The world is coming to an end!

... oh wait, that's just the Internet being cut off from Singapore... All thanks to the optic cables damaged by the earthquake in Taiwan. It goes to show that no matter how "bo chup" we can be about the world, the world will find a way to remind us that we had better "chup" about it. See what it did to our Internet?

Have A Very SP Rovers Christmas

Click on the picture to see more the rest of the album.

SP Rovers Christmas Night Hosted on Zooomr

Black out in my neighbourhood

Black out Hosted on Zooomr

There was a blackout in my neighbourhood a moment ago.
Fortunately the power is up now, thus the existence of this blog entry.
Here's a shot of the traffic lights when the power was out.

The Not-So-Great Magazine Divide

The Girlfriend and I were on our way back on the train. To pass time, I took out my issue of ARENA with Tony Leung on the cover. I got the copy because of the cover, and mr brown's article within. Unfortunately, that's probably all the reasons, plus curiosity, of course. Rest of the time, I would perceive ARENA as a gay magazine, as there are so many men's fashion spreads which I will never buy, nor wear. And yes, the rest of the time, I am very much a FHM, Maxim and occasionally NewMan person, for very obvious reasons. Also yes, call me shallow. People who say "never judge a book by its cover" and "first impression counts" are just as contradicting. With that, I say being shallow would be better than contradicting. Anyway, it piqued the Girlfriend's curiosity and interest in the magazine. So I offered it to her. The Girlfriend in turn offered me her copy of CLEO. So we proceeded to flip through each other's magazines. One grouse the Girlfriend had was the microscopic font-size that was used for the articles. I compared the text of both magazines, and she was right. CLEO has a larger font-size compared to ARENA's. Perhaps they wanted to save paper and consequently, the trees. And perhaps men's magazine can increase the font-size and make itself more reader friendly and consequently, increased sales. One article from CLEO that interested me particularly was this...

So right beside Hady, the title of the article says: 7 SKILLS ALL MEN WISH YOU KNEW. This is of course, in the context of the general readers of CLEO, who are women. I was thinking, what kind of skills do I wish would women know, and maybe thereafter, I know what kind of requirements should I set for my better half. :p So I went to the trusty content page of the magazine and I saw this really helpful directory...

It labels the article titles on the cover with the corresponding pages. And for this particular article, page 98. So, I flipped over to page 98...

And then continuing page...

And that was it. . . . So that's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... Where are skills number 6 and 7? The cover did say 7 SKILLS ALL MEN WISH YOU KNEW, right? After much thought... Ok, not much at all, since this is supposed to be an attempt to be farny. (read: funny) I now understand why there has been so many women jokes. From stories about shopping addictions, to their less evolved ability to read maps, to being lousier drivers (don't take my word for this one, as I don't drive, yet), to their superior colour spectrum recognition and of course, the thing about them and numbers (but I would like to exclude the bankers and accountants on this). I concluded (for the sake of humour, that is, which means it should not be taken seriously) that these jokes perpetuate because there are so many Singaporean women reading CLEO, and this particular issue included such a blatant error, Singapore's womenfolk's sub-conscious minds now probably see the digit "7" being represented by the value of five, which coincidentally contributes to the jokes repository about numbers and women. I can picture a classic joke in the making now... Guy: "Eh dear, it's $7000 leh, not $500 hor." Gal: "$7000, $500, what's the big deal? CLEO also get the numbers 5 and 7 mixed up what! If CLEO had messed up the math in Singaporean women's head, I wonder what else in their minds had been messed up... But then again, it's not like us menfolk haven't been screwed in our minds by the stuff we read...

Oh. My. God.

This. Is. What. Nightmares. Are. Made. Of.


There's no place like home.
There's no place like home.
There's no place like home...

Shit, this nightmare is real...

See? Singapore men is not bad one, ok!

Wow!

Thanks to The Straits Times,
I feel so much better as a Singaporean man to know that Singaporean men in general (i.e. by virtues of this article and this article) are the choice partners of high flying women! All over the world

Now, if only I am over forty... and a business man... and a widower/unmarried/divorced... I would feel so, so like a hot property in the market.

Completing my 4th Marathon

I was at it again. Running my 4th marathon. And I thought I might as well do it a la Kenny Sia. No videos though. Then I realised it was quite fun to be sightseeing during the run and decided to take pictures of interesting things I saw. Early in the race, I saw this lady running the full marathon dragging a tire, a styrofoam box, and some cans with her. Pretty insane. Maybe at the next marathon, she'll literally fly. Then I came across this guy stripping for breast cancer. 6.28am The crowds were heading towards Marina South through the underpass. 7.06am I had cleared the first roundabout check point just behind me. So I took a few photos of the incoming traffic. There were plenty of water points along the way... ...and with it came a lot of trash. 7.57am I was well out of the Marina South area and into the CBD. I came across the first Runspirators. There were also interesting T-shirts to read along the way. 8.05am Moving on back to Esplanade Bridge and towards East Coast People snapping pictures of people running. The Swedish contingent of runspirators The elite runners on the other side of the road. And this is on my side of the road. 8.14am Hobbling along towards East Coast Another water point, this time with bananas Somewhere, I saw this... Probably too much beer the day before. And then I came across Singapore's Team Hoyt-to-be 8.36am I bumped into David and Zengrong and did a bit of pointless cam-whoring... But this one of David and Zengrong is absolutely priceless. Another group of runspirators cheering the runners on. Then I bumped into Owen, my cell group member from church. And also a desperate loser. At the Tanjong Rhu area, the Runspirators are drastically different... They do it in comfort, along with champagne. What were they thinking? Formula 1? Along came Ryan was suffering from diarrhoea the day before. Runspiration Band A picture of used Power Gel packs. Volunteers sleeping on the job. Cheerleading kids along East Coast An award-worthy photograph in the making. Just that I missed the moment they shook hands. Pity. Hope the SLR camera caught it. NTU Girls Another Runspiration band Oh look! Spiderman! And Cat Woman! Now these are real Runspirations I bumped into more friends too. I was tempted by this... But it wasn't open... So I had to carry on with the race. And then, it rained... It rained for more than an hour, and during that time I couldn't take any pictures. And when the rain stopped, I came by this contraption... ...but it didn't seem to do the job of cooling me down... For the curious, all the trash we left behind are taken care of by foreign workers like him. 12.23pm I've finally reached a familiar stretch near my workplace. Then I go under Sheares Bridge, and caught the foreign workers having a nap. And at the final moments before crossing the finish line... Not to forget the photographers who never do a good job at taking my pictures. And after the finish line... And I saw this girl stretchered off. I think she must have been overwhelmed by her accomplishment and the pain that she went through. This being an unofficial Rovers event, we moved off to have a celebratory feast. Do not negotiate the stairs. I repeat, Do NOT negotiate the stairs. Especially after putting your legs through 42.195km. Billboards of cute baby penguins. Finally made our way to Cafe Cartel at Marina Square.