"Oh my god. Thank you. cheer. Oh I love the way you walk babe. Xin cảm ơn những đóa hồng vàng thật đẹp, thật quý phái và thật là hoàng tộc riêng tặng cho Tuan Anh. I love you forever."

He's also in Canada:

A neat idea for bringing e-government to the people from Korea's Ministry of Foreign Affairs:



People can post questions about various policies and problems (in English or Korean), and government officials will answer them.

There're options to make questions public or private.

The interface leaves something to be desired, but it's a great way to connect with the people. And if it's searchable you have a database of knowledge.

From Miss NUS:


The BBC believes most people will have only read 6 of the 100 books here.

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 1984 - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulk
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Bernieres
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meany - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time - Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck
62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tartt
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Inferno - Dante
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupery
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo


12.

(most people over-privilege this mode of epistemology)

Oregon Counseling: Understanding The Differences Between Men and Women

"As the goal of equality between men and women now grows closer we are also losing our awareness of important differences. In some circles of society, politically correct thinking is obliterating important discussion as well as our awareness of the similarities and differences between men and women. The vision of equality between the sexes has narrowed the possibilities for discovery of what truly exists within a man and within a woman. The world is less interesting when everything is same...

Nearly every parent has observed how young girls find the conversations of young boys "boring". Young boys express confusion and would rather play sports than participate actively in a conversation between 5 girls who are discussing as many as three subjects at once!...

Recognizing, understanding, discussing as well as acting skillfully in light of the differences between men and women can be difficult. Our failure to recognize and appreciate these differences can become a life long source of disappointment, frustration, tension and eventually our downfall in a relationship... Relationships between men and women are not impossible or necessarily difficult. Problems simply arise when we expect or assume the opposite sex should think, feel or act the way we do...

Woman are usually more concerned about how problems are solved than merely solving the problem itself. For women, solving a problem can profoundly impact whether they feel closer and less alone or whether they feel distant and less connected. The process of solving a problem can strengthen or weaken a relationship... [Men] set aside their feelings provided the dominance hierarchy was agreed upon in advance and respected...

Women are prone to become overwhelmed with complexities that "exist", or may exist, and may have difficulty separating their personal experience from problems... Men are prone to minimize and fail to appreciate subtleties that can be crucial to successful solutions...

Women have an enhanced ability to recall memories that have strong emotional components... Women tend to remember or be reminded of different "emotional memories" and content to some extent as part of their menstrual cycle.

... Women have an enhanced physical alarm response to danger or threat. Their autonomic and sympathetic systems have a lower threshold of arousal and greater reactivity than men...

The task that faces men and women is to learn to accept their differences, avoid taking their differences as personal attempts to frustrate each other, and to compromise whenever possible. The idea that one gender can think and feel like the other if they truly loved each is rather absurd. Sure, a man or women could act in consideration of the other’s needs, but this would not necessarily be rewarding and honest"

"Nothing shocks me. I'm a scientist." - Harrison Ford, as Indiana Jones

***

Quotes:

[On her facial allergic reaction] It started in November. [Me: No wonder you haven't been posting photos since then.]

[On her flavoured condoms] You should try the mint one. [Me: What do you want me to do? Put it on my finger and- *mimes*]

I really can't recognise you. [Me: Sometimes I can't recognise myself]

How do females have oral sex without getting STDs? [Me: Dental Dam. *Demonstrates*] *Screams*

[On the reason for flavoured condoms] I never knew people gave oral sex with condoms on. I'm blown away by it.

If you were a boy you could bunk with me... [Someone else on declining even if he'd been open to it: I'm tired of sharing beds]... You're not sharing my bed.

Go and try you-duhs, not bad. (Udders)

[On Slumdog Millionaire] The gameshow host proves what your friend said about asking for directions in India... Even Indians have told me that

I told you about Jailbird's Valentine's Day plan right (Jailbait)

What did you do during NS? [Me: Suffer]

[To several girls at different times] Honesty is the greatest gift I can give you.

[On a dead goldfish being eaten by other fish] Oh my god, his eyeball is eaten out already. [Someone: That's why people like to eat the eyeball.]

Natalie, the one with a blog. [Someone: A lot of people have a blog] Yeah, the one with a blog... [Someone: The one who stage manages in a cheongsam]

How did she meet her husband? [Me: Myspace] [Someone: Better than Lucky Plaza]

Ask him to wake up at 4am and- [Someone: '放风筝' {Ed: Fly someone's kite}] [Someone else: It sounds nicer in Chinese]

[On a C-cup girl in a group phoot] The face very big right? [Someone else: Not just the face]

So if your dog mauls another dog, you pay [Someone: Yeah lah.] So it's like car insurance.

[Attached girl on Lohei] 快点结婚 [Ed: Get married quickly]

[On someone who delivered 2.5 years ago] Is she the pregnant girl?

What's she doing at IRAS? [Someone: Working lah]

[Me: Suria] What does it mean in Malay? [Someone: TV 3]

[On steamboar fishing net and induction cookier] XXX, can you hold it? Otherwise it'll vibrate. [Someone: Does it massage also?]

[On Committee of Supply] You guys are not on Standby? [Someone: What, in case of riots?]

I'm going for a Brazilian later. You're the only guy I feel comfortable telling.

[Teacher: Est étudiante?] I am a pigeon?

[Student on a + la -> en: You don't say 'Allah'.] No, never. You can, but it's wrong.

learn friend language (a foreign)

Idealistically I wake you up in the morning, 2 o'clock. Est sympa?... It's in you. (ideally)

Mas Selamat, il est sympa?

[Student: Il est étudiante.] He's half a man.

I knew a French guy... In Houston, we went to the supermarket together... Very strong French accent... He was looking [at] items, he said to the lady: "Allo, do you have ah'mer?... Your supermarket, you don't have ah'mer? It's incredible"... In French you never pronounce the H... He was looking for ham.

[On NTU professors] They tell me... Some Singaporean students who are good at calculation, they are not good at imagination. They often say Singaporean students have no imagination... In France, the teacher have to develop the imagination of the children... Psychologists have done studies of the children... It's not because I'm in a good mood, or I'm the Minister of Education... It has been proven in a lot of studies... If you don't develop it when you are small, you cannot catch up. That is why the school in France push children to develop their imagination (has, schools, imaginations)

[On learning languages] If you are very certain, and you think this is this, it's not possible... Many vocabulary, you will never find in the dictionary

I try to give you advices (advice)

Claudia habite à Vienne en Ostrich (Autriche)

[Teacher on Fred Vargas: It's from Portugal] That's a man's name. [Me: Not in Portugal]

[On being a Public, not Civil servant] Ministries versus stat boards. And I don't get discounts at Aloha.

