.

What's interesting is that from Shelley's perspective, dealing with rejection is a matter of excercising choice and knowledge as a means to overcome the temptation to succumb to circumstance.

With Shelley's help, her plain jane charges make a startling transformation with a change of clothes, hair, cosmetics and (as we observe in their "Armageddon" strut sequence) gait. It isn't that they become beautiful, but they become interesting. Everything about them in their makeover state is eye-catching: the bright colours, shapes and lines of their clothes and accessories, their hair artfully shaped with flashes of brilliant highlights, their poise which exudes confidence and control, and their smiles reflecting their positive energy and thus their welcome to others. The image makes the first impression, then they're ready for the second layer of social contact: connecting with others through conversation.

It's in this second layer that both Shelley and the Zetas are able to help each other. The Zetas learn that behaving shallow is not the same as being shallow, and Shelley learns that not all guys are attracted by sex appeal and bimbotic behaviour.

I havent caught a movie in a long while. This one was a nice, easy one to digest.

Caution: Detour

It's a bit nutz running something like two blogs simultaneously. Anyone interested in the progress of my reno, here's the link to my t-blog thread on Renotalk.com. It's kinda' fun sort-of chatting with fellow home-builders in a show me yours and I'll show you mine exchange.

Else, I'm up to my ears in Written Reports... and is it because I've lost all objectivity or is it that they are actually starting to look quite decent?

Great expectorations

It's PW season for the J1s on campus. The majority of their project deadlines coincide over the next couple of weeks and everyone's working feverishly (we hope) to impress their assessors with what they've been working on for the last 6-7 months.

The grading criteria go by the following premises: projects are either Approaching Expectations (AE), Meeting Expectations (ME), or Exceeding Expectations (EE). Of course, the EE grade is the most coveted, and every self-respecting staff supervisor will design such training as to prepare the students for that esteemed level of achievement.

Herein lies a conundrum I've discovered between balancing out the training with the grading criteria: no matter how much I teach and train, no matter how much I consult the project groups to help them raise their level of performance, my efforts will only help them attain a Meeting Expectations (ME) grade. That's because as long as the groups do what I tell them, as long as they doggedly follow my lead, they can only Meet the Expectations I have of them. I cannot teach them to Exceed Expectations because in order to do that, they have to do more than what I have taught them to do, and to do it better than I would have done myself. Think I'm asking too much? Go look up what 'exceed' means.

PW is one subject in which "teach more, score less" applies. That's because the more is taught, the fewer the opportunities for the students to exceed expectations because we keep raising the expectation bar higher and higher. If we didn't teach so much, everything the kids do right would look like a marvel. Instead, because we have taught them so much, every deviation from the way we think is 'right' becomes a disaster.

Yes, I agree that certain basics and standards have to be laid down as foundation. The kids need a launchpad that is solid and stable enough to support their explorations -- that's our job. But beyond that, the more reluctant we are to give up our remote control, the sooner we think our kids' projects are likely to crash and burn.

PW is designed as a subject to advantage students who can take charge of the given problem, and use their own ingenuity and resources to innovate and develop a reasonable solution. Not many students can do this, hence they stand out as Exceeding Expectations. For the rest of the pack, they have to be satisfied with Meeting Expectations because they can perform as reasonably well as they have been taught. And in the grand scheme of things, that should be quite enough.

One sick puppy

Q-tip gave us a scare when we were walking her to the pet shop in Gardens this morning. According to June's report, Q-tip suddenly stopped walking and somehow ended up on her back, legs waving in the air... and spitting up blood.

Rushed her to Mt Pleasant where Dr Denise attended to her. Denise diagnosed a near heatstroke condition (it really was a rather hot day) and gave her a cool shower to bring her temperature down. What was more troubling was that her x-ray showed an enlarged heart caused by fluid retention and also fluid in her lungs. Denise explained that the heart was not working efficiently enough to pump out fluid from the internal organs like it's supposed to. (This actually sounds uncannily similar to my current state of health. Maybe I should go check it out?)

