once again sheepman has the latest news from the nanny state.

i don't see why people are so surprised that protesting was allowed in allotted spaces and only with police-approved placards. if anything i would have thought that wb/imf delegates chose singapore so they wouldn't have to deal with rabble-rousers. it's a bit like japanese porno. all the delegates go "yameru .. yameru .. don't be so harsh on the protestors" but at the end of the day it's still scripted and they still get paid. so it's really not that big a deal to them.

as for the banning of the far eastern economic review? i have nothing to offer you but a terrible pun: there is nothing to fear but f.e.e.r itself.

edit: i'm finally on blogger beta! hoo!

new banner ! dear blogger, please publish.

and now for something completely different ..

this is old and i dont know how many of you i've shown this to. but anyway it's somethingawful.com's international male catalogue fashion s.w.a.t. !!

no, sheep i don't feel guilty. but i do wonder what happened to him !! especially when i'm eating at hungry jack's.

me: burgers make me think of that tourist
mum: huh?
me: the carls jr. one. nothing in the papers about suicide in hotel room or anything
mum: oh. maybe his body's not been discovered yet because it's still floating off to sea somewhere
me: ... i guess that's the same positive outlook he had
mum: you can always count on me, my darling.

in other news...
"hello is mary there?"
"no. mary is not here. you've got the wrong number"

2 minutes later ...
"hello? mary?"
"no. there is no mary here. you've got the wrong number"

5 minutes after that ...
"hello? may i please speak to mary?"
"no. really you may not. because she probably gave you the wrong phone number"
*silence* "what number is this?"
"what number did you dial?"
"[recites number]"
"that's not mary's number. really."

today, after 19 hours have passed
"hello? mary?"
"for the fourth, and hopefully last time, i swear there is NO. MARY. HERE."

dear crazy old bat who keeps calling mum's phone,
just give up. mary hates you so she gave you a phony number. deal with it, move on.

woot! my first 1000 visitors!

ok that's all

the whole jesus camp/confirmation camp thing really got me thinking and sometime yesterday, zoot and i decided that we shuld have a reunion! so like any resourceful girlie would do, and hopped on friendster. now i may be terrible with details such as what events happened when, but i'm pretty damn good with names and truly, i surprised myself with how i could still remember who was in which clique!!

thusly, messages were sent out asking if anybody else was interested in a reunion and enough people answered to justify organizing it! oh i am happy. by sheer force of personality i will see this thing through, by jove.

so anyway, since singapore is so damn small and there's still about 15 people whom i can't locate on friendster, i bet someone reading this will have a brother whose ex-classmate's neighbour was a "graduate" of auntie paddy's 2000 confirmation batch. if you do, ask them if they would like to come to our reunion! or direct them to this blog and tell them to tell us their name and quest. and as much we'd love to invite your brother's ex-classmate's neighbour to our soiree, we'd really like to limit it to people who were in the same class as us.

jesus camp anyone?

how different is this from our confirmation* camps?! all i remember from ours was the guys sneaking out to buy cigarettes, terrorising other campers (sorry dean, no malice intended. it was just for a laugh), terrorising the teachers (sorry aloysius), boys and girls going 'steady' only to break up 3 weeks later, and of course the formation of the STUPID LOSER FRIENDS !!! all churchy activities were very calm sedate affairs more focused (i think) on making church fun so we all wouldn't stray, as catholic youth are wont to do.

there really is no point to this comparison, except that i find this jesus camp thing very alien.

* sacrament of confirmation

ladies and gentlemen, we have a band! so it's a concept band with no songs and only two members, but the cogs are in motion nonetheless. to quote my partner-in-crime...

stunt/fight coordinators are go!

we even have a myspace! http://myspace.com/stunt_monkeys

oh. my. gawd.

[new link]
check out longlostfriend leslie's blog o'er yon links panel. dude's done well for himself. if you're in sg go checkout his gigs.