Singaporean girls dress better than Malaysian girls, in general.

Ça va bien? Très bien. Let's stay positive, otherwise, it is not very nice... Bien; bien, merci; oui; merci; fantastique; super

[On 'tu as'] Next week I will hear 'Tuas'

[Student: If it's a couple: one man, one woman, what do you call them?] I'm sorry, it's like the Chinese. So unfair. Voisins.

If you understand everything at one shot, in your life, you'll have nothing to do.

Les parents et leur enfant. How many parents? [Me: At least 2... France is a very liberal place]

You tend to, and it is natural, to improve in your own language when you learn a foreign language. Because you make comparisons.

When I first came to Singapore, I was impressed that people in Singapore could remember the phone numbers at the first try. In France, no one can do it... They have 10 digits all the time... They have a length limit. After a certain number, you don't make the effort anymore.

"Assuming either the Left Wing or the Right Wing gained control of the country, it would probably fly around in circles." - Pat Paulsen

***

RANDOM.ORG - True Random Number Service - "Most random numbers used in computer programs are pseudo-random, which means they are a generated in a predictable fashion using a mathematical formula. This is fine for many purposes, but it may not be random in the way you expect if you're used to dice rolls and lottery draws. RANDOM.ORG offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet. The randomness comes from atmospheric noise, which for many purposes is better than the pseudo-random number algorithms typically used in computer programs."

Fake paper detector - "You may remember the story of some cheeky MIT students who wrote a computer programme to generate scientific papers. Well, now some researchers at the Indiana University School of Informatics have come up with an Inauthentic Paper Detector to foil it."

Robert Reich's Blog: If They're Too Big To Fail, They're Too Big Period - "Pardon me for asking, but if a company is too big to fail, maybe – just maybe – it’s too big, period. We used to have public policies to prevent companies from getting too big. Does anyone remember antitrust laws?... the original purpose of antitrust law was also to prevent companies from becoming too powerful... Maybe the biggest irony today is that Washington policymakers who are funneling taxpayer dollars to these too-big-to-fail companies are simultaneously pushing them to consolidate into even bigger companies... So we’re ending up with even bigger giants, with even more power over the economy and politics, subsidized by taxpayers, and guaranteed never to fail because they’re just ... too big."

Vantage Point: Incentives and the financial crisis - "Although a full analysis of how this can be achieved will require time and data, there are two policies that I believe are worth considering. The first, which I have alluded to already, is curbing the size of investment banks. By keeping them small, failures can be allowed in times of crisis without endangering the entire economy. Consequently, government can credibly commit to not bail out these institutions... A second approach would be to align incentives by reconsidering the corporate structure of investment banking. Less than 10 years ago, Goldman Sachs was a partnership. If Goldman were still a partnership today, its partners would be personally liable for all of Goldman's losses... for 130 years Goldman Sachs operated as a highly successful and very profitable partnership. If those enormous profits are indicative of the value created in those years, one would be hard pressed to argue that the partnership structure handicapped Goldman's ability to take on risk or otherwise serve as a valuable middleman."

Jobless ex-con asks for more prison time - "A jobless Taiwan man released from prison two years ago asked police to send him back so he could eat, police and local media said Tuesday, a grim sign of hard economic times on the island... Wang had also contacted police separately with his request, a spokesman said. Officers who found him bought him a boxed lunch but declined to send him back to prison, the police spokesman said."

Twitter / twittgenstein - I wonder how long he'll take to Twit the whole of Wittgenstein.

Make This Please: Baby Slippers - "Seriously, these are better than bunny slippers."

A Paragirl's Special Place - "All Sexy Wheelchair Girls. Hi I'm Jennifer! My girlfriends and I will prove to you just how sexy wheelchair-bound gals really are. Come see what we have for you!"
They also have the "Sakura Girls Network of Foot, Cast, Sprain, Crutch, Wheelchair, Para Sites". Unfortunately there's no preview so I can't see if there's mud...

Octopus opens valve, floods Santa Monica aquarium

Human evolution kicks into high gear - "For decades the consensus view — among the public as well as the world’s preeminent biologists—has been that human evolution is over... They find an abundance of recent adaptive mutations etched in the human genome; even more shocking, these mutations seem to be piling up faster and ever faster, like an avalanche. Over the past 10,000 years, their data show, human evolution has occurred a hundred times more quickly than in any other period in our species’ history... Many of these DNA variants are unique to their continent of origin, with provocative implications. “It is likely that human races are evolving away from each other,” says University of Utah anthropologist Henry Harpending, who co-wrote a major paper on recent human evolution. “We are getting less alike, not merging into a single mixed humanity.”... “No one on earth had blue eyes 10,000 years ago,” Hawks says... “It would be boring if all the races were fundamentally the same,” he argues. “It’s exciting to think that they bring different strengths and talents to the table. That is part of what makes melting-pot cultures like our own so invigorating and creative.”"

Originative sin: the future of banking - "For the late John Kenneth Galbraith, an acute observer of market folly, finance and innovation were fundamentally incompatible. Every new financial instrument, he said, “is, without exception, a small variation on an established design, one that owes its distinctive character to the ... brevity of financial memory”. The world of finance “hails the invention of the wheel over and over again, often in a slightly more unstable version”... Andrew Hilton, director of the Centre for the Study of Financial Innovation, a London-based think-tank, even argues that “you can make the case that banking is the only industry where there is too much innovation, not too little”. Economic literature offers both passionate advocates and passionate opponents – which is understandable, given that the impact of financial innovation on social welfare is impossible to measure"

Do Not Unbutton Your Blouse During Traffic Stops Anymore; Many Cops Are Gay

Report: "On the Making of Silk Purses from Sows' Ears," 1921 - "As the report notes, the old adage "you can't make a silk purse of a sow's ear" had been used for years to discourage inventiveness and enterprise. "We resolved...to prove that it was false, and we have done so. We have made a silk purse of a sow's ear.""

Norway Education Minister: there's no future in fighting P2P - "As the IFPI pressures Norwegian ISPs to begin blocking The Pirate Bay, Norway's Minister of Education has spoken out against measures to fight illegal file sharing. He says that not only is file sharing a good way to discover new music, fighting it wastes resources that could be used to actually pay the artists in the first place."