Rx: Q-tip is now on four tablets to be taken daily. Something for the heart and kidneys; a diuretic to help clear out excess fluids from her system; an antibiotic and an anti-inflammatory for her lungs.

Poor thing. On the outside she doesn't look like she's got problems, but under the hood... well, let's not panic yet. Hope the medication will do her good.

What's drivin' my fantasies

It was unreal, the realization that I have been for the last couple of years actually living out an almost 20-year-old fantasy, and I've been simply taking it for granted.

As I was driving with M2 this morning, I noticed how bright blue the sky was; and how the sun was high, lighting every visible thing up with a brilliance that made every edge, every outline stand out as sharp and clear as full 1080HD. The radio was thumping with music from my 'pod, accompanying the total and complete sense of freedom that can only come from driving down the highway in a sporty red convertible on a balmy Canadian summer's day.

'k, I'm still working on the red convertible feature, but I'm not particular about make and model. Just driving makes me happy.

That's in the morning, though. Pretty and glam though the F1 made night driving out to be, driving in the dark guided mostly by interpreting the navigation lights of other vehicles freaks me out just a tiny bit.

Then of course, there're... incidents that don't help. Like this evening, this dumb taxi made a 3-lane U-turn, suddenly cutting across my path and making me e-brake, big truck lumbering behind me threatening to smoosh me into ham 'n strawberry jam in a sandwich upon impact. Fortunately, reflexes and good brakes saved my bacon and I live to drive another day. Stupid taxis.

NYeDC graduation and farewell

Bleh. Either suffering from blog fatigue or life fatigue. Can't think of anything interesting to record in my usual long, pedantic commentary style. A couple of terse pix then to bid the NYeDC 07s farewell. Today was their Graduation Ceremony.

Big bunch of 07s meet to collect their certs of appreciation and a little souvenir

And my wacky little bunch of Admirals!

Skyping Mel

We're getting quite tired of marking essays that trivialize the the Internet by pointing out how convenient it is for us to keep in touch with our friends overseas, like as if it was a glorified telephone system and nothing more. Yet when we were Skyping Mel (she's now in ol' Blighty) from the staffroom today, that's more or less what we were doing.

The beauty of Skype and webcams is that despite the distance between us, we can still chat face-to-face. Our conversation was mostly about personal trivialities punctuated by much hand waving as various other staff passed by and realized who we were talking to. But we we were many and there was only one webcam so we were all a bit camera shy. While we could see Mel very well, she mostly saw parts of our faces, elbows, torsos and whatever else got thrust towards the lens for her closer inspection.

Best of all, our conversation was free-of-charge so the only time limitations we had to live by were our own busy schedules and not based on how much money-for-time we could afford to spend on her.

So now because of the Internet, Mel and HP could still potentially join us for breakfast even though they're thousands of miles away. They would both have to give up some sleep as there's a time-zone discrepancy (morning for us is bedtime for them) but with today's technology, it's so easy for Amy to carry down her laptop containing both their virtual heads and have them share, oh I dunno, omelettes and prawn noodles with us. It'll be like they'd never left!

I sense rolling eyeballs...

Professional wrestling

It was a clash of professionals at our new place. Our laminate flooring guy boldly held his ground against the combined onslaught of my designer and my wife over a functionality vs design issue.

The issue: like all other forms of matter, Vohringer laminate flooring expands with heat, especially in sunny S'pore. As such, there has to be some allowance for heat expansion or there will be a risk of the snap-together units of flooring buckling and cracking in the months to come.

The problem: because of heat expansion, to lay laminate wall-to-wall is just inviting trouble, so there has to be gaps between the laminates to cater for that. These gaps are covered by a flattish plastic spacer roughly, but not exactly matching the laminate itself. Aesthetically, these strips of plastic ruin an otherwise clean surface and mar the overall finish of our designer's final product.

Big, tepid quarrel ensued between artisan and engineer, neither wanting to compromise on their professional integrity. June tended to support design over physics, while I went the oppopsite direction in support of the flooring guy, though my influence was more subtle. I'm more prepared to let the look of my floor be ruined than the floor iteslf. Guess I'm practical that way.

