The other day...

I was playing some game and my dad was about to go downstairs to get something from that 24-hour convenience store. This lil exchange occurred:

Dad: I'm going to 7-Eleven now. What drink do you want?

Me: Uh... *tries to think of one and gets majorly distracted by game*

Dad: So what drink?

Me: Uh... *gets KS-ed¹ in-game* Grrr... Bitch!

Dad: Peach ar?



¹ KS = Kill Steal. Somebody (who is not in my team) coming along and hitting a monster I am already hitting. That results in me losing experience points and possibly the loot the monster might drop.

Weird Thoughts

I have no idea how my cat¹ manages to sleep on the computer tower when less than 20 cm away, the speakers are blasting Disturbed's songs.

It tolerates me when I tickle its ears, pull its whiskers or prod its fat tummy.

It trusts me enough to let my fingers roam freely all over its face when it's asleep, and it even lets me pull back its eyelid to reveal its third eyelid.

Sure, this cat has known me for 3, 4+ years as someone who provides food and stroking. But still, I find it amazing that it trusts me so. I can encircle its neck almost completely with my hand; it seems to be so easy to break its neck should I want to. Not that I would, but I'm saying it's possible for me to harm this cat and I can't quite understand why it trusts me. What does it base this trust off? Instinct? Experience with me? Or is this lack of wariness a normal sign of a completely domesticated cat that was brought up in this household as a wee kitten?



¹ One of the two cats I have. This is the more active and playful one that sleeps regularly on my computer tower. It's also the only cat that dares to step out of the house to explore, for hours at times.

Watch Some Cool/Funny Commercials

I loved some of the ads they have posted up at Double Agent.

Must-see's:

1. Kids... (argh)
2. Funny ad for "Women's Health" magazine
3. Taiwanese girl band S.H.E. in ad for Coca Cola and "World of Warcraft"
4. Levi's Ad
5. 7-Up Ad
   
6. Why shaving's good...

Found the Axe Ads really funny as well:

1. Axe-style Aerobics
2. A rather sexy one XD
   
3. Axe Academy Part 1
4. Axe Academy Part 2

But my favourite is this one.

It's actually not easy maintaining a blog, especially after that knowing some friends do read the rubbish that I write so I can't laze (well, not as much), and I almost feel a need to blog every now and then (despite a lack of content, and then I end up simply throwing in a link or two).

And, knowing that some friends do read, I can't blog about certain things, like how much I want a rabbit pearl... uh, I mean, a dictionary.

Being quite a homebody now, I can't blog like Xiaxue. Even if I weren't, I can't too; I can't do her type of humour. Incidentally, it was teh acquaintance who introduced me to her blog (first blog I ever read), and I was crazily reading it for a period of time, namely going through her archives when I didn't have a PC at home yet (with 97% of the reading being done at Internet cafes and the rest on my cell phone with WAP!).

Now, if I could possibly emulate any blogger, I guess it'd be either Kenny Sia or Popagandhi. Kenny's entries almost always elicits a few good, loud laughs, while Popagandhi... *sighs wistfully* writes beautifully.

Some of my favourite entries (from most recent to older ones) from her are as follows:

1. Our Favourite Pastime


2. How Not To Shock Me


3. You Can't Come Home Again


4. They Can't Take That Away From Me


5. The Eight Ages of A Woman

And with that, I conclude this entry. I'd be off now for some Conquer Online or sleep or maybe even *gasp* work.

UPDATE: I have such good timing. I had to pick a time when Popagandhi is going through an overhaul to link to her posts. So yeah, the list of links above don't work, for now. But... http://www.popagandhi.com/ still works, so surf on there.

On the right, under "Browse: By Category", click on "travel" or "women" if you wanna find the posts that I listed.

Too Lazy...

to write, so just click on...

Julian Beever's Pavement Drawings
Simply amazing as the drawings look 3D when looked at or photographed from a certain angle.

Drop by his official site too.

Viewed Yesterday

For the cat lovers
Junku-san's Photo Gallery

A mind-boggling illusion
Checkershadow Illusion

Gorgeous artwork
Audrey Kawasaki's Site
Her LiveJournal

Margaret Cho, comedian
Video clips of one of her performances
Her Official Site

Dim Sum Dollies -- Singapore's Most Wanted!