"Give me your hand. Do you feel my breasts? It's not good enough, I need bigger hands"

"Conceit is God's gift to little men." - Bruce Barton

***

Someone: my comments on fb are proportionate to my boobs now
thrice as much

i use to only get like 20 something sometimes not even 10 comments
now look almost 70

Me: *choke*

Someone: crazy
sigh

dont deny the truh


Someone else: I've met many males who find simplicity 'cute'

it's annoying
what's so cute about having a negative IQ

Me: takes 2 hands to clap

Someone else: yah it's everyone's fault
hence I think I read book better
ha ha ha

Me: read smut novel

Someone else: ehh they no fun you know
I read them until early this year, then I realised they were fucking depressing
and badly written

Me: think my sis still reads them
aiyah it's porn for girls

Someone else: well, it's stopped working for me then
I get turned OFF

Me: get a jackrabbit

Someone else: ha ha ha ha
no way
I have neuroses

Me: err

Someone else: no, really.
so yah


Me: teacher can be quite free

Someone: HAHA
right

depends which sch also
indep sch they can sit down cock up legs

Me: no leh
friend relief teaching in RI said everyone worked damn hard

Someone: well
when i was relief teaching in MG they appeared not to do very much work at all

then again most of them are rich tai tais whiling away their time teaching younger ppl how to grow up
and be rich tai tais


Someone else on why she wanted to go there: SAJC has nice short skirts


Someone: france has many unis that specialise in teaching eng lit esp
so many conferences every year on eng lit

it's quite funny

then when you look at the conferences held in america
so many are on french theory

HA HA HA HA HA


MFTTW: most females don't want to engage in deep conversation lah
when they share details of their life they just want mindless encouragement

it's ingrained into their brains liao
it's very annoying

also they are recoiling instinctively from your overly intellectual take on everything ahahahha

Me: haha
is this just singapore?

MFTTW: no here it's even worse

girls here NEVER want any kind of response except mindless affirmation of their opinions

"ooo so cool"
"ooo yes yes"
*coos*

pffffft

Me: why is it worse there

MFTTW: haha maybe it's just equally bad... i have not much sense of how bad it is in sg since i have few sg friends who are girls

Me: hahahahahahaahah
so why do you have US friends who are girls

MFTTW: eh cos i live here

Me: you lived in sg for 18 years

MFTTW: i don't talk to my sg friends much any more
cos they are too busy lah

what what lah

and a lot of them are just caught up in the sg lifestyle.. no time for me liao haha

i chat more with my friends who don't live in sg (even if not in the US) than those in sg

Me: what's the sg lifestyle
haha

MFTTW: busy lor
working lor
hanging out with bf lor
making money lor

being doctors
and even when you get together they just talk about being doctors

wah lau annoying can
nothing to talk about liao

and the rest are just too christian

i hung out with a lot of christians in JC ahaha
before i saw the light

...

ah you see with responses like that it's no wonder your female friends always think you're secretly judging them ahahhaha

Me: hahahahahahahah
then the males?

MFTTW: males are too dense to tell the difference.

also their subtlety meter/suspicious meter/self-doubt meter is broken
whereas for women all of the above are set to hyperdrive


Someone: maybe he's just dysfunctional. I mean, lit grad students
how normal could he be

I'm just assuming it's some form of neurosis acting up which I'm not too familiar with

Me: it's lit lah
look at ***

Someone: yeah if not one form of neurosis another
I've never met an un-neurotic lit person before


Someone on someone else getting upset: she might think u are insinutating that what she ate was not acutlaly XXX
but something else, and she is too ignorant t know the difference

or maybe she is not sure that what she ate is actually in fact XXX
then she just anyhow say

then when u reply as such she feels more insecure?

Me: uhhhh
so complicated one

Someone: ya

Me: ... women

Someone: really what

Me: yah women are really ...

Someone: hahaa
thats what my perspective is lah

dunno if that is really the case for that woman

every woman is different

Me: Functional men are all alike; every dysfunctional woman is dysfunctional in her own way

Someone: i dont think they are all alike haha


Someone else: from my experience males tend to express their point without hedging

so that makes them sound a lot more assertive
and sometimes it can get intimidating

I just think it's syntactically messy

I think I think that it is possible that...
your sentence just sounds messed up if you hedge too much

[and] sounds clunky


Me: then you wanted him to kiss you for what

Someone: for fun
i like teasing boys that i'm partially interested in

Me: women love to tease

Someone: yes

Me: ah well
the only folly of man...

Someone: yea i've been wielding my newfound powers like nobody's business

Me: newfound meh
hurr hurr

Someone: well now i know how to use them

last time i was like a bomb that covered large area but did little damage

now i know how to concentrate it to maximise damage
hee hee hee

Me: lucky I got kevlar


Someone else: my boss' s name is also kimberly

everytime i see ur msn nick i tink of her
sigh


MFTTW: euro films are teh suck

esp french films
which are like teh suck with lots of sex

hello french sex is disturbing. it's like bad homemade porn. they can't even have sex in a way taht makes you want to have sex.

like when i watched the Dreamers omg
where they are having sex on the dirty kitchen floor adn the brother goes to the stove and fries an egg, like wtf.

...

aha i see your favorite misanthrope is on twitter

1) who twitters german gibberish? 2) she put her initials there 3) she has no empathy

"If the English language made any sense, a catastrophe would be an apostrophe with fur." - Doug Larson

***

On RT:


Mr Wang: "I do expect soldiers to be fitter than the general population."

So do I. And actually I'm sure they are. Full-time soldiers, that is.

Not people who only put on a military uniform for a total of 1, 2 or 3 weeks a year.

Anon: Easy way to get out of all this IPPT/RT rubbish is migrate. I did that eight years ago, and have never seen the inside of an SAF camp ever since. Good riddance.

Anon: @wenxiu:

So you feel that the will of the individual should be subjugated to that of the system/few running said system?

We've been through that before, and you can see just how well the USSR/Nazi Germany/Imperial Japan turned out.

Anon: I've encountered more Internet hardmen than I've in reality.

If many more people would be equally passionate when it comes to doing their jobs as they are when slamming people for being lazy/not exercising, many of this world's problems will be solved.

Anon: I don't know how you can siam RT/IPPT. But I do know how you can do that for your yet-to-be-born sons - make sure your wife give birth in Canada or USA. Citizenship by Birth! Lots of Taiwanese and Hong Kongers have been doing that for decades. Just read carefully, the next time you come across a news article about such and such an actress giving birth. What can be easier? Just a 12 hour flight will spare your son a life-time of agony. And it is not even more expensive than Singapore.