We eventually reached a compromise that involved both parties conceding a little. Where floor spacers were a direct affront to design, design won. We let the spacers be where they were not so obvious. Everybody happy.

My point is, I'm very proud of the two professionals' service. They both really look out for their customers' best interest and are willing to take a stand for what they know to be right. It would have been so easy for one or the other to just give in and assign the responsibility of risk to the customer ('the customer is always right' is nonsense), but they stuck to their guns and slugged it out to the end for our sakes.

So far in this move, I feel we've been well taken care of by the people and the services we've engaged. That's something to be thankful for.

Movers and shakers

I wonder if I'm crazy. With financial storms whipping around overhead as the shock waves from the financial meltdown in the US chase each other across the world, I'm converting every last cent I own into consumer goods.

Yes, we've sunk a huge proportion of our liquid resources on HDB real estate, but the renovations, and home furnishings? That'll wipe out our last-straw safety net, at least until we can slowly build it all back, as long as we can stay employed. Doubt either of us will be retiring any time soon, we have a lot to pay back after this move. Doubt we'll be able to afford to make another move, so I guess all this expense is supposed to create the most comfortable nest that we will never want to even think of moving house ever again.

While I'm busy rationalizing here, we still haven't finished shopping for our furnishings yet. Today we engaged 138 Professional Movers (the name of the company, not the number of professional movers) to help us "have a stress-free" move.

A survey of all that we possess was professionally estimated to fit a single truck load, costing a grand total of 300 simoleons nett. That price includes a fully refundable 100 for the return of 50 packing crates they supplied for us to compress our lives into, at least those bits we want to bring along with us on our Exodus. 138 even promised to deliver our clothes clean and wrinkle-free so that we can have a decent wardrobe of working togs for wearing the next day. 138 came highly recommended by June's colleague, so we're counting on their "stress-free" service to see us through a long and difficult day.

Going shopping for lighting tomorrow...

Btw, I'm keeping an almost daily photo-essay of the renovation process on a thread in the RenoTalk Forum. Feel free to drop in and get the inside story!

500W of pure power

As work commences on the living room false ceiling tomorrow, William advised me to get the cables for the rear speakers of the home theatre system ASAP so he can get them installed and concealed overhead. Since Mega needs about a week's notice before delivery, I thought I'd save some time by driving down to the main outlet at Katong Mall and collect the set myself.

How difficult could that be right? Five small speakers, a sub-woofer and a little DVD console pumping out 500W of raw audio power: should be no problem getting it into M2, especially if it's all nicely packaged together.

What emerged from the stockroom was a crate that measured nearly the length of my entire armspan, and no-joke heavy. I wrestled it up two flights of escalators, and manhandled it partway down the street, finally stuffing through M2's passenger side door with the seat folded flat.

When I got to the new place, I dragged it into the elevator to my floor and dropped it off in the living room that still looks like a war zone. I dug into the box to find the required cables which I left in the storeroom for the electrician to install tomorrow. Then because it wasn't secure to leave the whole sound system alone in a vacant flat, I lugged the whole thing back down again and back into M2. Drove a short distance to M-i-L's place where I heaved it up into another elevator, and down another corridor and finally into temporary storage next to M-i-L's TV.

There was a little label on the packaging that I hadn't noticed earlier. It read "22kg: 2 person carry". Pengsan, I tell you!

Renovation works in progress (II)

New House WIP
Today went pretty much devoted to the new place. Our breakfast plan was to hit IKEA first thing it opened this morning, but to our horror the cafe opened half an hour earlier than the main store, 0930 instead of 1000. So when we arrived on the dot at 10, the cafe was already crowded out with snaking lines for food extending well beyond the cashier stations. Just a half hour late and the mee rebus ran out. We had to settle for the french toast set, which also wasn't bad.

Our main purpose was to get sheving for our bomb-shelter/store room.  Between Tong's Hyundai and M2, we managed to ferry all the wooden planking back to the new place. Tong has also offered his assistance to assemble the shelves for us once the renovations are complete. Thanks, Tong!