We're the Dim Sum Dollies with our trollies
And we're sure to cheer you up
With our chirpy smiles and perky cups
A cup of tea with a piece of me
喝茶 吃點心 點心 點心
-- Theme Song of the Dim Sum Dollies (chorus)

Went to the watch the fantabulous trio of Selena Tan, Pam Oei and Emma Yong in "Dim Sum Dollies -- Singapore's Most Wanted" yesterday. I caught them last year in "The Revenge of the Dim Sum Dollies" at the Esplanade. This year, they performed at the same location but they were even better I reckon!

They are seriously hilarious with their excellent acting, singing, and dancing, and I've been a fan since I watched their second show at Raffles Jubilee Hall in 2003. It wasn't even a-laugh-a-minute, more like burst-your-guts-every-20-seconds kind of fun. I recommended it to two other friends, and they loved it too.



Ivan Heng, Director, as quoted from the programme book, explains the charm of the Dim Sum Dollies:

"It's not difficult to see why the Dim Sum Dollies - Selena, Pam and Emma - have endeared themselves to audiences and become 'Singapore's Most Wanted'. They are a pedigree of extraordinary theatre artists, who sing, dance and act; who create their own material, and deal with issues of the day in a fabulous and naughty way. You have been warned: nothing is sacred.

In the tradition of the great vaudeville acts, the Dim Sum Dollies are larger than life characters that say and do outrageous things. In entertaining and seducing us with irony and silliness, they take us out of ourselves, making light of life's onerous burdens. In the shared laughter, there is space for us to make fun and sense of the world we live in."



Also, he explains why the name of Dim Sum Dollies: "... Selena, her then husband-to-be John, and I sat around a table at the Empire Café, brainstorming to name the talented trio. Dim Sum arrived and the idea that it came in threes, each morsel painstakingly prepared to please eye and palate, took our fancy. I think what clinched it for me was the literal translation of 'Dian Xin' to 'Pieces of Heart'.

Yes, underneath the wigs, make up, feathers and sequins, you will find three fearless 'pieces of heart'. I have no doubt they will steal yours as they have mine."

This is just some of this year's lineup: Lucy Liu vs Zhang Ziyi in a showdown of Kung Fu and verbal spars; nurses making sly jabs at the recent NKF controversy, as well as urging patients to give a helping hand and donate; local men (played by the Dollies of course) discussing their preference for foreign ladies over the "overeducated" scary Singapore women.



They have 3 additional shows on the 16th, 17th and 18th August, so get your tickets fast!



*喝茶 吃點心 點心 點心 = Drink tea, eat dessert, dessert X2
**All images and quotes not mine.

Avril, Avril, Avril

I was looking for Avril Lavigne's "Things I'll Never Say" when I came across this site. It has got links to videos of her AOL Broadband concert (just scroll down a little).

Yes, I do like her. In fact, when her debut album "Let Go" was out, I bought me a copy of it, and I loved the entire album, which is a rare thing I tell you.

I was also in the bloody queue at Heeren's HMV, waiting in line for her autograph, and to take pictures of her at close range. Well, in the end, I didn't get her signature but I did get pictures (albeit a lil unclear) of her in the van as she exited the building. There were only at most 4 other fans with me who managed to see her in that van, smiling and making those hand signs to us. =p The van's windows were so close to me I could've kissed it if I wanted to.

1. A picture of her looking very unlike her usual image.


2. Pictures of her au naturel (only her face of course, what were you thinking?!), also looking very unlike her usual image, but in a different way. o_O


3. A picture of her wearing something you'd never expect! XD


4. Oh, wow.


5. Hmm, this is kinda nice too.


6. This one's from her debut album, and I thought she looked so cute here.

I meant to type just those 2 paragraphs at the start of this, but I ended up googling for images and I just had to put the links here too. -_-;;

Oh, of course, there were plenty other pictures, but these stood out, IMHO. And I came across quite a number of pornographic pictures trying to pass off as the real thing ("AVRIL LAVIGNE NUDE!" Yeah, right.). Some of them were so badly Photoshopped, it's sad.

Being the Goddamn Smoker that I Am

Xiaxue's latest blog entry led me to this news article, which in turn led to me doing some silly typing on it.