Oh, there is a bonus in it for you too - your son can apply Canadian/American PR for you when he turns 21. Give a few more years for you to get citizenship, and it's just about time to collect all your CPF money when you relinguish singapore citizenship.

See? At least two birds killed with one stone! Ha!

Anon: >From a female point of view, NS is indeed outdated in SG. Just look at Taiwan, conscription has been reduced from 2 years to 1 year. China is just next door but who cares as they feel 1 year is just rite.

Also, look at France that has abolished conscription way back in the late 1990s, they rely on their Foreign Legion to fight their wars in French colonies in Africa & Carribean islands. They recruit from all over the world, they even have mainland Chinese in Foreign Legion too based on a recent article in International Herald Tribune. Best thing is they are a loyal force to France.

If Spore gahment day in day out keep punching their hands in the air & shouting "Foreigners good lah, come come, you Sinkie citizens better welcome them". My reply to gahment is that you might as well recruit these foreigners into our military to serve as regulars. If France can do it so can you. USA also has a mercenary force operating in Afghanistan & Iraq, if you think those TV images that you see are of true blue Americans, then you are wrong cos these are Pinoys, Hispanics & Caribbeans who do NOT hold US citizenship. Only upon completing their tour of duty would they be given USA citizenship. It was reported in the news recently that the USA could not have done without these mercenaries.

So Spore gahment can simply recruit from
China - since there are so many FTs from this country might as well make it more merry by recruiting shiploads of Chinese peasants from rural areas. They will be eternally grateful to serve Spore for the rest of their lives if you cloth & feed them & their families.

India & Nepal - ditto above for China.

Upset: I faced a different problem: that of doing well in IPPT.

I am a reservist NSman in my mid-20s and still studying in university. I took my IPPT last year and got gold.

Because of that I was hit with a SAF 100 last week telling me to attend weekly training sessions for a running competition.

The sessions are held before 8am every Saturday. I was given a week's notice.

Is this permitted by law?

[Someone on Facebook: haha my friend also kena... he was worse - got Silver for IPPT and got asked to join the ARR (Armour Road Relay).]

Anon: Although I've suffered through all three arms of NS - Police, Army and Civil Defense, as well as reservist in two of them, I'm not giving the following comments along the lines of "I have suffered, then so should the rest of you".

Rather, I'm speaking clinically as a fellow taxpayer.

Yes, as we are all taxpayers, we have to realise that reservist training costs money. Those who go through the regular training go under the regular Defense budget. Those who fail and need extra training would become an extra burden to us, the taxpayers.

In this light, I have to conclude that the $100 is not a punishment/fine, rather it's a small contribution to lessen the burden to the taxpayers. I'm willing to bet that the $100 is actually not enough to cover the true cost of conducting the extra training course plus the second test. (Never mind that SAF itself calls it a fine.)

As a taxpayer, I urge Rob and those like him to look at the $100 as an equitable sharing of cost between him and the rest of us (taxpayers), arising from his failure to pass the required standard.

Now, there are those who will quibble with what is the correct standard, or even if NS itself is right or wrong, but that is outside the scope of my comments. We have to focus on the specific issue and make the proper conclusions before dealing with broader issues.

So, assuming that we small fries are not able to change the test standards, or not able to abolish NS itself, I ask fellow taxpayers what do you prefer? To pay entirely for all the extra training costs of reservists who failed, or to share the extra cost with those who failed?

Anon: going along the lines of those who say "i can pass IPPT, why can't you, you stupid?"

i dont roll over credit card debts every month, why can't you?

i can fix and troubleshoot pc problems, why can't you?

I can cook, why can't you?

I can take care of babies, why can't you?

i know enough not to touch weird investment products like minibonds and high notes way before the whole thing blew up, why can't you?

i can grow my own vegetables instead of buying those from market that're treated (whatever), why can't you?

typical smokescreens to sidetrack from the main issue, which is

"Is there room for improvement in the RT system?"

Anon: I wish to thank myself and all NS men, past & present, for 45 years of peace. Peace to grow this island republic into one great metropolis.

Today our AWAC watches over the island like a hawk, our fighting falcons comb the skies and swoop down at Paya Lebar and our subs snoop the rims of the region.

Our infantry is ever ready with its cutting-edge fighting machines stand ready to defend our mothers, wives, sisters, daughters and our way of life.

Thanks a million our comrades in arms!

Me: Our mothers, wives, sisters, daughters can defend themselves just as well as our fathers, husbands, brothers and sons.

Then again, knowing Singaporean women...

Men lie to other people - 'I love you'.

Women lie to other people AND themselves - 'I love him'


Female Friend 1: Haha so true.

Female Friend 2: oh tat's normal
hahahhaa

gals never mean wat we say

A complaint about Slumdog Millionaire:

"They are not slumdogs. They are the future of India.

So I was at The Cathay to catch the film of the moment. Slumdog Millionaire was initially entertaining and tightly scripted, but on afterthought, a painful experience. Not because the hitherto peaceful cinema has turned into the human highway I've long dreaded it would be, but because Danny Boyle's latest film is a shocking piece of orientalist exploitation.

Prima facie, its rags-to-riches plot uplifts the soul; look deeper, and you will see an archparable that breeds ignorance by combining two favourite Singapore pastimes: striking lottery and cultural ignorance.

It's the sort of film that reprises Crash's (2005) obligation to lazy liberalism by encouraging audiences to pat themselves on the back for their tolerance of Indians/whores/beggars. Except, of course, that they are doing so from the safety of a theatre of people hailing from a social strata as diverse as... Ang Mo Kio and Bishan. Imagine if the couple beside us had a smelly Arvind (the wax-blinded singing kid)-like street urchin as movie company.

And Jamal plunging into a shitpool for a movie star's autograph, and his mum killed by clobbering-drowning? It's cool man, because such horrific ordeals give him the mojo to win big on the India edition of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire". Worse, it touts pure luck as a deus ex machina to get the hot chicks and the cold cash.

At its best, Slumdog Millionaire is an melodrama that exploits a city's misery (have you been to a Mumbai slum?) to counterpoint the eventual happily-ever-after fairytale. At its worst, it tells the world that the way to squirm out of grinding hopelessness isn't betterment through education -- but through winning a goddamned Western game show. And where did Jamal pick up his English accent anyway?

