I wonder if I'm slowly losing touch with the real world. I look at my
received and sent calls, of which possibly 90% are either to
colleagues or are work related. What happened to life outside of work?
Non-existent.
Just as I thought I've had enough and want to quit, there you go
making me feel the post-concert high again and wanting another round.
You're like a bad addictive drug.
Maybe it's because I was totally awesome x 10.
Never mind the various cracks in Africa.
Never mind that I abused my voice after singing Africa at the top of
my lungs.
Sigh.
The REAL reason though, is because I'm afraid they'll turn my teeth
yellow thus flushing my toothwhitening efforts down the drain.
Anyway, it didn't seem as if it was getting any better so I've finally
gone to see the doctor, who suspects that I might have mycoplasma, a
debilitating bacterial infection spread by fluids from the lungs
(stupid old man's fault).
The drug seems to be working -- I've been coughing up tons of phlegm.
Still, Clarithromycin has a number of side effects, the most prominent
of which is loose stools.
And so I've been walking around feeling as if I'm about to leak from
my back end. It sucks. I've cancelled all my weekend activities.
And on that note, a note of advice to all people who have to buy
toilet paper:
Just because it says 3-ply doesn't mean that it's good toilet paper.
My butt feels as if it's been sandpapered.
CUTIE COMPACT TOILET ROLL, I'LL NEVER BETRAY YOU AGAIN!!!!
I've only noticed it being used in the last year.
"Bro, can I ask you a favour"
"This is a good deal Bro"
"Bro, how's the burger?"
"Thanks Bro"
I've also noticed it has become more prevalent after the show How I
Met Your Mother, but that must be a coincidence.
Everyone's using it, except me. What's a "Bro" and when did I become a
"Bro"?
It can't be youngbie lingo, since it's been used on me by like 40+
year old men.
Also, it's a term always used by men, never women.
Is it army lingo maybe?
I'm so out of touch with the real world.
I have one friend that I regularly go out with, but he's now told me
that he's into reducing his wine budget. And he's into fruit bombs. So
I'm not sure if our tastes are compatible.
Sigh.
I love how gap's clothes are like in US sizes. I mean I really don't
think I'm size S. But I'm swimming in an M. And according to Gap I've
got a tiny waist size. Hmmmmmm. I love Gap.
Sent from my iPhone
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSnda5-o654&feature=related
He's going to lose his voice soon. His technique is completely off.
But maybe there's no price to put on that cheesy smile on your face as
you step on the accelerator and the exhaust gives off a little *boom*
where the turbocharger kicks in.
Respectability vs thrill, that was the choice really. And I chose
thrill.
When is the damn car coming.
Patience as a virtue is far overrated methinks.
I wonder how many crocodiles died for that bag.
How on earth is Hermes justified in charging that much for a bag??????
--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
"if I have three children I'll name them Ctrl, Alt and Delete. If they
annoy me I'll hit them all at the same time"
Sent from my iPhone
Patience is a virtue.
There's this one who's into bodybuilding, and tells me that when he
left school he was 50 kg and is now 86 kg of solid muscle (with plenty
of pictures to prove it on facebook). With no steroids (or so he
claims) but with 30 egg whites a day.
That's inspiration for you.
So perhaps I should start getting serious about losing weight.
I'm wide awake.
I can't get up before 1 pm.
I'm definitely still on Italian time.
I need to force myself to get up at 9 am tomorrow. Or else my day will
be shit on Monday.
In the wee hours of the morning, I've come to the sudden, and
horrible, realisation that...oh f***....I'm 31 years old.
But who's counting?
1. poverty; and
2. celibacy
I can't say much for (2), since many people can function being
celibate, but as for (1), I don't know how he can do it. He's given
away all his possessions, including all his savings (which must be
substantial, since he says it's enough to pay the downpayment of a
very large flat). It goes against every instinct I have to hoard money
(I get lots of joy seeing my bank account balance increase each month)
and possessions.
As for (1), It seems the church will take care of all his worldly
needs. For the first 2 years he will be unpaid, and then will receive
an allowance after that. I'm not sure how much that allowance is, but
I'm told that some priests go out drinking, so either (a) it's enough,
or (b) when the priests go out, the non-priests will pick up the tab
to relieve their guilt of being more wealthy, or in a vain attempt to
possibly buy favour from God. This begs the question of how the church
derives income since they don't have tithes, but I guess there's a
reason why the Vatican is rich.
As for (2), it seems that faith is enough to sustain oneself and is
enough to make one happy.
I'm not really sure how all this works, and I've been thinking it's
time I deepened my reading beyond the usual GQ and wine mags.
But instead of starting with religious books (a lot of them tend to be
preachy and full of what tends to be feel-good tautologies, plus I
don't know of any that take an intellectual / scientific approach to
the concept of religion) I thought I'd start from the point of an
agnostic / atheist, and who better than Bertrand Russell.
