The Black Panther: Lion King recycled?

Is it just me, or does The Black Panther seem like Disney's The Lion King in reverse?

Spoiler alert:

Mufasa (T'chaka) kills Scar (N'Jobu).

Scar's son (Killmonger) is exiled thereafter and makes friends with the Jackals (Ulysses Klaue and gang).

Meanwhile, Simba (T'chaka) becomes king, supported by his mom (Ramonda) and the spiritual Rafiki (Zuri).

Simba has a love interest in Nala (Nakia), and is friends with playful and inventive Timon (Shuri+Everett K Ross), and stubborn, charge-into-battle Pumbaa (Okoye).

Crisis happens when the exile returns to the tribe and challenges the incumbent for the throne.

In the end, House Mufasa still prevails over House Scar.

Not to take away from a great movie presenting strong nuance and food for thought, but perhaps there really aren't any new stories to tell.

The replacement

Behold the the new ride! Design-wise, it's still the same basic shape as the previous, so in a way, I feel I'm keeping the same old car, just with a heap of upgraded components.

Only got to drive him home from the dealership today, so there's not enough driving for a strong first impression. Still, there's a sense of more cabin space internally, while externally it feels slightly longer and the tiniest bit wider in bulk than I'm used to. And while the old car gave off a free-wheelin' fun vibe, this new model feels more mature in the upholstery, the safety features, energy efficiency, entertainment system, and the clean, functional dashboard display.

And because it's Chinese New Year, the dealership sent along a box of Goodwood Park pineapple tarts in the shape of ancient Chinese gold taels, each topped with a sliver of gold leaf. They offer a satisfactory bite, not crumbly and not too sweet. Best shared over a steaming pot of tea. Thanks, Mazda!

No longer mine

M2 has a new owner now. Handed over with both sets of (working) keys, manual, servicing booklet, and roadworthiness inspection documentation. His new designation: an Uber car.

Selling a car second-hand was an on-the-job learning process for me. Here is the sequence as I experienced it:

List car on online auction site. Drive over and have them photograph the car inside and out, and run tests. The car gets advertised on their website along with their report of your car's condition, according to their tests. Open bidding ensues. After 24-hours, bidding closes and the seller is informed of the highest bid. If acceptable, the auctioneer informs the bidder that the deal is on and... that's where I found myself on my own.

The bidder called me to arrange a viewing and a test drive. At this point, it would have been good for me to have had 1) downloaded a sales agreement, and 2) obtained a Transaction PIN (T PIN) from the One Motoring website, to avoid looking like such a greenhorn selling my car. Note that the T PIN is NOT to be handed over to the prospective buyer until the sales agreement is signed -- meaning that the intention to transfer ownership is confirmed.

Since I hadn't yet obtained a T PIN, I went to the LTA branch at Sin Ming. The experience was nothing like the stereotypical DMV staffed by sloths. Instead, it was over so quickly, my head was still spinning when I left, sealed T PIN in hand. Arriving there a half-hour before closing time might have helped. Maybe.

On transaction day (for me today), I exchanged the T PIN for a cheque, signed the transfer of ownership form, and we're done.

Last thing I need to do is to cancel my auto insurance policy for a pro-rated refund since the car is no longer under my name.

Sigh. Hope to see you on the roads again, old boy!

To market, to market

I feel like I'm selling a good friend off once again. M2's been a really good boy these 8 and a half years. He's given no trouble at all; and still gives fine, comfortable rides. I get speed when I want it, and confident control while corning. Compact, easy to park, manoeuvres easily around obstacles, he is difficult to give up. If it weren't for the dratted COE that limits car ownership to only 10 years, I'd keep him for years to come.

Here, I'm prepping him with an exterior wash and an interior polish so that he'd look nice and fetch a better price at the auction among 2nd hand car dealers. It feels like a betrayal, treating him so nicely now only for my personal gain. Really hope whoever takes over ownership from me appreciates the quality of this little car which has served me so well.

