Lots to write, continued
The send off was quite happy and everything. Barring a little bit of inconvenience with the authorities (the checkpoint staff didn't believe Aunty Dolores was going Australia for good) it was very smooth. The kids didn't even cry!
Tristen is a little upset now, though. He wants to fly to Australia and bring her back. Ahh well.
Going to Perth for the wedding should be fun though! I was initially contemplating taking a sidetrip to Melbourne to visit friends, but ouch internal flights from Perth to Melbourne and back are something like AUD$450. Madness. Too expensive for my cheap blood.. haha.
Anyway my eyes sting like fire now. Left eyelid hurts a lot, swollen. My left 双眼皮 now looks like a big fat crescent. Nearly 单眼皮-like. Makes me look cock eyed.
The rest of this blog is going to be extremely uninteresting because i'm feeling pretty grumpy, with itchy eyes and the flu. So if you don't like it, don't read. I don't give a shit.
I think my left eyelid is swollen either because of heatiness, or because of some kind of food allergy.
My friend insists its because, at the zouk party, I stared too much at some hot chick dancing on a podium. (But she really danced very well! Quite rare, nowadays.)
Speaking of eyes. At the airport, I learnt something new about my father today! He can raise one eyebrow. I can't do that, though I've always wanted to. He said he can do that because he practiced a lot when he was a kid, inspired by single-eyebrow-raising baddies he saw in the movies. Dad then proceeded to show off his single-eyebrow-raising skills to the entire family, which was quite embarassing.
Well, the adidas party at Zouk was pretty okay. I wouldn't say its super fun la, but at least I wasn't really bored very often (podium girl helped). I get bored easily during clubbing, as some of you know well.
Oh but there was this group of relatively loserish guys, headed by a particularly sleazy kid, who was hitting on the girls around me one by one. It was actually a bit sad la because he was so pathetic at it. But on the other hand, its bloody disrespectful to hit on girls dancing with guys la! If I was dancing with my girlfriend and some guy hit on her, I swear I'd punch his bloody lights out. Freaking loser. I think some of the guys were pretty annoyed. Lets hope he gets severely beaten up one day.
Anyway, I lost the address of that restaurant with the nice roti john that has oodles of freshly chopped onions, fried egg and mushrooms. My dad took it. So once I find it I'll write about it (hopefully with pictures). Ditto about the parking ticket.
Pretty hard to find a picture of Brooke Burke not in a bikini.
Lots to write!
I want to write about the Adidas party at Zouk, two nights ago.
And the brilliant food at this Tampines foodcourtish restaurant. (Best roti john ever!)
Definitely want to write about the %$@&%#^ $50 parking summons i got while eating at abovementioned restaurant.
But today is the day my maid flies off to Australia so I'm going to write about that first.
This is the photo collage I made for her:
Auntie Dolores has been with my family for.. hmm i dunno, maybe 19 years now. Shes filipina (thanks to Louis for spelling) though her mom is Australian. Anyway shes marrying an Australian guy she met through her mother. Hence shes flying off to better shores (also known as Perth, Australia). Bon voyage, auntie!
More to come later after I come back from the airport (maybe).
Ya call a plumba?
I just spent the last half an hour replacing the faulty bathtub/showerhead faucet-contraption-thingy in my parents bathroom.
You know, that thing wtih the water regulating lever, push it to the left and cold water comes out, push it to the right hot water comes out, push it up and more water comes out.. Push the little knob down and the bathtub fills up, pull the little knob up and get soaked by the shower cos you're standing in the bathtub.. Yea, that thing.
Anyway. That faucet-contraption-blah in my parent's room has been leaking for ages. They've tried to live with it, keeping a pail underneath it to gather the dripping water which can then be used for watering the garden, washing the clothes, bathing the pet dog etc. (They still remember water rationing days back in the.. uhh. 60s? 70s? long time ago la.)
Recently though, our next door neighbours had a plumber over to replace a water pipe. My kaypoh mom, watching the proceedings from my house, latched on to the plumber as he was leaving and asked him to give us a quote for stopping that leak in her bathroom.
So the plumber says:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."
No, seriously, he says:
"Aiyoh, this one, big job. $110 dollars. Very cheap oredi. Must replace whole thing."
My ever economical-minded dad suggested that he'll buy the faucet-contraption-pooky for the plumber and the plumber will just charge us the worksmanship fees.
Of course, the plumber says, no, these faucet-contraption-doodas come in lots of shapes and sizes, you'll buy the wrong one, i need to find the specific one for you, all that glitters is not gold yadda yadda yadda.
So my dad goes okay, thanks, i'll call you back.