I tried downloading some on my iPhone, but electronic readers are just
not for me when it comes to serious books. I need to feel the weight
and heft of the book. Trashy fiction books I can do on electronic
form, but not serious reading.
Shocked at the prices that Borders Singapore is charging (it's obscene
really how much books cost) I turned to Amazon.com and spent more
money than I intended, buying a selection of Russell's books, but also
got carried away and also bought some new reference books on Wine and
a guide book for my upcoming trip to Japan in September. But for the S
$400 limit before GST kicks in, I would have bought about 13 books at
one go. Amazon makes it so easy.
So, here is the list of the books I bought:
Bertrand Russell:
1. The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell
2. Religion and Science
3. Why I am not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related
Subjects
4. The Conquest of Happiness.
5. A History of Western Philosophy
Christopher Hitchens
6. The Portable Atheist: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever
Wine (oops)
7. Italian wines 2010 (to deepen knowledge following my recent trip to
Italy)
8. The Wines of Burgundy (fat 900 pager)
9. Cote D'Or: A Celebration of the Great Wines of Burgundy
Japan:
10. Japan (Eyewitness Travel Guides)
From: SalesmanDate: April 30, 2010 4:15:15 PM GMT+08:00To: MeSubject: RE: Vw scirocco 1.4 tsiHi Mr XXX
Your car will be arriving in Singapore on 11th May. Delivery will be abt
end May/early June.
Keep u posted when car arrives in town.
Cheers!
Warmest Regards
[Salesman]
Volkswagen Centre Singapore
247 Alexandra Road
Singapore 159934
-----Original Message-----
From: Me
Sent: Thursday, April 29, 2010 9:21 PM
To: Salesman
Subject: Vw scirocco 1.4 tsi
Hi [Salesman]
I booked the above car in Jan/feb. Is there any news as to when
shipment might be?
[Me]
Sent from my iPhone
--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
| Bridge | 500 | |
| Fiat | 135 | |
| Camper | 92 | |
| Diesel | 65 | |
| De Kuba | 200 | |
| North Face | 90 | |
| Ferragamo | 600 | |
| Calvin Klein | 100 | |
| Prada | 360 | |
| 2142 | ||
It reminds me of my school trips when I was young. So cool.
Some hilarious nuggets overheard in the corridor:
Teacher to boy: "Steven! Nobody wants to see you in the corridor
without any clothes on."
5 mins later: "I said put some clothes on!"
7 am. Big boomy bassy teacher voice: "Guys, get packed." And then
uncharacteristically: "wakey wakey!"
--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
The funniest thing is that the hotel person said the streets are fine
during weekdays before 530 pm, because they have to work....
When we passed by over some of the protest sites in the day by
skytrain, they looked like they were having a picnic.
Perhaps I underestimate the gravity of the situation.
A document needs to be turned around. I need to go for a haircut, and
could use a massage. Then I really need either a nice bottle of medium
or full bodied red wine like maybe a chateauneuf du pape to curl up
to, or some champagne.
What I need are 3 day weekends.
How is it that my weekends get busier as I get older
Sent from my iPhone
Fish.
Apart from Bruce Willis and his new wife, Michael J Fox and family and Keith Richards ( Rolling Stones ) are here.
Bruce Willis goes by the name of Dr. White, Michael Fox ( I can't remember ) and Keith Richards by his own name.
Both Bruce Willis and Keith Richards have their own villas. Ran into Donna Karan's ( famous fashion designer , boutique in the Hilton ) daughter at the spa yesterday. Christine Brinkley ( model ) is arriving today. At such a resort everyone here is looking like ordinary people. There isn't a haidresser here so all the women look like they just got out of bed ! Everyone lives in a bikini. Considering it's a private island the food is stunning. I have never been anywhere ( resort wise ) where there are no Asians or blacks save for us and the staff. Most of the staff are from Asia or local ( known as belongers ).
The colour of the sea is so spectacular and it is extremely peaceful. I can see why this place is such a hit. This is high season especially this week as it's Spring Break and we are going into Easter. I love the quiet. There are no cars so no mechanized sounds which is extremely pleasant. We will drive ( in a buggy ) around the property this afternoon.
=========
Sigh. One day it'll be me going: "Oh, I just had lunch with Tony Blair last week. Tony's such a charmer. Bush was seated next to me and he was being a bore as usual and saying that the capital of Greece is Greenland and that isn't it great that the Euro is so low -- he can buy more French goods like you know, french fries."
I'm sorry my knowledge of celebrity names sucks.
Also tried to sing a couple of Jay Chou songs, which are quite cool.
Thank goodness for the iPhone for me to find all the lyrics in pinyin.
Unfortunately it doesn't help me for Cantonese songs.
