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.