The opening scene where kids are chased across the kaleidoscopic ethnic patchwork of Mumbai -- as the energetic soundtrack provides the requisite sanitisation -- and the scene where Jamal's mother is doing her wash is an idyllic, exoticised take of slumbitch life. Boyle's visual style is blind bombast, replete with aerial shots and quick cutaways that minimise an already-materially-comfort

able Singaporean audience's need to confront the grimy truth of life, and death, of one of the world's most destitute slums.

For all you District 10 kids and Maldives veterans, try the real Mumbai. It is a pit, one made all the more shocking by the soaring skyscrapers the majority of its trapped residents will never see. But wow! It's so colourful down there! And the people are so hardy and optimistic! It's almost beautiful.

Have you seen any documentaries of the Mumbai slum recently? Or any Bollywood films? 800 were produced last year -- this one, directed by an Englishman and produced farfaraway in his land of The Forever Imperialists, is what the West has as its telescope on the second-most populated country on the planet. "Poverty porn" anyone?

So it swept 8 Oscars, including Best Picture. So someone flew the Indian kids to L.A. and tailored their suits. So they shared the stage glory with Boyle.

But the AMPAS members must look beyond the emo on-stage group hug -- Azharuddin (Jamal) and gang will be kicked back to the slum as dogs -- and think about the film they voted for (Please do it too, and do it again for that ignorance-about-the-Middle East-breeder Zohan). As with every non-nutritious snack hastily-consumed, the guilty reflection will come in the long hours after.

Read this and other things at http://chuaclarence.blogspot.com/"


My reply:

"Criticise the movie on its artistic (or cinematic) merits, or lack thereof, but the usual tired rhetoric about exploitation and evil imperialism cuts no ice with me.

If I want Real Indian Slum Life, I'll set up a movie camera in the middle of a street in Mumbai and chain it down (so it doesn't get stolen), and push out 24 hours worth of footage, but everyone will be falling asleep or walking out within 10 minutes. For bonus kicks, I'd remove the chairs from the cinema hall and capture the scent of a Mumbai slum and release it in the cinema, but then everyone would run out immediately and I'd be sued by the cinema owner for damaging his property. Hell, I might get a mob with weapons to storm the cinema within the first minute so the audience can experience running for their lives firsthand, but then I'd go to jail for aiding and abetting violence. Face it, Real Life is boring.

People go to movies primarily to be entertained and to escape into another world: to feel good, or feel good about themselves. Sure, you can make a feature which attempt to resolve these supposed contradictions and crusades for social justice, but that belongs in the arthouse, schoolroom or the cutting room floor.

The same allegedly exploitative elements could be found in ANY movie. It's only because this is a movie about:

1) Poor people
2) India (i.e. un-West)

that people complain so much. In other words, it's the usual complaint of "white (and rich) men are evil". If it'd been helmed by an Indian director, I'm very sure the outcry would be at most 10% of what it is now. It's just reflexive post-colonial anti-colonial sentiment.

In any case, claims about "exploitation" usually ring hollow. It is usually better to give people the choice to be "exploited" than let them live in illusory dignity. Those who complain about "exploitation" would seemingly prefer that such "exploitation" not take place, but that usually leaves the parties involved worse off. The only way to justify such actions is by appeal to some nebulous form of dignity. Yet, not only can you not eat dignity, you're dehumanising the very people you seek to defend by not recognising their agency in choosing to be "exploited".

Child labour in a sweatshop may be exploitative, but if Nike closes its factories the children go back to picking through rubbish dumps or begging (as you would've learnt from the movie). Factory work actually makes their lives better, "exploitation" be damned. If you don't want them to be exploited, offer them more alternatives. Which incidentally is what the filmmakers did - they put in money for the kids' education and put some in trusts till they turn 18, since the lump sum they provided the family predictably disappeared. And this ignores the huge sums they were paid (three times an adult's annual slum salary for a month's work).

Furthermore, merely digging beneath the surface puts paid to claims that the film glorifies "pure luck" as a way to riches (which he doesn't actually want) and a girl (*A* girl, I stress), but is instead intensely bittersweet. Sure, he gets the girl in the end, as well as riches, but at what cost? A disfigured lover and a dead brother and mother. As a line in the film goes: "I wake up every morning wishing I didn't know the answer to that question. If it wasn't for Ram and Allah, we'd still have a mother."

If you want to problematise away, go look at Bollywood films. The very reason Slumdog wasn't so popular in India was because it wasn't happy-happy and escapist enough, unlike the fantasies their own movie industry churns out.

Instead of railing about rich white men, which couldn't do less to aid the plight of the people they claim to be fighting for, the standard-bearers of cultural imperialism should put their money where their pens and mouths are and donate money for the betterment of the slums, instead of making their lives more miserable by impeding projects that provide them new (and most likely once-in-a-lifetime) opportunities."

"There's no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you." - Will Rogers

***

Fighting recession is like playing football

Someone: i almost fell off my chair seeing that headline!

In the article:

"Ministers and unionists have said fighting the recession is like playing a football match against a stronger team.

Speaking at the Singapore Tripartite Forum on Sunday, they said Singaporeans will have to go on the offensive and play to win.

Labour chief Lim Swee Say said Singapore should aim to be cheaper and better than its competitors with the help of the SPUR programme and other measures from the resilience package."


I don't understand why we have to keep using competitive metaphors.

The whole world is "fighting" the recession, yet from the way they put it, we are fighting our competitors in a race to the bottom (in wages). The logic of internationalization is that everyone wins, yet we always adopt a beggar-thy-neighbor philosophy.

Yes, that tired canard is thrown out yet again. Our instinctive reaction is to cut wages.

It has been suggested that keeping wages low keeps the proletariat's minds on something other than Revolution. Perhaps there is some truth to that.

"Football is a mistake. It combines the two worst elements of American life. Violence and committee meetings." - George F. Will

***

At the bottom of REACH's ("Reaching Everyone for Active Citizenry at Home" aka the old Feedback Unit) hideous homepage which looks like it's been run over by a truck - which will be a subject for another day and probably someone else, I noticed that they had a Twitter widget.


REACH's Twitter Page: 11 following, 20 followers, 7 updates (most recently: 13th February).

This beats my brother-in-law, at 1 following, 1 follower (no prizes for guessing who this sad sod is) and the last update coming a month ago, but this isn't saying much.

So, this is a good effort on their part (hand-in-glove with their much more successful Facebook effort, which has 1,872 members at present), but they seem to be content to let it spread organically.