Well, the pix above is what the new place looks like as of today. All the floor tiles in the kitchen and the two bathrooms are hacked and ready for a fresh layer of tiles. The existing wall tiles are being plastered over, hence the nasty blackish colour of the kitchen and bathroom walls.

I've always wondered what goes on in a coocoon as the worm undergoes metamorphosis. Now I know.

Feathering the nest

Continuing to exchange real simoleons for home furnishings. We bought a TV with a home theatre sound system thrown in for cheap and the refrigerator.

I usually let June nose around for good deals, and she found Mega Discount Store, United Square, where we met Clarence who took the trouble to explain the minute differences between modern TV features and demo'ed different TV models for us to compare. Because Mega isn't part of a larger chain, it offered us a customized discount package that was somewhat more competitive than those advertised by the big players in the Saturday papers.

Still in search of a sofa and a dining room set. We have yet to see any designs we like at a price we can stomach.

F1 weekend

Edit 01:
Oops... someone's not happy with our F1 after all. But then again, Ferrari didn't have a particularly good race, so I'm not surprised.
__________

Considering all the concerns I have over PW as a subject, it looks like in real-life we S'poreans can bring big, ambitious, even audacious projects to life, and make the world gawk and pay attention after all. I'm referring to last night's F1 race through our city streets glammed up with the beautifully-lit skyline backdrop of the finncial district. I've never seen our city look so gorgeous before, and I guess it's because I've been taking it for granted.

Or perhaps the TV functions as a pair of Emerald City glasses, making things appear more glorious than in reality? I was watching the race on my living room set, just an ordinary one mind you, and already the visuals were just stunning. The Supreme Court, Fullerton Hotal and the sight of those legendary supercars growling through the intricate lattice of Anderson Bridge just blew me away. What a grand first impression to leave viewers around the world, especially if they'd been watching it all on HD. That would have been unreal!

Regardless, many people seem to be giving ecstatic reviews of this weekend's excitement. Granted the Americans and Canadians were only interested in the results, but at least Alan Henry of UK's Guardian gave us a glowing report in his reporter's blog.

It was nice to be described as fast, efficient, and systematic, but it was also excellent to hear other words describing how innovative, gutsy, and even "magic" our ability to pull this one off was. These aren't words we would commonly associate with ourselves, knowing we (and other people) tend to view ourselves as rather staid and conservative. But there you are, concluding the first-ever F1 night race in spectacular fashion, when we S'poreans want something, we'll go all out to make it happen and a half.

PW kids, are you paying attention?

Know-it-all

We certainly do have dilligent kids. From the essays I've been grading, it's quite obvious that they've been studying. Oddly enough, it looks like masses of them have been studying the same things. I've encountered the same facts, the same examples, even the same stock phrases faithfully reproduced in essay after essay. So there's no question that they are a truly hardworking bunch. But, sigh, if only GP rewarded hard work alone, each of them would get a stellar grade.

As I've said before, having knowledge is a good thing, but the more important thing is the ability to select the relevant bits of knowledge and use them to solve the chosen problem. Simply providing a list of facts that have some relationship to an identified topic isn't going to get anybody top grades.

One problem is that many of the other subjects the kids are taking push the idea that if they would just memorise, they will pass score. Their track record shows that they're right, and we in GP get drowned out; the lone voice in the desert crying, "Think! Apply judgement! Argue your case!" But in the end, it's still easier for the kids to deliver a bunch of facts, and wonder why they are just barely passing. Or not.

It must be scary living as a teenager today, though. I get the impression that they are actually living vicariously through their textbooks. 'Cos even when the information from their notes and textbooks are outdated or even goes against what should be common daily observations, the notes and textbook 'facts' -- in an occasionally warped and twisted form -- still come out in their essays. If it's in the textbook, it must be right. Can't argue with that logic.

So I'm not all that surprised that our kids know squat about contraception, a real-life issue. It doesn't come up an any subject that they're preparing to take an examination in, so it isn't important. It isn't in the textbook either, so, y'know, like, whatever. As for 'experimentation' there's enough info in the old sec 4 bio textbook to figure out what goes where, but it kinda' ends there. Hence, the few teenage pregnancies a year. The other teens are probably too busy studying. Probably.