A new, attractive anti-smoking campaign launched by the Health Promotion Board is targeting women smokers.

Attractive? So the past few ones have been... unattractive? And erm, being an uh, attractive campaign means more attention received and hence more quitters? Hooray? Tsk, I just can't help myself. OK, let's move on.

Dr Lily Neo, Ambassador, "Fresh Air for Women" programme, said: "Every puff of smoke contains 4,000 chemicals out of which 200 of them are poisonous, and about 50 of them are carcinogenic, that means they cause different types of cancer. But more important to women, it's also associated with late pregnancies, infertility, abnormal pregnancies, miscarriages and high infant mortality."

I don't like babies, and I don't intend to have them. I suppose that excuses me altogether. ._. So erm, OK, cancer is the only fate left to me that should make me quit smoking. Oh-kay. *nods*

Jamie Yeo, Ambassador, "Fresh Air for Women" programme, said: "I think if you don't smoke, you get a certain level of respect, and respect makes you sexy and makes you look cool!"

This is... duh. Why will not smoking garner one any respect? And the rest of the sentence doesn't make sense too. Oh, I forgot. That was Jamie Yeo, the same radio deejay who once dedicated Savage Garden's "Crash and Burn" to all who lost family or friends to the Silk Air plane crash in December 1997. *nods some more*

So uncool is smoking that one half of a prominent couple made kicking the habit a condition for her husband.

Claire Chiang, Ambassador, "Fresh Air for Women" programme, said: "That was our courtship days. That was one of the conditions for him. He knew that for him to date me and to court me and finally to marry me, he probably had to kick it off. I tried very hard to say don't smoke. I also learnt that you could also save $4,000 to $5,000 a year by not smoking!"

Isn't this a campaign targeted at women? This "smoking is not cool" factor sounds more like a tagline aimed at teenagers.

And I'm quite sure Claire Chiang had her husband quit smoking for other reasons as well. I guess she doesn't mind being depicted as such, but if I were to quit, I would prefer to quit for more sensible reasons¹.

One of my aunts once said, "Smoking is not fashionable anymore." I didn't like her much to begin with, but I totally lost any ounce of respect I might have had for her after that statement.

On the other hand, I found this idea they had with Toxique rather funny. Great idea, in fact, aside from the fact that Singapore banned all forms of tobacco advertising, so I don't see how this can hold true for most local women:

This twist is brought about because tobacco is often marketed to women through the themes of glamour, beauty and social desirability , masking the truth about the negative effects of smoking.

But I do find the idea behind the "Fresh Air for Women"'s site and the various forms of support that they provide interesting...

Research has shown that women who are given encouragement by their friends and loved ones are better able to quit smoking.

And the "Fresh Air for Women" programmes aim to provide that network of support to help women take the first step towards a smoke-free lifestyle.

Come to think of it, it sounds like they're following Alcholics Anonymous's format. No, I don't have a problem with that, since smoking is an addiction. ._.

(Choo Lin, Manager, National Smoking Control Programme, Health Promotion Board said,) "There're also Guardian services - the Shop and Step In - where anytime you're out and about shopping and you feel the urge, to get more information or to get some help, you could just step into a Guardian Pharmacy."

So the staff of Guardian Pharmacy would gladly receive me with open arms should I step in and quiver and sniffle and say, "I need to smoke. But I shouldn't. Help me..." Will I get free nicotine patches? Or erm, they'd sit me down and bring me some tea and counsel me to strengthen my resolve to quit?

I'm sorry (I'm not, really =p), it sounded so funny I just had to make fun of it.

All in all, despite my sarcasm, I actually think this campaign might just work. Especially if they harp on on the "Smoking will give you premature wrinkles and make you look old ahead of time, so why smoke, honey? Quit now~" angle.

And argh, I spent too much time on this. Gotta get some zzz's now.



¹ From what was quoted, it seems like she only knew how much money one can save (by not smoking) during the time he was trying to quit and/or after he quit, which means it was not one of the reasons why she wanted him to quit in the first place. And having that paragraph right before her quote makes it sound like the only reason she wanted her husband to quit smoking was because it was uncool. *shrug* That's how it reads to meh.

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