On a separate but related note, it's time to tell the truth about how M2 lost his original 17" stock rims and had them replaced with his first set of 15" sports rims. It was CNY 2015. On my way to work early in the morning, I made my usual U-turn towards the CTE. Sitting in the shotgun seat was a bottle of the wife's handmade CNY cookies intended for E. As I was making the turn, inertia caused the bottle to fall off its perch. I tried to catch it but in so doing, took my eyes off the road. Instead of straightening out, I kept the steering wheel on the turn. M2 mounted the central divider with a nasty bump, causing me to look up. It was horrific to see the metal railing just centimeters from my front grill. While thinking "this is it...!", I immediately yanked the wheel left. M2 responded instantly, barely avoiding disaster. The folks at the bus stop probably assumed that a stupid driver had fallen asleep at the wheel. Anyway, the initial bump tore my right front tyre, but I was still able to limp to the nearest service station. The rest of the story I'd already posted. Today, if anyone's curious about the car-shaped hole in the bushes of the central divider, yep, my bad.

Another set of wheels

Done it again. M2's getting to be 9 soon. Thought it a good idea to visit the Motor Show last weekend. Got a call today congratulating me on a successful COE bid.

That escalated quickly!

Old timer, meet new timepiece

Just arrived: my new wristpiece. As the box says, it's a Ticwatch with full Android Wear functionality.

Unboxing, the product bears a large display for which I am grateful. It has only one Home button on the left, but who needs more buttons when every other control you need is on the touchscreen?

The display is bright and clearly visible, and a relief as I am so used to squinting at my previous display, these eyes not being what they used to be. This model is the Ticwatch S, which means it comes with a lot of health apps, "S" being for "sports". One more thing to nag at me daily to get my 10K steps in. Other items in the box are a screen protector and a nifty pair of charging cables. I guess the future is here. If you see me talking to my wrist, I'm actually asking Google Assistant to take a note, make an appointment, direct me to a location, or text so-and-so.

Meantime, My old Pebble Time must have known he was soon to be replaced. Still perfectly functional, it really wasn't his time. But since his parent company got sold away, I needed to find a reliable replacement -- I just didn't expect the Ticwatch to be delivered so soon. Anyway, over the weekend, I suffered a careless misstep and fell head first into a parked bicycle. But most of the damage went to the old Pebble Time, with the now severely scratched faceplate. Guess it's his way of saying he will always be mine, now that I can't sell him off or give him away any more. I'll keep him paired with my old Note 5. Relics of yesteryear.

Making the switch to the Pixel 2 XL

Am now a happy user of the new Google Pixel 2 XL.

Straight out of the box, it's almost ready to use. Transitioning from my old phone was a breeze: all needed files, apps, and settings directly copied over via a data cable link between old and new phones. A quick re-login for social media apps on the new phone, and it's like I never left my old environment.

A quick tip for setting up the fingerprint security access: despite what the instructions say, tap your finger on the sensor. Each tap lights up a segment of a blue circle encircling the fingerprint icon. When all segments are fully blue, it's done. Now getting past the lockscreen is quick and accurate -- I haven't had my print misread even once yet.

Have yet to properly play around with the other features such as the new camera with 'portrait mode', though. My surroundings aren't all that inspiring to shoot. The 'blue shift' issue, well, I knew about it before I shelled out for it. The screen does turn perceptibly blue when viewed at an angle, but it's an imperfection I can overlook, literally.

Once again, thanks to my generous Uncle Moe for the annual provision!

Fillings, nothing more than fillings

A fully-packed day of wall-to-wall consults I had to cancel.

I’d been living with what I thought was a cavity in my molar for months. It made me chew on my left side, but occasionally a bit of stray food would get lodged in there and cause an explosion of pain inside my skull. But I have a deft tongue, good for dislodging food particles from hard-to-reach recesses in my mouth, and so the pain doesn’t last more than a couple of seconds.

Yesterday, however, something went in and the pain stayed with me for the next few hours. Definitely time to stop putting off the inevitable.

Today, I squeezed in an appointment with my dentist and expected the worst. Turns out there was no decay, but my tooth had cracked. The damage was bad enough to cause a little chunk of tooth to come loose, but not so bad as to leave the rest irreparable.

I had the sliver of tooth removed along with an existing filling which had been put in place years ago — a metallic blight against my natural enamel. Sounds painful, but I didn’t realise that was happening until it was over. The new cavity got a new filling, this time in a more natural colour. Yay!