Yet, everyone knows that a good Web marketing effort needs a healthy dose of steroids.

What they should do:

1) ANNOUNCE the Twitter account's existence in an official REACH email. I'm on the mailing list and unless something got swallowed by my spam filter I haven't heard anything.
2) Follow prominent Singaporean bloggers on Twitter (preferably those dealing with political issues)
3) @ reply Tweets on Singaporean issues with a link to the relevant REACH forum thread
4) Tweet more often. In the Twitterverse, out of updates (sight), out of mind.
5) Redesign their Twitter page: they need a bio and homepage (they forgot to link back to their homepage?! Goodness). Oh, and the background image is FUBAR.
6) Link their Facebook to their Twitter
7) Hold a giveaway: each week, a random follower will get a REACH goodybag

8) @kelvinq's suggestion: "Actually the worst thing about their effort is their awfully long username! Why not use @reach_sg while it's there?"

Mathia:

"12 years ago, I watched one of the best plays in my life. It was in junior college, those were just theatre students, and a 2-person propless, costumeless act.

The 2 characters marched in the shape of a square, each actor at a corner apart.
Through out the 5 minute act, they smiled happily, and spoke this line, in unison, continuously, rhythmically, in a very happy voice:

Happy! Happy! We are happy because we _SHOULD_ be happy!"

Comics - 22nd February 2009

"Never try to tell everything you know. It may take too short a time." - Norman Ford

***


"Ugly Barmaid Wanted"
"Why would you want an ugly barmaid?"
"When they start to hit on her, she knows to cut them off"


"I'm having woman problems."
"A lot of people have trouble with Romance."
"Actually, I'm retaining water and I have a craving for chocolate."




"Success is the happy feeling you get between the time you do something and the time you tell a woman what you did."



"Well if i'm the red ship, why am i killing the red guys? Why am i killing off my own people? Shouldn't I be killing the blue guys? They are trying to kill me, after all. What's the deal with that?
I mean, imagine if it were a little white guy and a black guy, and the white guy is only allowed to kill white people, and the black guy is only allowed to kill black people.
What's the message here? That genocide is only okay as long as it isn't also a hate crime? And why are they trying to eradicate life of all colours anyway?
Why are we playing as little racist ships?"
"Wow, your head is going to EXPLODE when I show you the Resident Evil 5 demo."


"Happy African American Month!"
"I thought it was called Black History Month"
"Black is a term from the past. We've made progress since those days."
"How about real progress? Just call it February."


"Whoa! Be careful. That's a pitbull."
"You and your animal stereotypes. Not all pitbulls are vicious killers. Clearly this one is..."
*Chomp!* *Scratch!* *Rend!*
"One of those."
"Just... a little... rough play."
Addendum: This is from Secret Asian Man, which is no longer available online


"[On Othello] Papa, let's play! You be African American and I'll be of European Descent."
"*Wonder what overly sensitive weenie he learned that from?*"



Rat: Dude, what's that smell?
Pig: Oh, it's probably me. There's a drought, so I've stopped showering.
Rat: So what are you gonna do - just go aroudn smelling awful?!
Pig: Oh, no. No, silly. Every fifteen minutes, I rub 'Speed Stick' all over my face.
Rat: Dude.
Pig: Mmmmmmmm Feels goooooood.


Rat: I've decided to find all my enemies and tell them I forgive them.
Pig: Good for you, Rat... Why'd you decide to do that?
Rat: To give my vengeance the element of surprise.

"When we ask for advice, we are usually looking for an accomplice." - Marquis de la Grange

***

Soul Searching - "I believe, that in order for Singapore to endure, the country has got to stand for something more than efficient processes and non-corrupt governing. Because there will come day when processes will fail and people in power found corrupt. Realistically speaking, a “dose of bad government” is an inescapable probability as evidenced by all manners of civilisation since man’s infancy. Will Singaporeans have anything to hold on to when that happens? Are we staying only because Singapore affords us shelter, and will we leave when the winds change?"

The future of journalism in a post-newspaper world - "In the United States, there is growing interest in the idea of foundation/endowment-backed journalism. This makes eminent sense. Call it a Civic Journalism Service (CJS), made up of 50-100 full-time professional journalists focusing exclusively on those genres of journalism that are clear cases of market failure: public affairs reporting, in particular. You will hear knee-jerk criticisms of such a model, mainly from commercial news media: how to ensure that a CJS isn’t influenced by its funders, for example. The truth is that there are enough best practices to learn from worldwide; it’s just that it has never been in the interest of the mainstream profession to highlight models that put their own to shame. Positive examples include the Guardian in the UK, published by a trust; the public-funded BBC; and the foundation-owned St Petersburg Times. They show that it is possible to institutionalise editorial independence far more effectively than most commercial publishers have been willing to."

Holding Lee Kuan Yew accountable – Part 1 - "There's nothing wrong, of course, about making bad predictions. Let's be fair, everyone at some point has made calls that have turned out embarrassingly wrong. Mr Lee has made, and will make, his fair share. The difference with the MM's words is that they drive policy formulation which involves spending of billions of dollars of public monies. Once spoken, these words precipitate PAP groupthink; few dare to tell the Mr Lee that he is wrong, let alone hold him accountable for his errors in judgement which have catastrophic consequences. Oracle of the East he is not but you wouldn't know that if you spoke to the servants with whom the MM surrounds himself and on whom he lavishes made-in-heaven salaries. These highly intelligent individuals apparently go into a synaptic short-circuit when they are in his presence and suspend all form of independent thinking."

Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act (Singapore) - "It must be realised that if you abolish the powers of arrest and detention and insist on trial in open court in accordance with the strict laws of evidence of a criminal trial, then law and order becomes without the slightest exaggeration utterly impossible, because whilst you may still nominally have law and order, the wherewithal to enforce it would have disappeared. The choice in many of these cases is either to go through the motions of a trial and let a guilty man off to continue his damage to society or to keep him confined without trial"

Chair Kills Boy by Anal Penetration - "A fourteen-year-old boy was killed after the chair he was sitting on exploded, propelling sharp chair parts into his rectum, causing extensive bleeding, which he succumbed to before medical attention could stem the flow."