Renovation works in progress (I)

The new place is now a mess of wires, and everything that could be dismantled or unbolted off the walls and floor has been carted off by the gremlins.

The major noisy work will begin Monday, but in the meantime the house has been quietly gutted in preparation.

Today was also our first appointment as sellers of our current place to meet our buyers at HDB. Necessary approvals and permits acquired, we are now committed to the sale. Our buyers intend to move in without renovations, but that will have to wait until we finish ours first.

Mel leaves Ma for MA

So here we are at the airport again, this time to see off Mel. Us and a small horde of people, family, friends, students, all gathering for a brief hug and group photos; something to remember her by until she returns next year. That's Mel, drama till the end.

Guess she heard about the industry's move to take in only graduate teaching staff and wanted to get an early leg up.

Of course, our Boss mentioned other things apart from our qualifications. He's also talking about what and how we should be teaching our kids in his latest big speech: something about our curriculum shifting more towards skills and values in addition to knowledge.

I'm a little puzzled 'cos we've had a curriculum like that all along, in a little known, obscure compulsory subject we offer at JC level called... the "General Paper".

Because...

Once in a while, especially when I'm drowning in essay marking, I need to remind myself why.

Hi society, hi stakes

Wah! Even "social escorts" in S'pore need a uni degree to qualify. Everybody else how? No business awreddy! Li'ddat how to compete?

Is this already in our market?

I wonder if anyone's thought of bringing in the FitFlop to our market yet? Apparently they've been selling like mad in the US for about a year or so, and there's every reason to believe they will do just as well here.

Here's the concept: it's a trendy flipflop (a.k.a. rubber slipper) that looks sporty, feels comfortable to wear, and promises to provide an additional workout as the wearer walks by adding some resistance to each stride. So, toned calves, thighs and glutes while you walk to the wet market, anyone?

As far as the workout goes, 20/20 trashed that idea with its own independent study, but people still love them for their comfort and design. The only drawback I can see is the exorbitant pricetag of about US$50 a pair. But consider how those awful Crocs have invaded our fashion scene: when they first arrived they were also selling high, and whoever brought them in first would have got the biggest share of the pie.

The FitFlop should be a hot seller since we seem to wear flipflops all year round. If anyone's looking around for a new business opportunity, this one might just be a winner!

Edit 01:

Arrgh! Should have researched a bit more. They're already here!

Another applicaton of CERN's atom smasher

CERN scientists must be happy 'cos they have a new pickup line: "Wanna check out my Large Hard-on Collider? It'll give you a Big Bang like you've never had before!"

I tried to work in something about a "black hole" somewhere, but it just sounded rude.

Feel free to add on if you want.

Swamped

... blub... blub... blub...!

Hafari for tiles

Tiles go on the floor, tiles go on walls. Tiles serve different purposes and come in various textures and a multitude of colours. Tile shopping is a big headache 'cos if we didn't know what we wanted, we wouldn't know what we wanted. The options are just too much for novices like us to handle.

Not to say that we wouldn't have got it right eventually, we're not completely aesthetically impaired after all, but the selection process would have taken a lot longer if we didn't have Linewerkz to help narrow our choices down for us.

William brought us to Hafari on Balestier to buy tiles for our kitchen, bathrooms and a small foyer area for the entrance of our unit. I didn't get the name of the first sales rep who attended to us but she was all bright-eyed and eager to show us around. What impressed me about her was her ability to switch from Mandarin to perfect English with a little hint of an unplaceable accent, but quite plainly not Singlish. But while she was cool and professional, she passed us on to her colleague, Thomas, whom William knew personally.

Animated with his explanations, in possession of excellent product knowledge, willing to take a chance with his recommendations, Thomas was easy to talk to and we could trust his taste in the matching of tiles to our design. As June said, it was a relief to get service from someone who had the passion for his trade and someone who firmly believed in the worth of his product. Someone who can make the consumer happy that the purchase was money well spent.

