educatewandie  -

by | § ¶ | trackback"Like being repeatedly punched in the back of the head by Mike Tyson"

wun: Did I tell abt this show Requiem for a dream?
wandie: yes
wun: its so good!
wandie: got naked women right
wandie: thtas why its good
wun: no
wun: no no!
wun: The show really hits ur heart
wandie: orh
wandie: no you didnt say that
wun: is it available in uk? u must buy it
wun: I think I would have kill myself if I watch it when I am young!

Fuck. Requiem for a Dream must surely be the most difficult film I've ever watched. And I doubt I'll ever have the guts to watch it again. I had no idea of what the whole thing was about except that the main theme was rehashed for use in one of the LOTR trailers a couple of years back (Requiem is 5 years old). Wun, should I thank you or curse you for the recommendation? This has disturbed me and I'm not alone in feeling that way. The reviews section on IMDB is littered with comments about the sheer brutality of it, the nauseating experience...

And damn the Academy Awards for picking Julia 'fish lips' Roberts over Ellen Burstyn for the 2001 Best Actress Oscar.

by | § ¶ | trackbackLabour Movement Defined

"News that the NTUC is to have a Sentosa resort club.... The labour movement has an impressive stable of clubhouses and resorts topped by the new DXO dance club, said to be a pulsating place."

- 'Clubland Singapore', 29 May 2005, Straits Times

The jokes write themselves! I'm going to be ROFLMAO every morning when I get back.

by | § ¶ | trackbackIt's Summertime!

Woohoo! It's all over! And with a bank holiday weekend and the warmest may day in britain in half a century too! An otherwise swell day out in town was marred by two unplesant incidents. An apparent burglary/theft of my housemate's wallet chock full of cash by his housing agent when he came by today to collect rent. And the news that a passing acquaintance of nepalese descent from a gurkka family has been denied Singapore PR status despite having grown up there and is now stuck here in limbo because Nepal isn't really nice this time of year...

by | § ¶ | trackbackFoolhardy

Making travel plans on the eve of an exam and making an entry about it here. Not good. Plus I'm such a pathetic cheapo. I plan my trip according the location of Greggs outlets.

by | § ¶ | trackbackSinglish as a Security Measure

You know how those annoying computer people always tell you to choose difficult to remember passwords made up of rojak-ed numbers and letters? Or those that force you to change passwords every month? And how you blatantly ignore their good intentions and end up using your boyfriend/girlfriend's name instead? "Jane good what. No one will ever guess Jane".... Yes I've seen my fair share of these in my user admin work and I'm sometimes guilty of it myself! I've recently lost my 6 digit ICQ UIN in this manner.

"Since users often choose easily guessed passwords, this has historically succeeded about 4 times out of 10 when a reasonably large list is used. Dictionaries for most human languages (even those no longer used) are now easily accessible on the Internet so using little known foreign words (eg Maori words) no longer helps prevent dictionary attacks in principle, and to a considerable extent in practice."

Well perhaps so but you might still want to consider singlish passwords. Don't get me wrong though. I'm not saying this is a fail safe (far from it!) method but if you're going to be using common words anyway, why not use them in a safer manner? Every little bit helps. Yep. All those lahs, lehs and lohs can be put to good use to foil low level dictionary attacks. Before reading this, no russian script kiddie would ever have guessed that we actually spell government as gahmen! Unless of course he uses the Coxford dictionary. :(

So think about it, you can have a password that is easy to remember but safer than your partner's name (unless of course your partner's name is '4gKt38LpQ'). Chalk one up for Singlish.

Keywords: singlish,passwords

by | § ¶ | trackbackCall For Entries: Togoparts Write-Out!

As part of our attempts at raising public awareness on issues facing cyclists and other bike advocacy matters, we've come up with a competition that even trail wimps like me can stand a chance of winning! We're starting off the Togoparts Write-Out! with the following general theme for this first competition.

"The Safe Cyclist - A State of Mind?"

As long as your article is non-ficton and no longer than 1000 words and sticks with the general theme, then you're in. "Got prize ornot?" you ask, why of course there is. The winner of this competition will also ride away with a chio chio LAS Kripton Helmet, sponsored by Entro Cycles valued at SGD150! Time to put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboards) and join in the fun! Full competition rules and submission details can be found here.

Personally, I've already got Write-Out! #2 in my sights and am hoping to run that sometime in July.