[expansion of mr. miyagi's post]

on a lighter note, what the !! when adit was in sg earlier this year he did come across this place and ask what i thought DLV was. the sms thread went something like this

a: what do you think designer label vaginoplasty is?
me: stop shitting me. go away.
a: i'm standing next to this ad in parkway. there's a place on the 5th floor.
me: maybe they um ... monogram you
a: oh. must be.

postscript: while we're on this topic, here's a great finishing quote of the day.

sheep on why he/she shies away from political posts:
"oh...i shy away from them in case someone thinks i have "sand in my indian vagina" "

i don't know if any of you read, but richard hammond from top gear was in a bad baaaaad accident. i am so sad! bboj watches top gear for the cool cars, i watch it for the funny challenges and the hamster. he has good teeth =P

hear ye hear ye !!

i have found a chinese indiepop band !! the marshmallow kisses. who doesn't like marshmallows?? (harhar 40c) thank you last.fm!!

check out audioclips here or here

i am sick of univershitty! i want to earn $$ and go shopping .. anybody got a spare degree i can buy ??

*wails & gnashes teeth*

finally!! after 3.5 years of uni i have a piece of paper !! albeit a pretty useless piece of paper that qualifies me to do almost nothing.

and then when you see little miss phd with a thesis on"molecular mechanisms of iron transport by hepatocytes from a HFE knockout mouse model of hereditary haemochromatosis" and mr phd with a thesis on "molecular characterisation of the genes encoding the human Oncostatin M (OSM) receptor complex sub-units, OSM?R and gp130" it just makes you seem even more insignificant.

i swear some of those words are made up. but OH WELL. small consolation is, amongst the entire group graduating tonight, the ALVA students were decidedly best-dressed and least pompous of the lot.

and that concludes international talk like a pirate day*

* yes we're dressed like ninjas, but do note the pirate concession stickers!

he be no justin timberrrrrrlake, but t' opportunity for punnery be too good t' pass up !!

happy birthday me heartie!*

in other news, it be international talk like a pirate day so drink some grog and don't forget yer arrrrs yer scurvy bilge rats or you'll be tasting the cold metallic blade of a cutlass smartly.

* this lubber insists that naught shall know his name nor face.

read here, then see here.

if you were like me and just read google news without reading the speech, you'd have thought the pope really stepped his red prada boots in it this time. who the hell goes around dissing islam? apologies il papa! i thought you were almost 100% idiot! but now maybe only 50% =P

if you're going to say something with "Mohammed", "evil" and "inhuman" in the same sentence you're just asking for your words to be taken out of context, and i still think JPII wouldn't have made his point in such a, dare i say, sensationalist manner. but if you actually got past that one sentence you'd also see that he was promoting a dialogue of cultures.

so now there's anger spewing all over the place. protests in pakistan, militants in iraq vowing war (enjoy a career as an al qaeda militant! employee turnover rate may be high, but they always have vacancies), marching in indonesia (don't you have jobs?) etcetc .. i particularly like this article where a saudi newspaper purportedly said that the "remarks linking Islam to violence were beating the drum of war for the far right in the United States".

even if his intention was to denounce islam as evil and violent and inhuman (which it wasn't, i think), don't you think he would have been proven right? WE ARE SO TOTALLY NOT VIOLENT AND ANGSTY they cried as they burnt effigies and threatened holy wars.

marina mahathir (the famous dr. m's daughter) who writes a column for the star newspaper wrote this in may. and it's pretty true.

anyway i'm not going to the whole condemning islam thing because i don't, so please don't burn any effigies here. coming from singapore where the only people who smiled back at me during my smile experiment were the old malay aunties and uncles, i know it's only a few crazies who manage to stir the shit up where people have not much to do and don't have access to google news.

if i were the pope, i wouldn't be apologizing that i offended people. i'd be apologizing that the people who are offended are so goddamn stupid. oops. used the Lord's name in vain.

i'm not exactly into aussie politics, neither am i an expert on aboriginal affairs. so will somebody please explain just what this is all about? spit on my shoes and call me ignorant, but just how will a successful native title claim be a "fantastic opportunity for the state to open a new page in its relationship with the Noongar people" ?? i have no idea what the real implications are either. but it doesn't sound good to me at all. what happens with the local councils and everything? and just what do the noongar plan to do with western australia once they get it?

what good is it if you own the whole of western australia, when there are more serious problems to deal with in your own community especially in the rural areas?

according to this article the legal claim has been going on for three years. we've been here six and there's been nothing in the papers at all. and the results come out tomorrow? nothing in the west australian about it, and if i hadn't read the australian online today i wouldn't even have known! anyway mum doesn't reckon they'll win and i seriously hope not. i don't fancy being evicted from my home just because some abo from halls creek decides to make it his villa urbana.

kigurumi - tarako tarako tarako

something to drive you mad on a friday.