--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
I even gave her a "har???" and she asked me again!!!!
Knn.
Is it the way I dress (incidentally polo T and jeans).
I should've given her my name card.
Sent from my iPhone
"NUS choir is presenting a concert this Wednesday. To expose our members to good choral music, and in line with the preparation work for our Rhapsodhy IX, the concert is compulsory for Sec 1s and 2s. This will definitely give us a gauge of what the standard of a professional choir concert is like. (:"
I think first of all, they need to shoot all the tenor 2s. Move some
altos to sing tenor 1, and have the tenor 1s take the place of the
tenor 2s. I'm sure it's not all of them, but enough of them to create
this awful raspy and throaty sound.
I did like the powerpoint presentations, although after a while, it
was a little too much to be having a presentation after every song. It
also doesn't really create the nostalgic feel that I think it's trying
to achieve. Maybe what they should've done is to have a spoken
timeline. Not sure if that would make it less monotonous though.
Oh, then I'd like to shoot some of the audience members for being
overenthusiastic clappers.
My favourite song: Bogoroditse Djevo, although it was done a little
too fast. Not enough serenity.
My vote for least favourite: Honey Suckle Bee something or other. This
was the song that I first wanted to shoot all the Sops for their awful
and out of tune entries; until the Tenors opened their line, after
which not only did I want to shoot them, I also wanted to have their
carcasses drawn and quartered by wild horses.
Wah damn mean lah.
Highlight of the evening was my post-concert Gin and Tonic, my new
preferred alcoholic drink of choice.
Also got to know lot more people in the management class, and in turn
they got to see my face. My boss made sure to introduce me to everyone
so that was great.
Now, to improve profitability. I must start being more serious at
work, to work on my marketing skills and generating fat profits.
Productivity has been in the pits lately.
Everyone should go watch Up In The Air it's pretty good. I draw some
parallels between the character played by George Clooney and myself.
Oh, and maybe I should highlight my hair silver. It might look cool.
Speaking of hair I just found out that one of the directors spends
about 600 to 700 bucks a month maintaining her hairdo. Tt could let me
cut hair for a year...
And that a wash and blow in new York could cost usd 100 before tips....
Insane...
Concert wasn't actually as bad as I thought it would be.
I suppose it helps to have a full house.
I wonder how SCO manages to sell so many tickets to old people whereas
our concert is always struggling to sell tickets. And I wonder how
they recoup the esplanade costs.
Do they have a grant from somewhere? Donations?
On top of that they pay their conductor and members salaries. They're
all professional.
Their ticket prices were not that far off from ours.
--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
It seems my family have found my secret blog and are now endlessly
voyeuring my previous entries to their great amusement. Including this
one. Which they are meant to read.
How disturbing.
This week has been damn busy since basically all of last week's work
was stacking up while I've been on leave.
Consequently I've been rather grumpy.
My day was perfectly planned. I intended to do work A, then work B
then work C. Except at 4 pm, I get an email from my boss which is in
turn from the managing director asking us to deal with an area for
which I have zero idea about. Of course the boss then jumps up and
down and bugs me to look at it before she gets yelled at by the
managing director.
I said to her, irritably: "well the fact of him jumping up and down is
really irrelevant isn't it? if he asks you to calculate how much fuel
you need to launch a rocket to space, it doesn't mean he'll get an
answer by jumping up and down."
Still, that meant that I had to spend the next 30 mins panicking
(since if it comes in, the baby will land on me, and I have no idea
how to do it), and another 3 hours looking for background material,
leading onto a conference call at *6 pm*.
But have decided after all that panicking that I can probably do it.
Will just take longer that's all. And I get to show black face at
everyone while I slog on it. Coolbies. Maybe they should up my profit
sharing component by a fat margin at the end of the year if we get
more of this work.
So all that distraction meant that Work A had to be put on hold
(finally finished at 12.30 am), while I'm going to have to apologize
on a conference call tomorrow at 1030 am because Work B has yet to be
delivered.
Gah.
Can't believe how crowded it is. What a nightmare. Singapore really is
becoming too crowded.
I can't imagine what working in London and having to take the Tube
each day Must be like.
Thankfully no one had BO.
Curiously I also spotted 2 people wearing sunglasses on the MRT. How
retarded.
Boss: We have to take good care of this customer. We want to make sure
we get their business going forward.
Director: Oh that's where you come in lah. Anyway you should just use
your secret weapon.
Boss: Which secret weapon?
Director: [my name] lah!
Me: huh?
Boss: Oh yes, the customer's secret boyfriend!!! I asked her if she
missed her boyfriend and she said: "nolah cannot say like that!"
Me thinking double huh. omg die.
Director: Yes, just make sure he goes along to the office. No problems
one. *snort* *laugh*
I've just been prostituted. Sigh.