Dentist suspects the crack might have been caused by me grinding my teeth in my sleep. There are wear marks and my canines are flattened. Next visit, we review the new filling, and barring further complications, reinforce it with a composite. Then maybe we’ll discuss the need for a night guard to deal with my night grinding.

Update 19 Jan 2018:
The repair has failed. Was crunching a McSpicy when the repaired molar split in half! Unsalvageable, it had to be extracted. Now living with a gap in the back. Dentist says that in time, my existing wisdom tooth will fill in the hole as it is growing in that direction, anyway. Haven't had an extraction since my early teens. Turns out the process was more frightening than painful. Maybe I have a good dentist?

Jaws

Had the fright of my life. It was our first ever extended family Nat Day feast. We were all anxious to sample the wife's newfound baking skills, and the BBQ that followed.

Cuz J brought around a bull terrier mix he had recently adopted -- actually saved from being put down by his previous owners. The maltipoo was on my lap when the bull came sniffing round. On catching sight of each other, the bull reared up and clamped his jaws on the 'poo, dragging her off my lap onto the ground. While the 'poo was screaming, I reacted, shoving what few fingers I could into the bull's mouth and tried to pull his jaws apart. J and son rushed over to help, the three of us tugging as hard as we could. In the back of my mind, I was wondering what damage the 'poo was suffering. She was still screaming. My forebrain kept focus on the immediate problem: open jaws, assess damage later. Somehow, the bull let go and we got a clean separation. He got an immediate time-out in the garden, while the 'poo went into the bedroom for a diagnosis. It could have been worse.The 'poo showed only bite marks on her right ear, bruised but not punctured. Lots of sympathy and comforting later and the trauma seems to have faded.

The bull will probably need more socialising to properly calibrate his IFF sensors. I'm guessing he saw the 'poo as prey -- like a large squirrel, or something -- and couldn't help himself. As for the 'poo and me, we're gonna be a bit more wary of strange dogs from now.

Cash-cade

A month ago, I had what I thought was a sudden craving to spend lots of money. Turns out, a month later, it wasn't so much a craving than a premonition. All I wanted to spend on was a new (and almost totally unnecessary) monitor with an HDMI port. Everything else was unplanned expense including repairs to Mr L33t; car maintenance; new health insurance policies; membership and late charges for a credit card I hadn't been keeping track of since I never use it; vet expenses for the cat's UTI, wedding gifts; and various entertainment expenses for out-of-town visitors. All worthy causes, no doubt, but the wallet is severely fatigued from the frequent open-close reps.

Austerity drive until next payday... which is looking so far away, at the moment.

Oversized

The new monitor finally arrived, a day late and unannounced. Just so happened I was home. So now I have a huge-ass big-screen monitor sitting on my desk, with barely enough space for my keyboard which is partially hanging off the monitor's baseplate. I might have to rethink the desktop layout, though I hate moving things about, now that everything has been let to settle for years.

At least my games are a lot more immersive, taking up way more visual real estate than before. Yay!

Pending delivery

Does anyone else feel trapped at home awaiting a delivery that's due, but with no specific prearranged time? Guess I'll just nip out for a bit. Need food...

Upgrade time!

Just for the record; my reference, really:
Upgraded Mr L33t again yesterday. He is now rockin' with the following components:
Mobo: Gigabyte AB350 Gaming-3
Processor: AMD Ryzen 1500X
RAM: 1x16GB Kingston
GPU: Gigabyte Geforce GTX1060

If there is a reason for the upgrade, it's due to a system crash that I was unable to diagnose towards a specific fault. What was clear that my secondary drive with all my data was one of the contributing factors. And, yes, I had eliminated that possibility in my testing and the system was still unable to boot.

Good news: Although I assumed the worst in being unable to recover my data files, I had backed them up on a portable drive and was pleasantly surprised to serendipitously rediscover them today. No questions asked, just re-backed them up on a new drive, just to be safe.

And tomorrow, the new monitor is scheduled to be delivered...

Are you normal?

No one wants to be normal in Singapore. A 'normal' person takes 5 years to complete secondary education. That's too slow. Not when 'express' only takes 4 years. If a person has to take an extra year to be schooled, they must be stupid and are an embarrassment to their parents who will never be able to hold their heads up again among their contemporaries, all of whom have 'express' children.