[stolen from sheepman]

see this guy? no wonder he's frowning.

woohoo! today is day !!

all i did was make one innocuous comment about how i dont have enough hanging space in my closet. which led to a tirade by my mother about how my room is too messy. which led to her conclusion that i need more hanging space in my closet ... =_="

so it kind of became like i didn't make any comments about the closet and it was all her idea so we are trooping to today.

so anyway, there's 2 reasons to love the swedes: the hives and

m?atb?lls anyone ??

" Hi samurai bunny - a wee message from FlickrHQ:
You have more than 200 photos in your photostream and you have a free account. That is excellent news, but, it does mean that you've hit one of the limits of your free account: only your most recent 200 photos will be displayed. May we draw your attention to the amazing benefits of a Flickr Pro account, and gently encourage you to upgrade your account? "

ARGH! this is as gentle as .. as .. i can't think of anything right now but this is certainly not a gentle encouragement.

so anyway .. is it worth it? hrmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm ...

pros:

• unlimited uploads
• unlimited sets
• unlimited photos displayed in photostream

but then do people actually look at 200 not-recent photos? and therefore is it worth it to get a pro account just because of this? hmmmmmm quandary !

i'm sure i'm not the first person who's thought of this. but i haven't read/heard of/spoken to anyone else who wants to do this, so i document it here. and remember! you (may have) read it here first!!

but anyway. i want to go on a haruki murakami tour of japan. as in follow the trails of his characters from 1 or 2 books. it should be fun right?

gosh um ... how do i put this delicately ...

you're an idiot.

today's programme has been brought to you by lynnie loo (吕), njstar communicator, and a mug.

吕*

传说中国上古时期共工有一个侄孙名叫伯夷。他曾辅佐尧掌管四岳，后来有协助大禹治水立了大功，尧帝就任命他为视官，制订出一套维护尊卑的视法制度伯夷因功而封于 「吕」这个地方，他的子孙世代为诸侯，历经、虞、夏、商、周前近二千年，到春秋时，吕国被楚国所灭吕国的工族为代就以国名姓，形成了最早的吕氏。周武王征伐朝时的主帅姜子牙，就是吕国工族子孙。

历史上著名的吕氏名人有三国名将吕布。「三英战吕布」的故事至今仍为津津乐道。

.

.

and now in english. if there are errors it'd be good if someone corrected me =P as i said before my mandarin is quite appalling.

“ Legend has it that in ancient times, there was a man named Bo Yi (pronounced buo-yee), who once assisted in governing Si Yue (Four Mountains?). Later on he did a smashing job in assisting King Yu in regulating waterways and was conferred the title of minister and given the title to a placed called “Lu”. His descendants were feudal lords of this land for almost 2000 years until the spring-autumn period (i’m guessing this is some kind of historical reference), when Lu Country was invaded and destroyed by Chu Country. This was when the people of Lu Country took on the surname “Lu”, and became the first Lu Clan. Jiang ZiYa is a famous Lu descendant.

Another historically famous Lu descendant is Lu Bu, whose story still thrills and brings joy to people. ”

* in pinyin this is pronounced as Lǚ

it's been a few weeks now since i seriously started listening to some chinese music, and i'm struck by how everything is so pop. either they're very obscure and i'm not looking hard enough, or no such thing exists. but then i've never heard of chinese indie music. the only proper chinese band i know of so far is 五月天, which is really sad. so anyway, i've decided i should try to fill that niche. together with dear stoo and whoever else decides to volunteer, i'm going to try and create a chinese indie/rock band.

of course, first i have really improve my mandarin. at the moment i find it difficult to string together proper sentences let alone compose a song or something. but baby steps !! learning to crawl before walking and running etcetc.

i refuse to believe that chinese music listeners are so devoid of taste that they only ever want to listen to the rainie yangs and ... whoever else it is that people listen to.

also, i refuse to believe that chinese songs can only be about
我爱你，
你爱她，
回来吧，
我为何振扎?
这个感觉到多么可怕*

anyway this whole getting in touch with your roots thing has gotten me really curious about my family. stoo and i always joke about having a family crest whenever we see that shop in the city (the one that creates a family crest for you based on your surname. applicable to caucasians only), so i decided to find out the origins of my own family name.

dad has this mug with a big 吕 on it, along with the origin of the surname in 繁体字, which i can't really read. so anyway i'll type it up here some other time (tomorrow perhaps) with a translation. from what i gather, we were some type of royalty!

for now though, it's off to bed!