So the next day we buy one of those faucet-contraption-goonybirds from our friendly neighbourhood hardware store. (Hardware store owner: "Orh you want that faucet-contraption-fongsaiyok isit? Donch worry la, all same size one! If different size then everyone dunno how to buy then how to repair?")
Price: $50, including some other tools hardware and tape needed for the job.
Time taken for me to figure out how to remove the old faucet-contraption-ladida from the wall: 5 mins
Time taken to install the new faucet-contraption-dingdongbell: 10 mins
Time taken to remove the new faucet-contraption-heyhosilver because i forgot to tape up the joints with white sticky tape: 5 mins
Time taken to tape up the joints of the new faucet-contraption-franklyscarlettidontgiveadarn and reinstall it: 10 mins
So there. $60 saved for half an hours work. Sure, maybe I didn't do it as quickly, professionally or neatly as a real plumber would. But I did it, didn't I?
Big job my arse.
This was the very first time I ever did something remotely close to plumbing, so don't go thinking that I have experience or something.
A family friend once had a plumber come and fix a leak in his latrine.
The plumber told him it was a difficult job and will cost $240, and family friend, thinking the problem was quite serious, agreed.
So the plumber took out his wrench, knock knock here, tap tap there, tighten this, loosen that, and lo and behold job done in 2 minutes flat.
Of course, family friend refused to pay the exorbitant price (which works out to $7200 an hour) for such an evidently simple job.
So the plumber simply sat down where he was and began cursing family friend's father mother grandfather grandmother uncle auntie cousin cousin-once-removed cousin-twice-removed and pet dog.
Plumber-from-hell finally left after family friend gave him $150 and told him he was calling the cops.
I'm sure everyone has or has heard personal anecdotes like that. So, beware! Don't get cheated!
Honest workmen nowadays are a dying breed.
P.S. Yes, I've replaced most of the pictures on my site with thumbnails, out of courtesy for the non-broadband users out there. Besides now I can also give a bit of credit to ImageShack, who hosts all these pics free. Long live ImageShack!
I have a good memory.
I have a shit memory. So, before I enter uni, I'm embarking on "Project Memory".
I'd have a funkier name except I forgot all the synonyms of the word 'memory'.
Basically, I'm going to do lots of brainteasing puzzles. IQ, crosswords, cryptograms, whatever.
And I'm going to read more mindbroadening stuff.
And study too.
And I'll embrace the power of positive thinking to help me.
What brought this on, you may ask?
== Case 1 ==
I went to a friend's birthday party last friday. I saw this ex-RI guy there I knew, so I said hi to him.
I haven't seen him in awhile, so i decided to try and catch up.. The usuals, like what jc did you go, what uni course will you be studying etc. etc.
So. He looked at me strangely and said "I'm from RJ."
I was like, "Hey! I'm from RJ too! How come I don't remember you there? What faculty were you in?"
"Med fac. Like you."
"Oh really? How come I never saw you? What class?"
"Same as you. I was your classmate." Drum roll: *Ba da ching*
Sigh.
== Case 2 ==
And on monday night I went for supper with some other RI friends.
Once again, another RI friend I haven't seen in awhile:
"Hey, long time no see! How are you? What JC were you in?"
"RJ."
Well, I was damn sure he wasn't my classmate. And I was pretty sure he was from TJ. So i countered, "You sure not? What class? What fac?"
"The class beside yours la you freaking idiot." Drum roll: *Ba da ching*
Sigh.
So, yea.
My mind is a mush.
Time to whip it into shape! Positive thinking, positive thinking.
"JD, you have a brilliant memory! Your memory is like a super computer! You're a titan of memory! You're the Ferrari of brain power!"
Ladder Theory
If you people haven't heard of this before, I suggest you check it out here.
Its a humourous quasi-scientific take on male-female relationships, that actually rings true when you get right down to it.
To summarise, it basically states that men and women classify each other into ladders upon meeting. Men have only one ladder, where the higher up a woman is on the ladder, the more he'd want to have sex with her. Likewise, the lower she is, the less likely he'll want to do anything with her. Whereas for women, they have two ladders. One is the real ladder, which has guys she would want to have sex with, and the other is the friends ladder, which has guys she only wants to be friends with.
There are lots more ramifications and stuff.. like how a goal in life is to get higher on the ladder, how guys who are on the friends ladder but think they are on the real ladder are screwed, yadda yadda.. check out the Ladder Theory site to get the full picture.
Yes its quite a western idea, but replace the idea of "sex" with, I dunno, "romance" or "making out" and I suppose it'll make more sense in our more moderate Asian civilisation.