A scruffy sendoff

One more leaving the fold. Mel's got a year's study leave to read her M.A. in the UK. We'll just have to enjoy the peace and quiet until she returns next fall, even more littlemisssmartypants than ever.

Scruffy Murphy's was a great choice for our little party. We booked ourselves into the private lounge and just kept ordering food indiscriminately off the menu -- except for veggies, Jo-jo and Derek, who were slightly more particular.

Food's good. Mostly an Irish pub menu featuring finger foods including yow! spicy wings. Let's see, we also ordered things like the portobello mushroom salad, eggplant lasagna, and I remember downing more shepherd's pie than I intended -- that good. Various orders of burgers filled in the gaps for people who had gaps left to fill.

We were very happy that Lucy and TSL joined in the festivities, 'cos usually they leave the rioting to us. This evening we welcomed them into the mob, and hope it won't be just a one-time thing.

Bye, Mel! Have a great trip, and don't forget to come back!

In other news, we now officially hold the keys to our new place. No time to waste, the renovations begin Monday.

Life follows the Sims

It's like playing the "Sims", except it's for real. The design for our new house is in, and tonight our friendly electrician dropped by to discuss how we wanted to locate our lighting points, cable TV and telephone access, power outlets and switches.

Instead of pointing and clicking with a mouse, we were verbally trashing out our options, making and taking suggestions and advice, and otherwise negotiating our way around what will work to our satisfaction and to the Linewerkz concept.

William was also on hand to assess what needed to be hacked and dismantled from the existing premises. The false ceiling, false beam and the kitchen setup will have to go to make way for the redesign. The existing display cabinets that limit our already small floor space will have to go too. What were the previous owners thinking when they talked to their designer back then? Destroy! Destroy!

We're expecting a mad weekend as we go shopping for wall tiles, laminate flooring (to lay over the expensive but egregiously coloured granite floor tiles, which are an utter waste to hack but at the same time impossible to live with), lighting fixtures, and anything else that will get everything ready for work to commence this coming Monday. The process of destructive creation is about begin!

Our immediate neighbours next door are a bunch of FTs housed there by their employer. They happily cannibalized the old fridge the previous owner of our unit left behind for them. Hmm... not really sure why I brought that up.

The Xmac is [out]

How is it that evenings like this one have become so scarce? I'm taking an enforced break from responsibility, decisions, frenzied activity and controlled panic -- elements of which in different combinations have coloured my so-called off-duty hours of late. If it isn't office deadlines, it's been housing, finance, legal headaches that have been slowly eroding my stamina and enthusiasm, turning me into the walking zombie I am today.

Just so happens I found a window of opportunity to sit in front of the TV and laugh hysterically at the weirdness that passes for "America's Got Talent" or shed tears of joy when an actual talent gets discovered. Never know what emotions will get dragged up to the surface next on that programme; just buckle up and enjoy the ride. Else I'm camping out on Face, or contemplating the fate of my creatures on "Spore", or updating this blog with the latest self-indulgent drivel.

And for one night this week, maybe even practice what I've been preaching and hit the sack early for a change.

And the award goes to...

Time to announce the winner of the "Who wants to design a house for Xmac" contest: After much debate, handwringing and sleepless nights, we decided to award the contract to Linewerkz.

Designer and part-owner, William Tan, won us over as he was able to give us the confidence that our project was in good hands. He impressed us with his ability to deliver on his promises during our initial meetings, and was prompt and precise every time. We felt assured that he would take personal responsibility for the entire project from design stage to the coordination and overseeing of the various phases of the project until the official handover. His willingness to work with our other sub-cons and ensure that what they install conforms to the theme and image he has drawn up for us is definitely a plus-point. But other than that, he proved to be passionate about his projects and takes pride in both his work as well as the company he represents. He gives us the assurance that six weeks from the start of works, we'll be able to move in happily.