* original composition by me. although i'm pretty sure there exists a song out there with all those lyrics in different permutations.

this is kindof an air-headed post but anyway ...

lately many guy friends have been bemoaning the lack of suitable female companionship. maybe it's because the nature of our uni life is such that we really are reclusive and don't get out much to meet new people. or maybe they're introverted. but still, asking someone out is something that guys are expected to do all the time. even if it's for coffee or just talking or something, guys are always expected to make the first move, and it's not very fair!

maybe girls think that if they ask a guy out the guy's ego will be so inflated he won't fit in his chair anymore. but i don't think that's the case! i think your average nice-guy generally lacks the little testiclé required to make the first move, and if the female of the species put their best foot forward and talked to someone that she thought looked interesting, the boys would be much happier.

not trying to defend or put down one or the other. it's just an observation and i'm just saying.

CRIKEY!

steve irwin was punctured by a stingray ?! that's too unfortunate .. and more than a little shocking. i mean the guy pretty much hurled himself at crocodiles and came out unscathed. and this time he just swims around a bit and he's dead? and so young too .. not just age-wise but with young kids and everything.

oh dear .. this is pretty sad. but at the same time it's kind of apt. he's the type of person you can't imagine dying of old age.

anyway it's late and i'm a-ramblin'. the point of this is that i just wanted to say R.I.P. you crazy ocker man.

you have 1 hour and 15 mins of fathers day to do something nice for your dad.

okgo!

today at mass the choir sang this song entitled "telephone to glory" and i burst out laughing. in the middle of mass. just before communion. and i couldn't stop. i'm surprised nobody doused me in holy water. but i felt kinda bad because there was this sweet old lady next to me who was singing along quite happily. so i had to think about someone dying just to make myself feel a bit more solemn.

anyway, the song was horrendously cheesy and i really wished zoot was there because she would have laughed right along with me and i wouldn't have had to look heathen all by myself. but then again, mum did a double-take when the saw the lyrics and i'm pretty sure i saw her biting her lip to keep from laughing herself.

and after mass we had to scuttle out of church because i'm pretty sure everyone saw my heaving shoulders and heard the muffled snorts and giggles.

edit: i have since learned that the glorious telephone song is also an old jazz/blues song. however, i still maintain that it is silly, and that a barbershop quartet-type rendition is not appropriate for Roman Catholic mass, unless the intention is to have the congregation in stitches.

the book i'm meant to be reviewing is on New Urbanism, which also goes by the name of Neo-Traditionalism.

i think when it comes to portmanteau (we learned this word before, remember?) and -isms*, the architect is king/queen/lord and master, especially for -isms that aren't easy to decipher at first glance. what a pompous esoteric lot we are.

also, like i said stu's present FINALLY arrived in the mail! after 9 weeks of waiting. so of course it had to be delivered asap*.

i'm glad he likes it !

also, a certain somebody introduced me to the works of marten baas. i like! i want. take note of the toxic yellow chair under "treasure furniture". MDF = Medium Density FUN ?!?!

* n.b. hopefully one day i will have my own -ism. CUTE-ism. and you will all love it or else.

* stoo + ben's presents were ordered in the midst of hard gay mania. i think it's kinda dying down now, but still u gotta admit it's a funky present.

IT HAS ARRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVED

jubilation !! and all that jazz. i will post pictures of this mysterious IT after it has been delivered to its rightful owner.

[makes happy noises that temporarily replace the wailing and gnashing of teeth that accompany the essay i'm supposed to be pulling out my arse right now]

oh look! it is past midnight, and my flickr upload limit is once again at 0%!

the first few are from the strokes concert that was a few weeks ago, but then we didn't take that many photos. mostly because there was either nothing on stage, or the strokes on stage. and when the strokes were performing, taking photos kinda took a backseat to jumping around.

the rest of the photos are just stupid ones from stuie's beer&moustache party.

also, many deadlines to meet but then my sleeping patterns are super screwed up. so before i finally actually go, here's a motivational poster!

you may recall the first version of this .. well i figured i'd take it one step further and print out version 2 to put in studio/my study. perhaps gazing at it will inspire amazing fantasmic work.

edit: it's so annoying how you can't change the order of your photos in flickr =_= i forgot and uploaded my strokes pictures in (what i thought was) chronological order but is in fact reverse chronological order and now they're all reversed (except for the one in the middle) *breathe* ARGH! damnation.

happy merdeka to all malaysian readers!