The gospel according to Darwin - "If evolution is an unfalsified hypothesis, then so is every fact about the real world; so is the very existence of a real world. This kind of conversation is swiftly and rightly sidelined. Evolution is true in whatever sense you accept it as true that New Zealand is in the Southern Hemisphere. If we refused ever to use a word like “true”, how could we conduct our day-to-day conversations? Or fill in a census form: “What is your sex?” “The hypothesis that I am male has not so far been falsified, but let me just check again”. As Douglas Adams might have said, it doesn’t read well. Yet the philosophy that imposes such scruples on science has no basis for absolving everyday facts from the same circumlocution."
I now have something to tell the people in Science Studies and Agnostics...

China tycoon's mistress contest ends in tragedy: report - "A married Chinese tycoon who could no longer afford to support his five mistresses during the economic slowdown held a contest to decide which one to keep, local media reported Tuesday. The contest took a tragic turn when one of the mistresses, who was eliminated based on her looks, drove her former lover and the four other women off a mountain road in an apparent fit of anger, the Shanghai Daily reported."
HWMNBN: Moral of the story - never let women drive

YouTube - Nutella - "Difference between German and French Nutella explained... "As you can see, there is here a obvious incompatibility between French bread and German Nutella""

Comprehensive study of 'time twins' debunks astrology - "Scientists have once and for all debunked astrology's central claim -- that our human characteristics are molded by the influence of the sun, moon and planets at the time of our birth -- in the most thorough scientific study ever conducted on the subject. For several decades, researchers tracked more than 2,000 people -- most of them born within minutes of each other. According to astrology, the subjects should have had very similar traits."

Which drink do you drink? - "A recent magazine survey, interviewed fifty bartenders and they were asked if they could identify a customer’s personality on what drinks they ordered? Although interviewed separately, they concurred on almost all counts...
If Women Drink... Water
Personality: Pretentious and is looking for a serious relationship.
Approach: Don’t...
If Men Drink... Bacardi Breezer, Red Square, Archers Cooler, Smirnoff Ice, etc
He’s gay (blatantly) - don’t turn your back or pick up any dropped change."

Does the Tip of a Snapped Towel Travel Faster Than Sound?

Peranakans – Going the way of the Dodo? - "Felix Chia, well-known author the book, The Babas, notes that the Peranakans are a dwindling minority race which will become extinct in a matter of time. He says:”The Baba, a product of an accident of history, is a time traveler; he has come, and he must go.”"

Kate Harding’s Shapely Prose - "urban, liberal, feminist, latte-drinking, overeducated, intellectual, unapologetically p.c. american patriots"
The person who sent this to me called this "fat chick blog". My take on it: "fat chicks blame everyone else for their problems and yet bizarrely have un-fat avatars, which provides bountiful fodder for deconstruction"

Iran acid victim seeks eye for an eye - ""I don't want to blind him for revenge," Bahrami said in her Tehran apartment. "I'm doing this to prevent it from happening to someone else.""
Right.

Places That We Have Come To Leave The Most

"Last weekend I found myself on the rooftop of a van watching a traditional khushti/pehlwan Indian/Pakistani/Afghani/Persian wrestling match, atop a circle of 500 or so South Asian workers. I then had dinner in a little back alley, eating Afghani kebabs so large and so delicious they looked like they roasted a goat alive. This weekend I'm thinking of going to Bombay to celebrate the birthday of one of my best friends, recently returned from months in Rwanda, Mozambique and Uganda documenting HIV and other important things like that. In Singapore I'm quite likely to rave about my weekend in some deserted island in Satun, Thailand, that took two days to reach by train, or about how I found some amazing secret restaurant in the red light district."

Most Singaporean girls would run away screaming, yelping "But I'm a girl" at the vaguest suggestion that they do 10% of any of these things.

Okay, probably more the Chinese, but still.

"Income tax returns are the most imaginative fiction being written today." - Herman Wouk

***

Quotes:

[On Davidoff cigarettes] Dandruff

[Someone: What's Qui Tacet?] Silence means consent [Someone else: ... I'm not talking about age] Gag them before you...

[On Wesley] They have something called the Fuck Truck. It's the bus that goes to Harvard.

The Malaysian microwave oven... When I first moved into hall... When the Malaysian girl put the egg in the microwave oven, she put 15 minutes. It literally exploded. Even when you boil an egg you don't put 15 minutes.

Tell him about the Taiwanese night market. [nw.t: Fuck lah, there were more hot chicks than in the club.]

Where else would I be on New Year's Eve if not with my closest friends? [Someone: Geylang]

Can I join? [Me: You're not desperate what] [nw.t: And you're not a gentleman]

Girls are only for 2 things. One: For sex. Two: For more sex.

If you're good enough friends with an Eskimo, he'll let you fuck his wife.

[On gendered nouns and how the word sounds] In Italy, In France, 90% of the people who wear 'Ellesse' are women

Shopping is a speciality in Singapore

[Student: What do I do?] You spell your name. [Student: U M A] No. No. You spell it in French.

[On the full spelling of her Indian name] I forgot how to spell my father's name

Why French? My fiance is French

[On French] The pronunciation doesn't follow any logic... You can be as smart as you want [but it won't help].

When I first arrived, came to Singapore... The first time I had a class, I asked 'who is Angie'? (Ng)

When you learn the friend language (foreign)

[On 70] Now the serious thing start. 69 (things start)

[On recognising numbers] Usually I hear '86'. This is the first time [I hear]: 'caramel'

Many troubles and kerr'lair'mer'tais (calamities)

[Teacher: C'est ton nom ou ton premon?] Sounds the same

[Teacher on determining masculin or féminin: What did you hear?] I don't know. I look out for the 'il est' only.

I think it was *** who said 'Bonsoir' [Ed: Good evening] then I nearly fell.

[On why island nations have no gender] They are not French colonies?

[On sexism in language and plurals] It's unfair, I know. Elles sont. Only girls

ar'tuh'ree'sees (arthritis)

I don't know if it happened to you. You call someone... It's a man or a woman? If a strong voice tells you 'Je suis française': you say 'Bonjour madame'... If a little voice says 'Je suis français', you say 'Bonjour monsieur' (weak)

[On going too fast] Latter, later. Not so many things at a time. Otherwise you stop after 2 weeks (later)

This has nothing to do with smartness (intelligence)

The pronunciation in French is very important. It would be a pity if you learn French for 1 year, and you go to France, and you speak French, and they say 'Do you speak English'

[On joining words together when pronouncing] It was to ee'd the pace of the conversation (aid)

If you fly the... airlines, they don't link the words... It is not a contest... The purpose is to speak slowly so all the passengers understand.

[On gender] [Tape: Je suis français] [Student: Both.] Both? I don't know if it's possible to be both. Well, today it's possible.

