Thursday, December 02, 2004
--- I ---
Past twelve midnight. I have just arrived outside the main gates of my condominium. The guard house is empty. Nobody is in. I dial the house number.
"Sorry, the number you have dialled is engaged at the moment. Please try again later."
I dial my parents' respective mobile phone numbers. They're switched off.
I try the communications system at the pillar next to the gate. I key in my unit number and wait. No response.
Oh shit. I am stranded outside.
I can actually go home and settle down and sleep. I have my key. But what is obstructing me is this stupid gate which I have no means to open.
I contemplate scaling the gate. No . . . what if there is someone watching? He or she is certain to call the police about an attempted break-in.
For the next half an hour I sit outside, frustrated, swearing and cursing away. I am pissed off with the stupid guard for not being inside the guard house; I have no idea where he has fucked off to. Even if he patrols the grounds he would have been back within half an hour. This is a small condominium, not a stupid military complex, for God's sake! I have a good mind to complain about him; complain about all the guards. The last time I caught one of them sleeping on the job. He would have been fucked upside down if this were a military camp. Honestly I don’t know why we residents have to pay money to feed these people if they can't even do a decent job of keeping our residence safe. Hello, we work hard, we pay you money, you sleep and suck the money like that and let people intrude our condominium and steal our stuff . . . this is not fair. And what about attending to residents who do not have cards? Unless the developer is willing to provide gate cards for free. Each household has probably two cards and no more than that.
Finally, a car turns up and proceeds to enter the car park. As the car drives past the opened gates, I slip in. FINALLY! I'm inside the compound and I can go back home.
To my chagrin, I realise that my father is actually on the net, hence the phone line is engaged. He should have turned on his mobile phone at least, in case anybody tries to call through. Now I leave my phone on twenty-four hours, in case of a response check. I only turn it off for a long period of time while watching performances.
--- II ---
I don't wish to go for the Unit Family Day. I only slept at 2am. Less than six hours of sleep. And I'm so tired from outfield training. But this is an army event. Being late qualifies me for market rates.
The event starts off with bowling. Battalion 2I/C kicks off the event by bowling away the first game . . . unfortunately into the drain. Yet there is great enthusiastic applause and cheering, only because everybody has to give him face. Nobody laughs.
I haven’t bowled for almost eight years. The last time was in 1996 during a holiday to Genting Highlands. Back then I got screwed by my father for wasting money because I never aimed and released the ball and eventually it hit the drain instead.
Undoubtedly I am nervous. I'm so rusty at the game. Don't even call me a beginner. Call me an ignoramus. I don’t know how to choose a suitable ball. I don’t know which fingers go into the holes. I don’t know where to release the ball. Most importantly, I don’t know how to throw.
Well, I practice what I preach: I really throw the ball. I remember watching Wai Khang do the same thing. It seems a weird technique, but it's really very useful. When the ball strikes the ground at an angle, it seems to lock itself in one certain direction, and it won't swerve. It is very likely to guarantee you a straight path to the pins.
Sometimes you are quite unsure how much force to apply. A few rounds I throw too high, and the ball slams onto the ground with a huge bang that shocks the people sitting and watching about my lane. Jeremy says, "Do you know how much one lane costs . . . ?"
Mingjie is damn funny: he earns a strike only after he slips and falls backward upon throwing the ball.
PS Goh is . . . just too good. He earns the most strikes, and he has the highest scores.
My section is lagging behind again, as usual. No section commanders around. Sergeants Wenhao and Elson are not here. Perhaps Sergeant Elson would have cried, "Do or die!" and gone up to whack the game. Looking at others' scores, we are like two hundred points away from the highest scorer and even a hundred points lower than the average teams. That is to say, while others score 500++ and 400++, we are within the 300 range. Alvin and I hentak-kaki three times in a row . . . how bad do you think can that be?
* * *
The afternoon is wasted away at Wild Wild Wet. I'm not really enthusiastic about theme parks, not to mention water theme parks. So I decide to find a nice shady corner and sit there and work on the musical. I don’t really care if the unit paid $12 for each admission; lately I've been getting harder and harder to persuade. I will do things my own way and I will decide what I want to do. I'm getting obstinate.