Was wide awake the whole afternoon. It's now 1.30 am, and I'm STILL
wide awake. Goddammit.
I'm also trying to cut alcohol intake to once a week.
Unfortunately it means that at this rate, my 20 half bottles of
champagne are going to take at least half a year to finish. I need a
wine fridge.
At one point in time I had no problems passing off as a secondary
school kid. This was near the end of my university.
I suppose I should've started suspecting something when, in my first
year of work, I was already being called "Uncle" by people far older
than me (http://beerandchoir.blogspot.com/2004/12/you-know-youre-old-when.html
).
Yet it was a shocker to me when my friend told me tonight that the gym
trainer told her that he thought, among the 3 guys from my company
that go there to train, that I was the oldest when in fact I was the
youngest!
What has happened to my youth??
Maybe work has given me this gravitas which appears on my face. The
look of responsibility and seriousness. No longer the carefree youth I
used to be whose only care was my next exam.
Now I have to think about saving money, career and what to make of it,
retirement plans, etc etc.
Asking people how old they think I am used to be one of my favourite
activities. However, I've noticed of late that I now no longer get an
answer below "late 20s". 28 is a fairly common answer.
Which means age is finally catching up with me.
This is a tragedy.
First of all, I didn't spend it in the office -- had some compulsory
seminar outside the entire day. 1/3 of that seminar was spent surfing
the net on my laptop, another third doing work, and another third
actually listening to the seminar. Didn't see my colleagues for a day.
yay.
Then I found out that, since my boss can't stand economy class, she
bought a business class ticket to phuket for the directors' retreat in
March. Except that she also bought ME a ticket (the company would've
paid for an economy ticket). What a surprise! Bye plebians!
Then I had a great liposuction session at the gym.
Now I'm at home, ignoring work, and watching lots of youtube in
preparation for my karaoke-ing session tomorrow night!
Among the great videos were videos of Bono, and clips from Grease and
Dirty Dancing. Makes me wanna pick up dancing! Never mind that I've
got two left feet.
Bravely resisted taking a painkiller, because (I) I don't want strange
chemicals coursing through my body; and (ii) how painful can it be?
As it turns out, rather uncomfortably so. Its the same feeling as
drinking an ice slurpee and sloshing it around your front teeth. That
sudden sharp and focussed sensation. I'm not sure that I would do this
again.
As to what the results were, well they were sparkly white.
For a while I was flashing my pearly whites to all who would see them.
And how long did this state of affairs last? For all of a day. Today
they've returned to a yellower shade. Gagh. What happened.
Still, they're not as yellow as before so I guess there's some degree
of improvement.
Bah humbug*end
--
Sent from Gmail for mobile | mobile.google.com
And what did this reliable car fail? It's wheel alignment test. I
haven't even driven it very much.
And then I sent it for servicing since I was already at the workshop.
To be told this one need to change that one need to change.
Owning a car is such an expensive endeavour.
All these problems would be a thing of the past.
ONCE I GET MY CAR THAT IS.
I've been obsessed about this game since last Saturday when Nic
introduced it to me.
It's an obscenely addictive game.
The thing is I kinda suck at it. I don't know what to do with those
aliens that split. And those red aliens that split. I just keep dying.
I really should.
But who's got the time?
Here's one I stole from YL. Yummy isn't it.
It's been a productive day of sorts. I went to test drive 2 more cars:
the BMW 318i and the VW Scirocco 1.4 TSI.
Drivewise the Scirocco beats the BMW hands down. It positively rapes
the BMW in terms of drivability. So I really like it. In fact I had
this cheesy smile on my face throughout the test drive. With each gear
change the exhaust sort of gave a little explosive noise; which served
to make my grin even wider.
The BMW on the other hand, was generally a very uninspiring; boring
drive. It's good no doubt, but lacks character.
The problem is that the price differential quite tiny. I'm told there
will be a CNY promotion, and that the price will bring it within 15k
of the price of the Scirocco.
The BMW marque is nothing to be sniffed at. In Redrapture's own words,
BMW is +10000 points whereas the VW is only +5000. The parents are of
course highly enthusiastic about the BMW; because of course what
screams more financial success to the relatives than a BMW?
But since I'm not really going to drive it back so far, I don't think
that's a factor. Unless they want to subsidize my purchase, which
entails different considerations altogether.
The Scirocco is also smaller, and doesn't have back doors. I'm too
short to reach the seatbelts without stupidly having to sort of
stretch back to grab it. The back seats are short. Everything about it
screams that it is not meant for practicality.
The BMW on the other hand screams practicality. Hugeass boot. Good
backseat space. Quality interiors. And have I mentioned it's a BMW?
BUT IT DOESN'T MAKE ME HAVE A CHEESY SMILY WHEN DRIVING IT!!!
Ultimately it's a case of the head vs heart. As usual. Only this time
I think the heart's going to win.