How do you know [the gender]? [Student: Jacques] Okay, but it's not enough.

I have to tell you, when a child in France starts learning French, of course he gets confused at the beginning... his learning process is only based on intuition... It takes them a few years. If you can learn it in 1 year, that is very good... If you, after 3 years, you still don't know the verb 'to be'... 4 years [and] you still don't know how to count till 10, I'll tell you nicely, 'Maybe you should learn another language'

[On not getting a language] Former French President Jacques Chirac. He was a very good student when he was young. He started learning Sri Lankan. Sri Lankan or Pakistani... He gave up, because he couldn't get it. He started learning Russian and he was excellent in Russian (Sinhala?, Urdu?)

Le professeur. Even if you are a woman... There is a difference between the written language and the verbal language. Verbal language, you can say whatever you want... Probably in 20 years 'La professeur' will be in the dictionary. The intellectuals are not the ones who make the language... The ones who make the language are the ones in the street

He's Bel'german, she's Bel'german (German)

[On exceptions to 98% of countries ending with E being feminine] In the French, countries can be masculin and féminin. With the exception of Mexique. Zaïre - I think some of you don't even know where it is (French, or)

If the President of US, or the President of China comes to France, he will be on TV. I have never seen the Prime Minister of anybody of Singapore on TV.

Chypre, Malte. Some French people don't know where it is (they are)

When people say 'L'Amérique' they refer to [the] US. They don't refer to Canada.

"There are three rules for writing the novel. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are." - W. Somerset Maugham

***

Me: Starhub's so broken in accessing Hotmail, I'm reading my mail through the office network (using remote access)

Someone: its not broken for jus hotmail
gmail is disgusting to use too

Me: well starhub's fine with facebook and twitter
and whatever else I'm accessing now

Someone: its ok for normal surfing

but bec gmail and hotmail use really innovative coding that require certain ports to be open for them to work properly

starhub closes these ports on the impression of limiting bit torrent users
and throttling bandwidth

Me: ironically my torrents usually run alright
well even my webdav hotmail downloading sucks

Someone: wierd


Me: UD #6 got screwed in paris

Frigid Girl: by whom

Me: BNP
the landlord
everyone

Frigid Girl: really?
wth?

Me: yah

Frigid Girl: WHAT?
WHAT?

Me: but that was paris

Frigid Girl: whyt
that's fucking ridiculous

Me: why
cos they're assholes

Frigid Girl: next she'll be fucking you

Me: hurr. hurr.

Frigid Girl: that's like... whoring around
whatever for

Me: err
do you know what BNP Is

Frigid Girl: no

i only saw 'landlord'
and i was like WTH

Me: BNP Paribas est un leader européen des services bancaires et financiers, avec une présence significative et en croissance aux Etats-Unis et des positions fortes en Asie. Le groupe possède l’un des plus grands réseaux internationaux, avec une présence dans plus de 85 pays et 173 200 collaborateurs : 132 700 en Europe, dont 19 400 en Italie et 64 200 en France et Dom Tom ; 15 200 en Amérique du Nord et 9 500 en Asie.

Frigid Girl: okay

i took 'fuck' to mean sex
cos it's you, gabriel
face it

Me: hello
I said 'screwed'

you're blind

Frigid Girl: oh yea
i used 'fuck'

sorry

hAhAHHA

Me: .........
honi soit qui mal y pense


Someone: '放して! 止めて! いたい!... そこ...？目... あたしの奥に... いく! いく!'

u could have parsed it in a text-to-speech translation tool....but then of coz it lacks e effect

u ask a gal to pronounce u'll get a slap haha

they should make a text-to-speech translation tool that enables users to choose "seiyu" mode...meaning high pitched anime-like voice


Cunning Linguist on the Real Doll torso:

now its all moldy and holey and disgusting cos i think too many people had the same idea as you (i.e squeezing it). we now know the muse of your breast implant project came from.


Someone: omg foucault..

i tell you
foucault is so repetitive

he taught in berkeley
HAHAHA

shit i want to kill
my readings

let me tell you my reading list
damn european

kant
derrida
descartes
rousseau
mill
marx
habermas
latour
adorno
spivak
zamyatin
hayles
the end

oh
nietzsche
heidegger
hooray

nietzsche was surprisingly easier

Me: nietzsche is ok. just depressing

Someone: marx is...

ya i like him eh
neitzsche i mean
like he makes sense

marx is full of shit
i mean the way he uses his words
very nice to hear
but sometimes doesnt make sense

oh we also read comte
french dude also

i should stop taking philo-like courses

***

Comments on my latest fantasy:

A: yes u r so ssssick haha
watched too much stuff from chikanland?


B: i'm beginning to feel very happily normal compared to you

Me: you very abnormal meh

B: at times when I feel self-consciously deviant (given my rather conservative nature), now I shall think of you and say, I'm more normal


C: you know those people hwo wears the kind of earrings that makes your ear lobes larger?
the ones with big holes

i always have an urge to poke my finger through and pull

D: and there I was thinking you were a gentle giant

my fantasy was to rip those large-hooped earrings out of the lobes


E: what's your problem lol

Me: do you even need to ask

E: yeah you're right
until you get laid
you will continue having the problem :P

"My work is a game, a very serious game." - M. C. Escher

***

"Devant lui, bouche à bouche, ventre à ventre, des femmes nues, se pénétrant l’une l’autre, dansaient des danses sacrées, tandis que, accroupis derrière un paravent, des musiciens, soufflaient dans de courtes flûtes…

Là, d’autres femmes assises en rond ou couchées sur la natte du plancher, dans des poses obscènes, avec des faces de luxure plus tristes que des faces de supplice, attendaient. C’était, devant chaque porte où nous passions, des râles, des voix haletantes, des gestes de damnés, des corps tordus, des corps broyés, toute une douleur grimaçante qui, parfois, hurlait sous le fouet de voluptés atroces et d’onanismes barbares. Je vis, défendant l’entrée d’une salle, un groupe de bronze dont la seule arabesque des lignes me donna une secousse d’horreur… Une pieuvre, de ses tentacules, enlaçait le corps d’une vierge et, de ses ventouses ardentes et puissantes, pompait l’amour, tout l’amour, à la bouche, aux seins, au ventre.

Et je crus que j’étais dans un lieu de torture et non dans une maison de joie et d’amour."

--- Le Jardin des supplices / Octave Mirbeau

Frigid Girl: tu as des problèmes, mon ami.