Wild Wild Wet, it turns out, occupies the former swimming pool of the NTUC chalets. Pictures on television and the news can be misleading, because the real land area isn't terrifically comparable to Sunway Lagoon. Basically you have all the attractions surrounded by a lazy river, which isn't really lazy . . . in fact the water rocks so violently and travels so fast that it's bound to provide a bout of nausea to swimmers. At the open area where I sit, and where the lazy river passes through, there is a glass panel where a concrete wall should have been. It looks rather like those enclosures at the zoo . . . you know, the polar bear enclosure, where people can see what goes on underwater. I have a good laugh seeing distorted human beings - with people's heads getting separated from their bodies almost half a metre apart - caused by refraction, particularly when the water is travelling at a pretty high speed.
The most familiar sounds are the never-ending warning whistles of the petty lifeguard who insists that everybody is doing something wrong. People are not allowed to stop by the glass panels and wave to their friends sitting at the same area as I am. Overzealous horseplay is equally forbidden. Another sound is the "tang-tang-tang" of the bell as the water level inside a huge container on the roof of one of the playground towers nearly reaches the brim. All of a sudden, the whole thing will tilt and send water splashing down onto everybody below. The last sound is that of the honking of horns from the bicycle-monorail. These three sounds, together with the background noises of humans having fun, make a delectable symphony of cacophony.
--- III ---
The Straits Times, 2 December 2004
TOO SEXY FOR IDOLS?
Model Nadya Hutagalung, in a cream jacket and denim jeans, arrived with newscaster Glenda Chong.
Asked by The Straits Times which of the two contestants (Taufik Batisah or Sylvester Sim) were sexier, Hutagalung quipped: "Glenda."
Chong, a former model, was indeed resplendent in a low-cut purple gown.
But both apparently left right after their walk down the red carpet. Asked by a MediaCorp employee if they were staying for the event, Hutagalung muttered a curt: "No."
* * *
These must be some of the maddest people on earth: arriving to show themselves off and then go somewhere else.
And this is about vanity.
It really irks me to know that there are such people around. People who put up a show or some publicity stunt for the cameras and the audience - and they disappear as quickly as they appear.
Hey, this is Singapore Idol, not "Nadya and Glenda".
These people create a bad name for the worship of "Idols" and they should just fuck-off.
¶ 12/02/2004 01:09:00 pm Past twelve midnight. I have just arrived outside the main gates of my condominium. The guard house is empty. Nobody is in. I dial the house number.
"Sorry, the number you have dialled is engaged at the moment. Please try again later."
I dial my parents' respective mobile phone numbers. They're switched off.
I try the communications system at the pillar next to the gate. I key in my unit number and wait. No response.
Oh shit. I am stranded outside.
I can actually go home and settle down and sleep. I have my key. But what is obstructing me is this stupid gate which I have no means to open.
I contemplate scaling the gate. No . . . what if there is someone watching? He or she is certain to call the police about an attempted break-in.
For the next half an hour I sit outside, frustrated, swearing and cursing away. I am pissed off with the stupid guard for not being inside the guard house; I have no idea where he has fucked off to. Even if he patrols the grounds he would have been back within half an hour. This is a small condominium, not a stupid military complex, for God's sake! I have a good mind to complain about him; complain about all the guards. The last time I caught one of them sleeping on the job. He would have been fucked upside down if this were a military camp. Honestly I don’t know why we residents have to pay money to feed these people if they can't even do a decent job of keeping our residence safe. Hello, we work hard, we pay you money, you sleep and suck the money like that and let people intrude our condominium and steal our stuff . . . this is not fair. And what about attending to residents who do not have cards? Unless the developer is willing to provide gate cards for free. Each household has probably two cards and no more than that.
Finally, a car turns up and proceeds to enter the car park. As the car drives past the opened gates, I slip in. FINALLY! I'm inside the compound and I can go back home.
To my chagrin, I realise that my father is actually on the net, hence the phone line is engaged. He should have turned on his mobile phone at least, in case anybody tries to call through. Now I leave my phone on twenty-four hours, in case of a response check. I only turn it off for a long period of time while watching performances.
--- II ---
I don't wish to go for the Unit Family Day. I only slept at 2am. Less than six hours of sleep. And I'm so tired from outfield training. But this is an army event. Being late qualifies me for market rates.
The event starts off with bowling. Battalion 2I/C kicks off the event by bowling away the first game . . . unfortunately into the drain. Yet there is great enthusiastic applause and cheering, only because everybody has to give him face. Nobody laughs.