As far as the concept and design goes, it's all the straight-line geometrics that both June and I like. Steel and glass balanced off with the warmth of wood; bright, open and airy spaces; a high-tech, modern look overall. Sweet. We found William to be flexible and accommodating in the way he customized the details to our suggestions, but he was firm about the integrity of the design that really is his baby.

And at this point, I add a note of gratitude to May, whose interest-free personal loan is paying for our home reno.

New house: 'Before'

New House
Today I converted almost all my liquidity into a fixed asset, which the slideshow above depicts. The shots are no great feats of artistry, merely an archive of the 'before' of the big renovation project. I believe we've decided which designer to go with based on the strength of his vision. And if all goes well, the 'after' shots will show an amazing transformation. Or at least there'll be a more spacious look and a more unified theme holding the entire concept together.

Interior conflict

Oops. We may have started a price war between two interior designers, both of whom are in the running for a contract to renovate our new digs. We like the concepts both have presented so far: lots of clean, geometric lines; very urban in the use of glass, wood and steel for a fresh, classy city-dweller look.

Both are competing with each other to deliver a quotation we can accept without everyone going bankrupt. Considering how little we can actually afford, we can see that both guys are working really hard to secure our patronage.

It's going to be tough making a decision between the two. One has matched our price requiements already, while the other will let us see his new proposal tomorrow. Ultimately, we have to remember that it's just business and nothing personal, but we'll soon have to make a decision to let one go. That's just how it has to be.

Thai visitors

June's Thai colleagues dropped in on business, and we took care of their R&R like we did the last time. Apart from the opportunity to break from routine, these corporate visits mean that it is our duty to eat well and to find things to do in the name of keeping our visitors entertained.

One highlight was the five of us polishing off an entire Peking duck along with a number of other dishes at the Mouth Restaurant in Chinatown. We also took them on a whirlwind evening tour of Sentosa where they took a cable car across to the Jewel Box to rendezvous with us and M2 again. Spent the rest of the evening sipping Singapore Slings at the Long Bar.

Saturday was shopping for souvenirs at Mustafa's followed by an excursion to the Bird Park where neither June and I have been since, I don't know, forever. The place is greener than I remember, the enclosures now almost completely blended in with the natural landscape. Fed some lories and watched the pelican show, but other than that we didn't see much else due to time considerations.

Our tour service extended to taking them back to their hotel to collect their luggage before seeing them off at Changi.

Hmm... if ever I was considering a 2nd career...!

Happy birthday Linc

How disappointing that we neglected to bring our appetites with us when we went for dinner at the Rice Table. Seven of us finished off most of the first round of dishes, but over-ordered on the second round. Although the food (a variety of Indonesian-style nasi padang dishes) was good, we could only stare guiltily at the leftovers while we sat gorged full, though achieving far below our vaunted potential. And it was all the more tragic because we were at an all-you-can-eat buffet.

Regardless, we still had a profitable evening meeting up with Linc to surprise him with a cake. Though his candle went out with no problem, the tiramisu cake that Wayne and Ton_y bought had frozen solid. It proved impossible to cut with the dinky toy knife the confectioneries thoughtfully provide for this purpose. So Linc got to take the whole cake home with him. Happy birthday, indeed!

Photo credit: Mel

Spore infection

As a game, Spore kicks butt -- mine in particular. A peacenik pacifist approach to conquering the galaxy is doomed to failure and I am watching my empire crumble to dust against a hostile alien intruder and learning that sometimes the best defence is indeed a good offence.

Time to rebuild anew, perhaps with a better strategy that balances diplomacy and trade with self-defence and a mind bent on colonial expansion. Doing favours for other galactic civilizations does no good at all when an implacable foe arrives at the back door guns a-bristlin'.

Spore, first and foremost, is a creative tool for designing creatures and their accoutrements; their buildings and vehicles that they will use to explore and influence their environment as they climb the evolutionary ladder. There are so many shapes to play with. Each part allows its dimensions to be further toyed with, and they all snap together in so many different ways, in perfect symmetry too if desired. With a tool this simple to use, any Philistine now has the power to be an artist. You can check out my designs, for example.

