Reservist - Good Times, Bad Times, Funny Times

I am back for reservist duties after about a year's break. A couple of "earth-shattering" good news this time round. First one rocked my personal world. But I'll save that for another blog entry. The other one, I'm informed, is that this will be my second last in-camp. Woohoo... next year will be my last ICT!

Our unit moved to new premises. And the new place has practically everything. State of art gym, big-screen plasma screens, a business centre with internet access (yup), pool tables, the works. It's like a country club for smelly buggers.

But, I still managed to find fault. No umbrellas! I couldn't find a single umbrella in the entire camp. Well, maybe I didn't try hard enough. But none was plainly in sight. Smelly buggers were running in the rain, some even strolling, but no one could be seen carrying an umbrella. Not "man", I guess.

Sigh... No face...

I had a rude shock this morning when I tried to access Facebook from my office PC. My company finally clamped down on FB's recent outrageous popularity. I refreshed the page three times and rebooted my machine twice just to made sure it wasn't a connection problem. Sigh... no more face.

Face value is very important for us Chinese. It's a cultural thing. Facebook, in recent weeks, also became somewhat important to me. It's a I'm-too-lazy-to-call-my-friends-so-I-facebook thing.

I'm seriously thinking of starting a petition to repeal this newly installed website block that criminalises social interaction between man and man, woman and woman, man and woman, and, woman and man. I draw my inspiration from the happy folks.

Smokey the Bear

Smoking causes many problems. The obvious ones are the harm smokers are doing to their bodies, as well as others'. Then, there are the other social problems resulting from smoking, such as litter. And finally, the damage that it does to the environment; deforestation in order to grow tobacco, the chemicals released in the air, etc. And if you follow the trail of destruction, you will probably link the polar bears' near extinction to smokers.

What's funny though is that smokers might probably tell you that they can identify with the plight of the endangered animals. Actually, there are quite a few similarities between them.

Ice caps are melting and the polar bears' natural habitat is slowly shrinking - Smoking is no longer allowed in many public places.

Many endangered animals can only survive in captivity, in the sanctuary of zoos, behind bars and glass - Smokers can only smoke within "yellow boxes".

With numbers dropping, endangered animals are finding it hard to find a mate to procreate - Male smokers have lower sperm count, 'nuff said. (Debatable)

Singapore Work Cult

In the news recently was a mega-church group that decided to invest about $280 million to "build, lease and operate an integrated civic, cultural, retail and entertainment hub". That's pretty amazing if you ask me. It got me curious and I began reading what I can find on the Internet on such mega-churches in Singapore.

I know what you might be thinking. But I'm not going into any discussion about whether a religious body should spend so much on a commercial endeavour.

But I do want to tell you about a dinner and dance I attended last week. Round about midway through the event, the hosts asked all of us to get up on our feet and to start dancing. But it wasn't like a footloose-dance-as-you-like kind of dance.

In fact, it was like a great gathering of free-loving hippies, holding hands and skipping around the table, punctuated by flinging of table napkins and doing hand motions similar to the Great Singapore Workout exercise.

It was all very surreal. But it was helluva funny. And for some strange reason, it felt almost religious at that moment.

Peter, Bjorn and John - Young Folks

This is one of my favourite songs from the Wichita Recording label. Peter, Bjorn and John, if you haven't already guessed, are Swedes.

Ole! Ole! Ole!

It's been about two weeks since my wife and I came back from our Europe trip. We spent about 11 days in a packaged tour, travelling from Portugal and across Spain. The trip took us from Lisbon to Caceres, then to Madrid, Toledo, Seville, Granada, Alicante, Valencia and to finally to Barcelona.

It sounds daunting, I know. And to be honest, for someone who don't like travelling much, I was afraid it might turn out to be a nightmare. But, to be honest, those 11 days flew by really quickly. I remembered transiting in Istanbul for four hours on the first day. The next thing I know, we were back in Istanbul again, transiting for five hours on the last day.

I have forgotten just how tough packaged tours can be. The pace is not for the faint-hearted. Also, I have never crossed so many timezones in my life. We must have adjusted our watches five or six times during the entire trip.

I will probably try to write some of the more interesting stuff that happened along the way. But in the meantime, you'll just have to settle for the photos I've taken during the trip. Enjoy!

http://picasaweb.google.com/darren.ng.yh/PortugalSpain

Electric Fans in Hawker Centres

As most true-blue Singaporeans should be, I love good food. And all the better when it's served in our affordable hawker centres.

Eating at hawker centres used to be a hot and humid affair given our weather, so it was a relief when relevant authorities started installing fans at strategic locations in our eating places.

However, I soon realised that the industrial-strength fans are blowing at levels that could rival Hurricane Katrina wind-speeds. Of course, I exaggerate here. But the point I'm making is, it is rather difficult for patrons to eat properly. Papers cups are constantly threatening to tip over, tissue packets (which we all love) are leaping off tables, hair plastered to our oily faces and sometimes oily food.

