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"maybe you can try being normal for once cause that would be really weird"
...
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I am never *ever* buying Lux Super Rich Shampoo. The first ad featuring Michelle Chia was bad enough (the one of her at the masquerade), but with the newer one, in which she runs around in a room full of gears and finally cranks a lever to "reverse the effects of time" (complete with low class music and ooo-s), marks the nadir of her career.
I wonder if both the team which conceptualised the ad and the person who approved it were drunk - what the hell were they thinking?! Singaporean ads are bad, but even in such an insipid market, they have managed to set new standards for advertisement mediocrity, standards which only Dettol in Malaysia cannot meet.
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THOR m
Usage: Norse Mythology
Pronounced: THOR
From the Old Norse Þórr meaning "thunder". Thor was the Norse god of strength, thunder and war, the son of Odin. He was armed with a hammer called Mjolnir, and wore an enchanted belt which doubled his strength.
TYR m
Usage: Norse Mythology
Pronounced: TIR
Old Norse form of the name of the Germanic god Tiwaz, related to Indo-European dyeus (see ZEUS). In Norse mythology Tyr was the god of war and justice, the son of the god Odin. He carries a spear in his left hand, since his right hand was bitten of by the wolf Fenrir. At the time of the end of the world, the Ragnarok, Tyr will slay and be slain by the giant hound Garm.
AFAIK, the only Norse god of war was Thor, and Tyr was just the brand of Xianjie's swimming trunks.
[Ed: nw.t: "no, tyr was the one-armed god of war
fenrir bit off his arm because they wanted to chain up fenrir and they built this super zhai chain which was dipped in one of the springs that flowed from yggdrasil's roots tended by the Norns.
they flattered fenrir and said they simply wanted to test the chain on him but he wouldn't believe them unless one of the gods stuck his arm in his jaws. guess who did"
Okay, so I'm not an expert in Norse mythology]
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Most of the templates on blogskins.com are either: garish, tasteless, full of gimmicks (eg animated backgrounds) or angsty.
It is very depressing. Oh, and a good deal of the most popular/most downloaded skins on Blogskins are done by lower secondary school Singaporean girls. I do not think this is a coincidence.
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Chinese "Journalism"
Today's headline from the New York Times:
Iran Still Making Nuclear Materials, UN Agency Says
From the Washington Post:
Watchdog Blasts Iran On Nuclear Program
From the Guardian:
Iran uranium find boosts nuclear bomb fears
And from the official Chinese news agency, Xinhua:
IAEA credits Iran for more openness with nuclear plans
From: The Gweilo Diaries
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Message: 10 Ways to describe if you are haunted..
Do you EVER get an eerie feeling if you are alone at home at nightime, you just feel like you're being watched? Feel like someone is there around that dark corner? That you might have seen toys or dolls moving by themselves??
** Experts say there are some lifebeings that maybe arent alive...thats still walking on earth. Nobody knows the truth. At least..nobody thats still alive..**
The ten ways...
Point 1
If at midnight, the power's out.
Point 2
If your pet dog/cat is sleeping but they're eyes are wide open.
Point 3
If your pet dog/cat is looking at something that you cant see.
Point 4
If your pet dog/cat scratches at the air, or growls or hiss at something you cant see.
Point 5
If something you see earlier on is at one place, later on it is gone or moved someplace else.
Point 6
If theres a shadow of a figure against the wall, but there is no one there.
Point 7
If you hear someone talking or whispering, but no one is there.
Point 8
If suddenly outside the window, there is nothing but black.
Point 9
If you feel like something or someone is touching you.
Point 10
If the hair on your head and body is shooting up.
What other people say about this
~ Anelissa Kok, 16 ~
When I got this letter, I deleted it, thinking it was crap. But, later on, strange things has happened to me. My mother had sex with our dog, and my brother vanished without a single trace.
~ Shaza Reenaz, 32 ~
I deleted this letter as soon as I got it. Thinking that kids were trying to fool me. But the next week, villagers found my 5 year old daugther dead in a river, floating beside a woman with long white hair and a white dress.
~ Kamilul Jalar, 14 ~
I didnt send this letter to other of my contacts. When at the next day, my house was empty. Pure empty. Everything was gone. And what was left was a package full of blood in my cupboard!
~ Mary Loo Mei, 13 ~
I deleted this letter as soon as I finished reading it. I thought it was pure crap. Then, strange things had happened to me lately. My boyfriend ran away from home, and he left a note to his parents that he is going to kill himself. The next week, it was all over the papers that a boy jumped of a high cliff.
If u dont wan this to happen to urself, pass it on in a new bulletin.. it is for ur own good.. dont blame me for not reminding u.. Woo..
This is priceless.
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Gifted far from being elitist
"I'd draw a parallel with Russian Liberalism before 1917. The GEP program is like the Tsarist 'reform from above' programme that produced a small batch of social elites - the ex-nobility, urban professionals, big industrialists and landowners. These dudes got special education in Western liberal ideas and wanted to pressurize the Tsar into conceding constitutionalist reform. But because they were also the privileged ones in the Tsarist autocracy, they didn't want a violent revolution and drastic social change that would damage their own status.
The end result: the liberals, politically too weak to force the Tsar to concede changes, ended up riding on the coat-tails of the mass revolution of the grubby workers and peasants, and formed the Provisional Government of Feb 1917. But they themselves were horrified by the political demands of the unwashed masses, and apart from making the usual 'liberal' policy changes (rule of law, civil freedoms etc) their social and economic platform was hopelessly reactionary and dedicated (to all appearances) to preserving the position of the industrialists and landowners. The result: the successful Bolshevik Coup of October 1917.
Will the same happen in Singapore? Probably not. The 'disgruntled elite' is far stronger, the workers and peasants quiescent, and the leaders have read Aristotle on the fine art of preventing revolutions and preserving constitutional stability. Now, everyone is made to believe that they must buy into the system and continue supporting the elite who are the only real hope the entire country has for surviving the never-ending waves of economic crises.
Still, one might have thought the same of Brezhnev's USSR in the 1970s - to keep the masses happy with a fig-leaf of nominated 'democracy', in a situation where Marxist ideology had long since decayed into meaningless rhetoric, the government resorted to 'economic legitimation' i.e. paying off everyone proportionate to their importance to the system, and promising a slow but steady advance in economic growth and living standards. Support the Party, toe the line of 'democratic centralism', and we'll all get rich together.
This was sustained for a time via detente and trade with the West, but ultimately economic stagnation and falling growth rates (rings a bell anyone?) necessitated increasingly drastic 'reform from above' until Gorbachev had to make the appeal to the masses to support his policies against the obstructive nomenklatura elite... and guess what, we *almost* have a repeat of Feb 1917 on our hands.
Lessons for Singapore, anyone?"
For more of such, join Jiekai's brainchild: Young Republic