Faith Ng's play, Normal, directed by Claire Wong, focuses on two students in their 5th and final year of secondary education. Daphne blanked out after studying too hard at her Primary School Leaving Exam (PSLE), while Ashley obtained less-than-outstanding results at the same exam -- which they took when they were 12 -- thus qualifying them both as 'normal', and nothing more.

Like every other normal student, they bear the label as a stigma. They have little confidence in their own abilities. Their well-meaning teachers' insistence on upbraiding them on their attire, punctuality and decorum at every slight infraction is simply focused on making the normals conform in outward appearance, but does little to challenge them intellectually where academic learning really counts. As such, with every school day feeling like prison, the normals feel increasingly convinced that they will end up not graduating and their lives will be over.

Unlike the other teachers they have encountered, the new literature teacher who runs the Drama Club takes a different approach with the normals. She believes in them and helps them work out their fears, anxieties and frustrations through theatre and convinces them that they can succeed in the end. But in a plot reminiscent of Dead Poets Society (1989), Ms Hue is alone in her efforts and the system beats down on everyone eventually.

The play is beautifully set. There is the main playing area in which all the action takes place, while a corridor runs behind it framed to look like school chalkboards when lit in front, but becomes transparent when lit from the back (the magic of sharkstooth scrim), revealing the ensemble engaged in a variety of school activities. In a genius piece of lighting design, this corridor-frame is uplit at both ends, casting a shadow that creates the illusion of an old school tower on the upper back wall of the stage.

A snappy script keeps moments of tension, bleak humour, and awkward tenderness flowing at a brisk pace. Scene transitions are done by the cast in low light while singing familiar girls' school songs -- efficient, entertaining and relevant. The dialogue is liberally peppered with colloquial vulgarities, which could be shocking -- if we didn't already know that schoolgirls actually do speak like that. However, in performance, because the dialogue is delivered in perfect English, the colloquialisms feel a little forced and incongruous to the lines. 'Natural' speech is still a paradox local theatre here has yet to figure out. Nevertheless, the few soliloquies at the end are vivid in their revelations of past history leading up to the decision the normals make when events that have transpired cause them believe that kindness has turned to betrayal.

For a play that turns a critical eye on the rigidity of the education system and how it adversely pigeonholes people seemingly for life, it is disappointing that the normals make the decision that they do. The characters of Daphne and Ashley are built strongly and sympathetically. As such, it seems a bit of a stretch that they would succumb to their circumstance rather than rise above it. Perhaps that is the point: that the system wastes much human potential. Like the Alpha, Beta castes of Huxley's A Brave New World (1932), the system gives few opportunities for 'late-bloomers' to excel, or even bloom at all.

But it isn't so much the system that finally drives Ashley's decision as much as her own persecution complex which locks her in a vicious cycle, causing her to interpret every interaction with her teachers as hostile, and escalating that hostility with her own defensive reactions. If Ashley is the architect of her own fate while 22 of her classmates are able to move on from where they are, then the character of Ashley is only there to play the stereotype, pander to audience expectations, and raise sympathy rather than deal with the real flaws of inequality and injustice inherent in a system that is ironically supposed to support meritocracy.

Otherwise, Normal is an excellent and realistic view of school from both student and teacher perspectives. While teachers are well-meaning at heart, their personal biases and choices in responding to their students can be very cruel, indeed.

Review originally published on https://tsupp.wordpress.com (26 March 2017)

Cake in a box

He hears, "put the cake in the box."

She means, "putthecakeintheboxthatIgotfromDaisobutdon'tteartheoriginalpackagingwhichhasinstructionsonhowtousetheboxproperlyandbesidesIwanttogivethewholethingtoCousinSallyasaChristmaspresentsopleasemakesureIcanresealthepackagingsoitstilllooksintactandnotlooklikeit'sbeenopenedbefore."

He puts the cake in the box.

She goes ballistic.

What we have here is a failure to communicate.

Essay: Are foreigners essential to a country's progress?

While others are groaning over a possibly apocalyptic US election result, I'm just going to share another freestyle essay and a self-critique. 'Freestyle' means no plan, just pure improvisation over a 90 minute time limit. And, yes, I do in that span of time allow pauses to compose my thoughts and make edits along the way.