And even if we can put up with that, there is the aftermath. Hawkers are moving to disposable utensils. Styrofoam plates, plastic cutleries, paper cups, wooden chopsticks (and their accompanying plastic wrappers), and many more, are being blown off the tables onto the floors. You can imagine the mess.

While our cleaners are very dutiful, I can understand, during peak hours, it would be almost frustrating to mind not just tables but also floors.

I am wondering, would it be sensible perhaps, to simply turn down the level of power for these fans in question?

=======

This was first posted on the government's Reach website on 6 Sep 07.

Birds Of A Feather...

Will You Play With Me?

I finally stepped into the Mint Museum of Toys. Admission fee is not cheap if you're not a tourist, NTUC Club member or a student. So, being none of the above, I paid $10 to view four and a half storeys of old, expensive toys.

Some of the toys brought back memories. But some were downright spooky.

"We come in peace."

People Missing Missing Person

Just left office and was planning to do some street photography when this caught my eye again. You have probably seen this posted on lamp posts and in some MRT stations. Another missing person.

As the island population grows, I think more and more people get lost everyday. I don't just mean physically lost.

I hope she finds her way back. http://www.findfelicia.blogspot.com/.

张震岳 - OK

Recently bought a Zhang ZhengYue album. Most of the songs are rather sad. But there is some beauty in sadness.

爱情面貌我试图了解
却把自己搞的很狼狈
有一段时间我不OK
把灵魂关在黑暗里面
当然还是有一些小小的痛苦在身边
寂寞很OK 一个人OK 习惯就OK
寂寞很OK 一个人OK 习惯就OK

An Excuse To Cry

I recently completed a Japanese TV series. It's another one of those heartwarming ones, where the family bond becomes stronger after a death of a family member. It ends happily ever after of course.

But you know how the Japanese over dramatise everything. And even eating a well-cooked Omu Rice suddenly seem like an art form. So, for almost a week, my wife and I have been desperately trying to find that special restaurant that serves Omu Rice that would bring tears of joy on the first mouthful.

Speaking of tears, while watching that series, I think I must have cried at least 5 or 6 times. Quite jialut, considering it has only 12 episodes.

Crying is just not cool for guys. But, hey, crying is a fantastic way to relieve stress. Watching that series was an excellent excuse for me to "let it all go". In the first two emotional scenes, I was quite conscious about it because my wife was beside me. I was rolling my eyeballs and holding back the floodgates until I had headaches. Then it was just not worth it anymore. I started sobbing like a baby.

I'm not advocating crying for men. Certainly not in public places. But if you're in the privacy of your home or room, watch a touching movie, read a sad story, listen to a meaningful song, anything, and let the tears flow. You never know, you might feel happier.

Restricted Zone

Back in the late 70s and early 80s, before ERP became a household term, our govenment controlled the number of vehicles entering the central district with a simple solution. Every private saloon entering the restricted zone had to have at least four passengers.

Posted at the entry-points to the restricted zones were wardens with less-than-perfect eyesight, who had to scan through hundreds, if not thousands, of cars zooming past. Anyone who didn't have the required four passengers would be booked. So in order to prevent accidental bookings, passengers always sit up as tall and straight as possible.

As a kid riding in the car, were you forced to stretch your neck too?

Turn Back The Clock

I think I can probably speak for most people when I say, that as we grow older we tend to look further back at our younger years. I've been doing more of that these days.

People born in my era are placed into a period conveniently named as the Generation X. Like the X-Men, Gen-Xers are misunderstood, most of the time. And, like the X-Men, Gen-Xers hardly grow old. Well, most of us don't anyways.

It's not easy getting used to the notion of being old when you are a Gen-Xer. Gen-Xers are often stereotyped as "alienated, over-educated, under-achieving slackers with body piercings, who drank franchise-store coffee and have little regard for traditional values". But try to fit a "middle-aged man" or "matured lady" into that same sentence, and suddenly the X just becomes Zzz...

So, this is really my not-too-exciting way of keeping my youth - to make people around me remember how old they really are.

Remember these?
1. When Ngee Ann City was still an open space for caroling performances every Christmas
2. Park Mall was known as Supreme House, and there was a roller-disco at the basement level
3. C K Tangs was a big square building and not the Marriott Hotel it is today
4. Car learners drove a Datsun 120 and not a Nissan Sunny or Toyota Corolla
5. Hardees and Wendy's were among fastfood choices
6. Movie posters were actually hand-painted
7. TCS was known as SBC, and 欢乐缤纷 was on at 8.30pm every night
8. TV programming was not 24-hours and you anxiously watched the colour-test screen, counting down the seconds so that you could watch Sesame Street every Saturday morning
9. Pagers were in, and the number code 1-177155-4 meant "I miss you"
10. School shoes had to be white and they were painted with white "shoe paint" regularly.