And the rating system is quite screwed. At least for now la. Maybe its cos we're still young. But I can't imagine being so shallow.. haha.
Barring all that, though. back to Ladder Theory. The majority of my guy friends think its quite true.
Though most girls either deny it or wimp out saying "its only true to some extent".
Girls can't seem to accept that guys only have one ladder.. haha. But I think if you really think about it.. Go read the "criticisms of the ladder theory" bit on the site. And I don't deny that there are exceptions to everything. Nonetheless I'll bet you some of your now-platonic guy friends had mild crushes on you in the past, just that you weren't high up the ladder enough for them to want to make a major play for your affections =)
Mull upon that, ladies! Lol.
Well its getting late. I'll expound more upon this later. Or maybe tmr. Or thursday. When I'm free la.
Once again, you can find the official site of the Ladder Theory here.
**Late Addition**
Sorry bros forgot the required picture of a hot chick for each blog.
A not so good picture of Ase Wang
I would have found a better picture, except I'm kind of lazy la. Shes hot, anyway. I think there was a month she was featured on the covers of both FHM and Newman. Oh get the latest issue of Newman, with the calender. The calender is quite droolsome, wink wink.
*rumblings of displeasure from the ladies*
Uhh i mean the paper quality of course. Very smooth and glossy. Yea. Night.
New URL, new name, same old layout
Hey. I decided the willow thing was kinda faggy, effeminate, and sort of just plain weird.
Hence the new blog url. This should stick for at least awhile.
In fact, as some of you may know, this used to be the old url of my private blog.
So, in commemeration of this momentous occasion, my blog header now includes the picture of a BMW 6 series convertible!
Oh, and for you guys out there who keep telling me to put on more pictures of pretty women.. heres another one!
Bow down to the hotness of Nadia
More blogging about absolutely nothing when I get around to it.
No woman, no cry
I just realised to my horror that a song i wrote has the exact same chords and tempo as Bob Marley's reggae classic "No Woman, No Cry". Sigh. The C G Am F progression. Haha well. Maybe I should start learning reggae..
Anyway, today was the first time I read the lyrics of "No Woman, No Cry". Some stupidass told me years ago it was about being strong when alone. Bullshit. Its Bob Marley telling his woman not to cry. Its about poverty, slavery and oppression.
So I shan't taint the song by writing a crap song with the same chords.. I never really was that good at songwriting anyway =)
Well. That picture of Elle Macpherson is really turning my stomach urgh. I mean no offense to her but I suppose I'm just not really the angmoh loving type. At least not the tall blond strapping nordic-aryan standard of beauty.
The pic with Lindsey Lohan is cool though. I mean, the Squier Stratocaster isn't exactly the most beautiful guitar on earth, but its pretty good.
This, however, is better:
Les Paul Classic Bullion Gold *droools*
Alright sorry mopping up my saliva now. Well uhh.
Yea okay so uhh. Continuing the Flesh Fest! Yes. Well.
Presenting Samaire Armstrong!!!
Samaire Armstrong looking sassy
You know, Anna Stern from the OC? The Anna Stern character is now officially the dream girl of many of my friends. Haha. Especially that pink beret outfit! Disgustingly cute, but she pulled it off haha.
Well actually, ang mohs in general don't really do it for me. I'm more traditional, I guess. Prefer asian looks.
Eurasians get the best of both worlds though. Like Debbie Wong. Not really fair, is it?
Anyway heres a picture of Go So Young. A korean actress, I think. Not sure, really. A friend sent me the picture in secondary school as an example of a 仙女下凡. (If I got the chinese wrong, I apologise. Too long never use la, rusty liao)
Go So Young looking sweet and demure and not looking at the camera
See? And its just a picture of the face! No bod! Haha now wheres that silly girl who says I only look at hot bods and T&A and ignore the face? That was for you! Yes, you! The america dwelling one!
And since we're on the subject of pretty koreans.. Fine don't make a fuss. Now we are on the subject of pretty koreans.
Heres Jeon Ji Hyun (i think theres a hyphen somewhere in the name, can't really tell with these korean names)!
My Sassy Girl looking sweet and demure and also not looking at the camera
Jeon Ji-Hyun looking not-so-sweet and not-so-demure but sitll not looking at the camera
Hmm.
Whats it with not looking at the camera anyway?
Remember those portrait pictures all the rage in the mid 1990s? Where the people all gaze in awe at some faraway object? Weird, man.
One day if i'm bored enough I'll collect lots of those photos of people gazing off-picture, stick them together, and make them gaze in awe at a gorgeous picture of me.
Okay anyway.