The essay question as follows:
To what extent are foreigners essential to a country's progress? Discuss with reference to your society.

The essay here:
http://tinyurl.com/oz6y3gn

And the self-critique:

Clearly not a standard essay for the General Paper. With no plan, I let the scope of this essay go out of control and ran into trouble bringing the argument back into focus. The definition of 'foreigners' was difficult to nail down as the concept is more abstract than I had anticipated. While the simple idea of a foreigner is someone born outside of local borders, the conception of 'foreigner' is just as telling of a mindset as it is a place of birth. Besides, how does one discuss a relative thing like 'progress'? So many things to establish even before I can begin to make a case. By the time I got to make 'reference to your society', it was really the tail end of what I could manage within the time allotted. As such, the conclusion tries to make a point I hadn't had time to fully develop, ending on a hyperbole with little to no substantiation. And, yes, some evidence is contrived as well. As for balance, well, a resource is either essential (absolutely must have) or not essential (can live without it) and cannot be partially essential (which makes no logical sense at all). I chose to argue 'essential'. Being decisive motivates a stronger argument than being placatory.

Arguing the extreme

Model essay time!

I detest 'balanced' arguments the way they are commonly taught. What usually results is something of a bipolar nature with little basis for resolution. Instead of arguments, what the kids generally produce are almost verbatim reports of 'he said' vs 'somebody else said', which is a neutral approach, but two arguments for the price of one is NOT an argument -- particularly if they are self-negating and hence, inconclusive.

Instead, I prefer turning the essay question back on myself. I don't care what the eternally conflicting straw-men have to say about the issue. What's important is what I think of the unvarnished truth of the matter. While I rail at the world, I am still able to 'balance' my argument by identifying the imperfections that make up the world and our experience of it, rather than shoehorning in balance via the polar antithesis of the question.

Anyway, here's what I think of the 'pursuit of excellence' and whether is is ALWAYS beneficial to [my] country: absolutely, unequivocally yes!

Edit 01:
Coincidentally, I just read this article about the intentional propagation of ignorance by the BBC, making me wonder if we were actively teaching kids to stay ignorant by teaching them to argue through polar opposites.

Staffed duck

Staff retreat. Just ridin' a Duck and feeling like a tourist in my own country.

Getting our flippers wet

Water under the bridge

City skyline

I don't get seasick, else I'd be doing the same

The Sands: view from the Bay

Trusty duck

Don't wanna go back to school!

To Liu who wrote:

Globalisation could negate efforts in skills upgrading

From Liu Rijing -

October 6

I refer to The Big Read article “Despite being vulnerable, few PMETs heed call to learn new skills” (Oct 1) and wish to raise a few points.

First, threats to jobs come not only from technological change but also globalisation.

So how can we be sure that learning new skills will ensure we do not lose out to global competition when companies relocate owing to cost considerations?

Second is whether a new skill one picks up would still be in demand after one has spent time and money to complete the training.

Third, when companies can choose to outsource professional work to a worker based in a foreign country with a lower salary, how can skills upgrading help then? (Today Online)

If you are looking for assurances, there are none. Sorry. But if you don't want to undergo skills upgrading, that's fine. When enough of us refuse to do so, there will be more opportunities for overseas companies to outsource their crappy, low-skilled, underpaid, exploitative, dangerous jobs to us. That should put your overarching fear of unemployment to rest.

10 cents for career counselling, thanks!

Wanna bet?

People are understandably concerned about the legalization of online betting in S'pore within the next month or two. Going online makes it more convenient to place bets via mobile app than having to trudge down and queue up at the corner betting store. But will convenience alone cause a spike in gambling as our concerned citizens fear? I doubt it.

This convenience comes with a price: the ability for the authorities to identify individual bettors, track how much each is wagering per transaction and establish their betting patterns over time. Cross-referenced against personal incomes, disproportionate or suspicious spending on bets can be flagged out for intervention if necessary.

If I were a betting man, I'd still go to the corner shop and place an anonymous bet with less-traceable cash. Only if I win big will the world know who I am. Until then, how I bet and what I bet on is nobody else's business. And as a non-betting man, I see more disincentive than incentive to start.