Keywords: Togoparts,cycling,safety,competition

by | § ¶ | trackbackI'm going to miss the politics of this sceptred isle

1. Accused turned accuser. George Galloway struts his stuff at a US Senate committee.

2. In a rare occasion, I laughed with Michael Howard instead of at him.

"... perhaps I can offer the the Prime Minister some advice. It comes from my personal experience. The way to get your colleagues to ask you to stay, is to set a timetable for your departure."

".. immigration controls, cleaner hospitals, school discipline and policing.... We had no idea he was thinking what we were thinking"

by | § ¶ | trackbackIrony Surrenders

Look what I found today on the sidebar of Plastic. A quicklink to an AP article filed under 'Odd News'. Hai....

by | § ¶ | trackbackTogoparts Brunch Ride

Once again, the Togoparts Brunch Ride is all ready to roll! As always, we welcome our community members, their/our friends, and friends of their/our friends to hit the road with us this fine Sunday morning!

Date: 15 May 2005
Time: 8.00am
Start: Clementi MRT Station (MacDonalds)
Distance: Approx 25km

An easy-paced ride exploring Clementi, going past Jurong Town and NTU. Actual details will be made known on the day. Roadies are more than welcome to join us. Off-roading is an option that will be activated ONLY if everyone coincidentally turns up on knobbies. Either way, it is a slack ride. If you want to chiong, kindly go join the Thomson group or head to BT. As for the actual brunch, we will be eating by 1130hrs somewhere near Boon Lay.

Most team members will have some form of spares, and repair & first aid kit. But as any amount & manner of incidents may occur (Murphy's Law) even on a relaxed ride, we encourage you to bring your own to complement the group's collective equipment. Do bring your helmet, and wear it! It is for your own protection and also a good habit to cultivate, which we are happy to encourage.

[Technorati: Singapore, Togoparts, Cycling]

Keywords: Singapore,cycling,togoparts

by | § ¶ | trackbackFor Singlish, Pwease Pwess One...

Something old but still hilarious comes this way via MetaFilter...

There's a AT&T Text To Speech demonstration that uses 'natural' and 'accented' voices (for those automated hotlines) so I keyed in the following line of text.

"Wah lau eh, this singlish bery cheem hor?"

Listen to what Alberto from Latin America, Audrey from UK and Juliette from France have to say about Singlish. If you're really feeling bored, then try pairing this up with the posts from 'Wa Si Hokkien Lang' and dramatise the conversations there, then I confirm you chio ka peng.

Keywords: Singlish

by | § ¶ | trackbackPR Campaign Goes Into Overdrive?

"..the Government does not believe in 'a totally independent press', but one that was 'responsible'. The media in Singapore must reflect Singapore's interests, he said, repeating a point made by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts in The Straits Times and Lianhe Zaobao forum pages recently"

           - SM Goh, at the Singapore Conference in London. (via Yawning Bread)

SG Blogosphere vs PSC Scholar, 1 Report.

AcidFlask vs Phillip "You can call me names" Yeo & A*Star, 10 Reports in 4 days. All unfolding here.

Keywords: Singapore,AcidFlask

by | § ¶ | trackbackOneshift Pub Meet + Spanish GP

From what I heard, the first meetup was a hoot. So this Sunday, Oneshift.com will be having our meetup to catch the Spanish GP. House pours will be happy hours (50%) till 11pm and wines at special rates.

Venue: Carnaval Pub @ Chjimes (next to F.Flanagan's)
Date: 8 May 05 (Sunday)
Time: 7.00pm

Don’t miss this chance to get together, relax and watch the best F1 season in years! Remember, when you drink, don't drive. See all of you there!

Keywords: Singapore,Oneshift.com,Chjimes

by | § ¶ | trackbackThe Swingometer Kept Me Going

I've been reading too much MrBrown and having too little sleep watching the UK elections. An election which was of no great consequence to me personally but I watched it anyway. Partly to laugh with the commentators as they got increasingly tired and resorted to humour to keep awake. And also to laugh at the hilarious use of computer graphics by the BBC as they tried to piece together the results into all sorts of graphs and charts and one huge political wheel of fortune thingy they called 'Peter Snow's Swingometer'. It must have been a weatherman's wet dream I tell ya. They even had a computer generated Micheal Howard walking along Downing Street this morning while they tried to show the number of votes the Tories got. The stuff of nightmares I tell you!

As Tony Blair made is first speech after reelection outside N.10, I couldn't help but wonder... is he a fan of Singapore National Education stories as well? He repeatedly used the words 'I have also learnt...' well ok, maybe just twice. So yes, I guess I'm delusional and reading too much and I should get some sleep.