Oh pet peeve disclosure time! I hate it when girls (especially true for girls who love to take photos, even more especially true for bananas) take photos and when they smile at the camera they insist on turning their face so the damn camera always captures their "best side".
I mean, fine, i understand you want to look good but do you realise how spastic it looks when you flip thru the photo album and all you see is the left side of your face?
And whats wrong with looking straight at the camera? Project some confidence la! Why, afraid that some potential suitor will see the photo and get turned off by, I dunno, how round your face is when not in profile? God. I mean, you look the way you look, just be natural in photos la. Its just for memory sake, anyway!
Imagine, 50 years down the road, your grandkids flipping thru the photo album, and they'll be going like "Grandma, was your neck permanently sprained? Or did you have a huge scar on the right side of your face?"
Urgh.
Okay sorry if I offended anyone. Just think its silly, thats all.
Flesh fest!
DISCLAIMER: If you dislike seeing pictures of gorgeous women, please close the browser window now. We will not be liable for any feelings of excitement, jealousy, low self-esteem or pure unadulterated rabid lust incited by the pictures below. Thank you.
Well! My last blogtry had a picture of a beautiful lady in it. Seeing her picture everytime I opened my blog made me smile. And judging by numerous favourable comments from my (guy) friends, it appears that it makes everyone (the guys at least) happy to have beautiful women to ogle at as they read my somewhat-boring blog!
Thus embarks a new era of JD's blog. This is for all you guys out there!!!!!
**Late Addition**
Okay the original photo I put here really turned my stomach, so I changed it. Yea. You can see the original pic here.
**End**
Actually I don't really think shes that pretty la. But she is Elle "The Body" Macpherson.
I can just see all my brothers out there perking up. YOU LIKE IT, DONCHA BOY.
(sorry for alienating the female readers of my blog, yes, all three of you. I'll be perfectly okay if you scream at me after this, really.)
Heres another one!
Wow! Gorgeous isn't she?
.
.
.
Yea, those ARE killer curves, man!
.
.
.
Fender Stratocaster electric guitars really are something else, aren't they?
.
.
.
Oh you mean Lindsey Lohan? Oops, sorry. Yea, shes pretty good too!
*grin*
Okay fine I'm sorry that was kinda lame. I'm tired. I'll continue the flesh fest tmr if I'm inspired.
Cheerio!
Catch up blog!
I'm going to attempt to play catch up on everything important/interesting that happened since my last blog last year.. Personal reminder la in case I ever look back and wonder WTF i was doing when i was stuck at home.. haha.
Okay uhh. Lemme think. 11th Jan. Saw Sting. Friggin awesome! Never really cared that much for his music, but hew as simply amazing live. His voice is just so much stronger and better than on CD! And a bloody 50+ year old shouldn't look that good. My sis and her friends were nearly raving about his tight ass. The musicians! And the musicianship! Incredible. Drums, guitars, bass, percussion, backup vocals, keyboards.. wow it was all perfect and seamless. And so much groove! And the songs Sting wrote, with jazz beats and african scales and indian melodies and everything.. I've never heard music like that before. Superlative concert, baby. I would put a photo here now, except I have none.
Next topic!
I forgot what else happened.
Urgh.
Oh yea! Went to zouk night of 14th jan with an ex-classmate. Normally, going zouk wouldn't be anything interesting. Except that we only spent FOURTEEN DOLLARS APIECE. And still got 3 drinks! 2 with the entrance ($12 before 10pm), and 1 free with UOB visa mini! Could've gotten more drinks if we knew that Zouk was giving out free heineken that night, but well whatever. So thats a good 5 hours or so of entertainment for $14 bucks! Cheaper than a movie, and more pretty girls to look at!
Saw Debbie Wong there! She was pretty cute I tell you. I have this new plan of only having crushes on unattainable women, so shes the next candidate! Lol. And she has a pretty good singing voice. And you know how i am about girls who sing.
Hmm a friend commented that I'm getting cynical on love. Interesting, no one ever said that about me before. Its just that I think I'm a better person single, I suppose. So this way I can effectively ensure I stay single.. at least till I graduate from Uni. Whoa thats 5 years. Good luck to me.
Okay what else what else!
Hmm I think thats all I have to write here. Awesome. I kinda thought this was going to be a long blogtry, but I guess my life is just too boring!
Roam the world
I enjoy travelling, I really do. But I realise I don't really like to leave my comfort zone very much.. As in, I like to return to the places I've already been to and enjoyed myself at.
Well thats not wholly true. I think if I had really excellent companionship, I would probably enjoy checking out new places. But right now, alone, I don't really feel that adventurous.
