Editor's note: I will now, depending on the vagaries of my whims, post words of the post, like The Associate. Unlike him, though, I will not resort to posting obsolete, medical or technical jargon, mostly foreign words, or words so obscure no one could possibly know or use them.

Word of the post: "wanton"

I was supposed to meet Tim last Sunday but his parents didn't allow him to go out because of the lightning. Anyhow, I passed the memory chip to his brother and have gotten a new one - but the problem persists. So I'm now trying to get my BIOS updated. Now if they'd just reply to my form submission...

I maintain, as I always have, that chequered shirts and blouses = tablecloths. I've not seen an exception to this rule to date.

The Straits Times School Pocket Money fund has been relentlessly campaigning for donations. The principle is good, really, but I would like to see some statistics detailing how the money is given out. I suspect that most of it is given to families which are very poor and which have 4, 6, 12 or even more children. Now, if you are poor, you have no business bringing so many children into this world, when you cannot provide for them. 2 if fine, 3 even. But once you get into double digit figures, one wonders if we're creating a moral hazard by being kind.

Some people have long memories. A Mr Tan Kim Hock wrote in, to complain about Jack Neo's holding of "Wah lao" to be a Singaporean export we can be justifiably proud about, referring to his letter dated May 1995. Must've been a high point in his life. Actually if they accepted my letter I'd probably be rather pleased too, seeing how hard it is to get into those pages.

I am never drinking Carlsberg Beer. Not that I'd drink beer, or any alcohol, but their damn ad has pissed me off royally. I wonder if they know that their campaign hit diminishing returns long ago.


Thought on covering bodies overly much:

'"No," he said. I would like to climb straight up the slope - but" - he hesitated - "is it too long and steep for a girl? I have climbed in rougher country, hunting, but can you manage in your long skirts?"

She laughed and told him that she had climbed often. "And as for the skirts, I am used to them," she said, "but if they get into my way I will not hesitate to tuck them up above my knees."

Morgaine flushed. "I have never thought modesty had much to do with bared legs for climbing - surely men know that women have legs like their own. It cannot be so much of an offense of modesty to see what they must be able to imagine. I know some of the Christian priests speak so, but they seem to think the human body is the work of some devil, not of God, and that no one could possibly see a woman's body without going all into a rage to possess it."' --- Marion Zimmer Bradley. The Mists of Avalon, Pg 149. Del Rey, 2001.

The compulsion to make women cover themselves is actually an admission of weakness on the part of men, so why should women have to cover themselves from head to toe just because of the weakness of a few - okay, many - men?


Some other people whose letter got rejected by the forum (On the initially simplistic stayer-quitter matter)

"For instance, when we made our film, we sincerely wanted to reflect the speech of regular Singaporeans accurately, rather than the polished and ersatz dialogue on TV. Yet, this led us to a full-on collision with various authorities who disapproved of us using dialect or Singlish, the low point of which was having the Singapore Broadcast Authority yank our 15 second TV trailer off the air for having "excessive dialect and Singlish", when last we heard, Singlish itself, while discouraged by some, wasn't illegal in itself. We note with some interest that PM Goh's own use of Hokkien and Singlish during his address wasn't cut."

I suspect the main reason it was rejected, really, was its length :)


They're closing GEP in RI, RGS and the Communist Boys' School, and stopping supplementary intake too. I'm gonna become an anachronism - doubly so. Eeks. I wonder if GEP can survive without Raffles. "I just hope they'll stop gep soon so I can go on knowing i was part of something exclusive. I shudder that cedar or st. Nicks will replace raffles."


Quotes:

[Mother to me] The Pioneer magazine will do a feature on you - the mad serviceman who brings soft toys to the army

[Tourist from Brunei in the Forum] If you don't like what I said and want to sue me, too bad.I am going home on Sunday.