But it's no fun just designing stuff. Our designs have to be tested to see how they respond to some form of context -- in this case, the game environment -- and to see if our creations live up to our expectations. The fun thing is, everything we create goes on the "Sporepedia" to be shared with other Spore players around the world. So apart from stock designs, the creatures and things that populate my game environment have been created by other players, while my creations might show up in theirs. How cool is that?

As for the game itself, the first four stages of evolution are quite easy to achieve. Just gather enough resources, tools and population to bludgeon all competition into submission. "Bludgeon" in this case could mean either overwhelm them with violence leading to extinction or with such a degree of love and warmth that they capitulate out of sheer weariness and agree to become your BFF... forever.

The game truly begins when your creatures evolve to the spacefaring stage. Compared to the tiny tidal pool from which your first single-celled organism eventually outgrew, the galactic map is huge, with a near limitless number of places to explore, missions to accomplish, colonies to establish, friends to make and enemies to destroy; and all the time growing and evolving the capacity to dominate everything. Or be dominated. It's an equal opportunity universe.

Spore: First Contact

Spore has been keeping me busy for two nights already. It's like having a virtual Lego set with so many diferent bits, each as customizeable as we are able to imagine and the possibilities are endless!

The badge above lists the things I've created so far, and I don't think I have been very creative at all. I just hastily threw some bits and pieces together, tweaked and aligned them so that they don't look too weird, then chose the colour scheme from the stock palatte (though there's a custom palatte for players with way to much time on their hands).

Apart from building things, which in itself is fun, there's a game to play too. Too early for a proper review now. I'm just about ready to launch into the main part of the game: galactic domination. That should hold my attention for another couple of days or so...

Will report back when the galaxy is mine! Mwa... ha... ha...!

Redneck central

I totally understand how the good residents of Gardens feel about the prospect of having a thousand foreign workers suddenly settling into their neighbourhood. There are too many dichotomies to resolve before we can expect a harmonious coexistence.

"Foreign" in the sense that the workers hail from another country is only a surface issue. What's more scary about the situation is that Gardens, a peaceful, sleepy, family-based neighbourhood now has to deal with a new tribe of settlers that are anything but traditional Gardens residents -- alien in so many ways. The biggest problem is that all the 1000 potential new neighbours are young males who have absolutely no testosterone curbs at all in the form of wives, or at least long-term girlfriends, and the biggest testosterone damper of all, children.

This is a legitimate fear as the families of Gardens have more prosperity than ba**s while the reverse is true of their new neighbours.

To expand this argument, our tiny nation faces the exact same problem when we relocated to this region. All around us are young, disenfranchised males living in our neighbouring countries, while we are the only bright spot, dripping (at least in their eyes) with cash and playing virgin princess to all of ASEAN. That, for some reason, is something we haven't learned to fear. Or perhaps we haven't opened our eyes yet to the precarious position we're in?

This must be true of the commenters in the ST discussion board regarding an FT's letter asking for better treatment. Despite what they claim, their display is certainly not exemplary of S'porean solidarity. It's bullying, plain and simple.

I'm amazed at the depth of vitriol these people harbour and are willing to let fly at the slightest provocation. Excuse me, but when we made the choice to go cosmopolitan and open our doors to the world, it was irreversible. The world you guys are hankering for, the sleepy village with the slower pace of life, mama cooking kampong chicken for dinner while you work an honest day's wage in the padi fields is gone. We didn't have to entertain strangers then, because we had nothing to attract them here.

But now, everything's different. We wanted to be the gateway to the world, and so the world is here. And what shall we do with our invited guests? Shall we wring them dry of their hopes and dreams, and whatever little they have in their wallets and send them back from whence they came -- which is really what you are proposing -- or shall we treat them with the hospitality that we promised, and help them fulfil their dreams like we fulfilled ours a generation or so ago? And what stories of us do you want them to take back home? That we are honourable friends and solid neighbours, or that we are a bunch of gangsters who know not in whose turf we have set ourselves up?

Look, all the girl wants is to be treated fairly. Stop behaving like there isn't enough to go around because there is. Goodness... if ever there was a redneck central in the S'pore...!