I haven’t bowled for almost eight years. The last time was in 1996 during a holiday to Genting Highlands. Back then I got screwed by my father for wasting money because I never aimed and released the ball and eventually it hit the drain instead.
Undoubtedly I am nervous. I'm so rusty at the game. Don't even call me a beginner. Call me an ignoramus. I don’t know how to choose a suitable ball. I don’t know which fingers go into the holes. I don’t know where to release the ball. Most importantly, I don’t know how to throw.
Well, I practice what I preach: I really throw the ball. I remember watching Wai Khang do the same thing. It seems a weird technique, but it's really very useful. When the ball strikes the ground at an angle, it seems to lock itself in one certain direction, and it won't swerve. It is very likely to guarantee you a straight path to the pins.
Sometimes you are quite unsure how much force to apply. A few rounds I throw too high, and the ball slams onto the ground with a huge bang that shocks the people sitting and watching about my lane. Jeremy says, "Do you know how much one lane costs . . . ?"
Mingjie is damn funny: he earns a strike only after he slips and falls backward upon throwing the ball.
PS Goh is . . . just too good. He earns the most strikes, and he has the highest scores.
My section is lagging behind again, as usual. No section commanders around. Sergeants Wenhao and Elson are not here. Perhaps Sergeant Elson would have cried, "Do or die!" and gone up to whack the game. Looking at others' scores, we are like two hundred points away from the highest scorer and even a hundred points lower than the average teams. That is to say, while others score 500++ and 400++, we are within the 300 range. Alvin and I hentak-kaki three times in a row . . . how bad do you think can that be?
* * *
The afternoon is wasted away at Wild Wild Wet. I'm not really enthusiastic about theme parks, not to mention water theme parks. So I decide to find a nice shady corner and sit there and work on the musical. I don’t really care if the unit paid $12 for each admission; lately I've been getting harder and harder to persuade. I will do things my own way and I will decide what I want to do. I'm getting obstinate.
Wild Wild Wet, it turns out, occupies the former swimming pool of the NTUC chalets. Pictures on television and the news can be misleading, because the real land area isn't terrifically comparable to Sunway Lagoon. Basically you have all the attractions surrounded by a lazy river, which isn't really lazy . . . in fact the water rocks so violently and travels so fast that it's bound to provide a bout of nausea to swimmers. At the open area where I sit, and where the lazy river passes through, there is a glass panel where a concrete wall should have been. It looks rather like those enclosures at the zoo . . . you know, the polar bear enclosure, where people can see what goes on underwater. I have a good laugh seeing distorted human beings - with people's heads getting separated from their bodies almost half a metre apart - caused by refraction, particularly when the water is travelling at a pretty high speed.
The most familiar sounds are the never-ending warning whistles of the petty lifeguard who insists that everybody is doing something wrong. People are not allowed to stop by the glass panels and wave to their friends sitting at the same area as I am. Overzealous horseplay is equally forbidden. Another sound is the "tang-tang-tang" of the bell as the water level inside a huge container on the roof of one of the playground towers nearly reaches the brim. All of a sudden, the whole thing will tilt and send water splashing down onto everybody below. The last sound is that of the honking of horns from the bicycle-monorail. These three sounds, together with the background noises of humans having fun, make a delectable symphony of cacophony.
--- III ---
The Straits Times, 2 December 2004
TOO SEXY FOR IDOLS?
Model Nadya Hutagalung, in a cream jacket and denim jeans, arrived with newscaster Glenda Chong.
Asked by The Straits Times which of the two contestants (Taufik Batisah or Sylvester Sim) were sexier, Hutagalung quipped: "Glenda."
Chong, a former model, was indeed resplendent in a low-cut purple gown.
But both apparently left right after their walk down the red carpet. Asked by a MediaCorp employee if they were staying for the event, Hutagalung muttered a curt: "No."
* * *
These must be some of the maddest people on earth: arriving to show themselves off and then go somewhere else.
And this is about vanity.
It really irks me to know that there are such people around. People who put up a show or some publicity stunt for the cameras and the audience - and they disappear as quickly as they appear.
Hey, this is Singapore Idol, not "Nadya and Glenda".
These people create a bad name for the worship of "Idols" and they should just fuck-off.