Anyway. I consider myself relatively averagely well travelled, I suppose. At least I leave the country about twice a year, minimum. I think my parents first took me travelling when I was uhh 3 yrs old. Think it was Taiwan or Hong Kong.
Sidetrack:
My parents love to amuse themselves (and humiliate me) by telling the entire world anecdotes of my childhood.
Things like how, when I was three and holidaying in taiwan, I refused to let go of my Dad's hand cos I was afraid to get lost, yet refused to admit that it was my hand holding his hand cos I was angry at him for not buying me a windmill. (Hey, I was small and kids don't have much guile.)
Or like how, when I was smaller than three, my parents used to put my dad's artist reference books in front of me (read: full of nudes) and I used to be fascinated with them. (I maintain its the pretty borders of the pages that interested me.)
Anyway, whats with the whole humiliation thing? I mean I don't mind my parents liking to tell stories of my childhood, but they obviously derive such morbid fascination in watching me squirm. So they HAVE to pick the most embarassing stories possible.
Or like how when I'm alone with my parents at home, they'd call me by name. But when I have friends over, all kinds of weird terms of endearment appear, like "小隽隽" or "达儿" or the like. Urgh.
:End of Sidetrack
So. With my family, I've been to China, I dunno, probably like 10 times by now. And aside from the freezingly cold Harbin, my parents have basically been to every part of China worth visiting. And we've been to Australasia a good 3 or 4 times too.. And I seem to keep going back there of my own accord.
Kinda stuck in a rut, huh?
My flight stewardess friends have practically painted the world crimson with their personal brands. Whereas I've left much of the world untouched, but painted and repainted certain portions so often its the colour of dried blood.
Sorry about that. The colour red always gets me feeling slightly morbid.
Well hey don't get me wrong. I'm not complaining. I'm happy the way I am, and though there are lots of places I'd love to visit, such as greece, spain, egypt, I'm just saying that I don't really think I actually want to.. Not till I have the right person/people to explore it with.
Meanwhile, stuck in my comfort zone, I'm nonetheless happy as a clam =)
Idea for this blog came wholly from Louis Tan's blog and his link to the site shown down below. Thanks bro. (He writes like I sometimes wish I could write. But envy is a sin, so i'm simply happy for him. See how magnanimous I getting? Thats a NewYearsRes of mine!)
create your own visited country map
or check our Rome travel guide
A late "Happy New Year!"
Y'know, maybe I'm just not much of a blogger. Too much that happens in my life I really don't feel like writing down, for various reasons.. too sensitive, too insignificant, too boring, too complicated.
What I always wanted to do was keep a real actual diary. The pen and paper and bound volumes with gold leaf type, yea? Problem is, my handwriting sucks, and writing is too slow for my thought process. I'm a very fast touchtyper, and I can type nearly as fast as my mind can come up with the words.
Blogs though.. I don't think they serve the same purpose as diaries. The whole in the public thing, I suppose. And private blogs.. well. I dunno. Call me a sentimentalist but I think theres really something in an actual book you can hold.
Kind of how love letters aren't really love letters unless they're handwritten on nice paper. Emails? No way. Too easy. No effort at all.
Like if you recieve a christmas card, wouldn't you want the note inside to be handwritten? Its more personal, that way.
Well. A slightly belated happy new year, everyone! Its gonna be a good 2005.
I've always liked the traditional imagery of the old year, personified by a wizened old man, being replaced by a cute little cherub, the embodiment of the new year. Not so much the young replacing the old, but more of the idea of fresh change which pleases everyone.
Hmm its resolution time, too. Commonly, new years resolutions are fervently pledged at the start of each year, fervently ignored in one or two months time, then fervently forgotten by mid year.
This year, though, I'm going to break the trend! I'm going to try and keep at least half of my resolutions.. Haha. Of course, this first resolution may well be broken too but hell, a guy can try.
One of my resolutions is to try and not be affected by my pet peeves.
One of my pet peeves is not liking to carry women's handbags for them. I think its demeaning and embarassing. But this year on, I shall be secure in my masculinity, and grin and bear it.
Another one is when people don't reply my smses. Of course some smses don't need to be replied, but when I ask a bloody question I expect a bloody answer, even if it ends up coming 6 hours late.
And a subpeeve of this peeve are smses less than 3 words long. Like "OK" or "K thanks" or whatever. Hell, you've got 160 chars to emote, and its not like 160 chars is damn long, can you please just try and make some use of it??!
Alright, okay, that was a last rant. From this year on, I promise, if people sms me and don't reply, I'll just politely sms again. I promise not to get angry and stuff your handphone up your arse or down your throat.
Have a great 2005! (ord loh)