And to all those having their finals (me too!), settling into their new jobs (go girl go!), becoming parents for the first time, having their sides of their stories told or preparing to return home, I wish you all good luck! Zzz....

by | § ¶ | trackback"I'm John from America."

And with those simple words, a new religion (cult, whatever) called the 'Jon Frum' movement is born. Cargoism, is a widespread religious movement among natives of the islands of Melanesia in the South Pacific. The Jon Frum cargo cult is centered in the island of Tanna in the South Pacific nation of Vanuatu. Experts believe the cult began in the 1930's when the American military recruited about a thousand Tanna men to work in its base on Efate.

"Their observances of the many supplies, equipment and Afro-American GIs left a distinct impression on the Tanna workers. And when towards the end of WWII, the American Army departed leaving behind some supplies, the Tanna people anticipated their return. The avenue of these supplies was of course via Army aircargo transport. The Tanna villagers viewed the 'huge bird' and all the cargo, much of it marked as Red Cross Relief supplies, as manna from a higher power. The legend goes that when an American soldier was asked what people they were...the answer of "John from America", evolved into the Jon Frum cargo cult movement."

Isn't it fascinating to be able to observe a very young religion going through it's baby steps? Makes me wonder what other well established messiah-centric religions, for example Christianity, started out under such peculiar circumstances. That's heresy! you scream. I'm not saying all religions arose from blunders or misinterpretation though. Take the Baha'i faith for example. It's another relatively young religion with a well documented history and if one can ever judge a religion by its 'coolness', then Baha'i one wins hands down. But despite it's youth, the creep of human intervention and various political agendas has created splinter factions. With a headstart of over two thousands years, how can one be sure that the Abrahamic religions are what was meant to be? What if it was some silly game of chinese whispers played by some aliens in UFOs? What if it was some lazy translator scribe who didn't learn his aramaic/hebrew/greek properly? Why it was just yesterday that some bible scholars have announced that the mark of the beast, aka Satan has been devalued to '616'. You poor Satan worshippers out there with '666' tattooed on your foreheads should have known better!

Or perhaps you're reading this with the disdain and smugness of someone who is 'civilised' and think you know better than these 'primitives' with their quaint and curious superstitions, who parade around with old discarded US Army memorobilia and the words 'U.S.A.' painted on their chests on the 15th of February every year in an attempt to please their Jon Frum to return with bright new shiny goods in big birds from the sky.

But then are we not cargo worshippers ourselves? The rise of materialism, the popping up of Starbucks, GAP stores, or even IKEA, where the catalog is a bible to some and whose selling point is it's ability to churn out flat-packed (read: CARGO!) furniture for the masses. Witness the so called Cult of Mac. A fierce lot of people who worship the desk their Apple computer sits on and speak reverently in hushed tones about the next cool product that the great Apple company will bestow upon them. Some even go as far as to idolise Steve Jobs in lego....

Note: This post arose from a very interesting discussion started on plastic. I love plastic. I also love Monty Python's Life of Brian. To find out more about Cargoism, google it or read it up on Wikipedia.

Keywords: Cargoism,Religion,PseudoReligion

by | § ¶ | trackbackSingapore Tops FP Globalization Index

With no access to home papers, I have no idea if this has been picked up back home. The fifth annual A.T. Kearney/FOREIGN POLICY Globalization Index has ranked Singapore as the most globalized state in the world for 2005 out of 62 countries (96% of World's GDP). This has been credited to solid groundwork done back in 2003 with FTAs and UN contributions. As always, the quirky nature of Singapore's political freedom is picked up and shown in a neat little diagram with the following blurb.

"Of course, there are always exceptions to the rule. Singapore, the world’s most globalized country, is home to a modern, open economy that exists alongside tight government control over the media and limited individual liberties."

The rankings seem to suggest that small countries tend to take top spots on the rankings although the US and Canada feature in the top 10. Makes me wonder if Gary Becker is indeed right when he wrote on his blog: 'Why Small Has Become Beaultiful'. Yes, even grey old nobel prize winners have blogs these days.

Keywords: Singapore,Globalization

by | § ¶ | trackbackThe Short End Of The Stick

So what if you're a three time Olympic medalist? You flip out in a serious crash while training and all the papers refer to you as 'Armstrong's Teammate'. Out of the last 10 reports I've read, only one headlined with his name. Viatcheslav Ekimov, get well soon.

Keywords: cycling