What’s the point?

Thought this should be my new motto.

Well, remember distractio maximus? Well, some of those things have come to an end. While some others have been again postponed. So, time to take stock and make new resolutions?

Next year, if things go according to plan, will be a major change for me. And i always like big bangs, so thought of making some radical changes to commemorate that.

As i have been at home for a few days recently with very little to focus my mind on, it obviously started wandering. Realise that in my group of friends, one is rich, one is financially stable, good looking and with a hunky body, and another is well-connected to tons of people. In comparison i have nothing to offer. I kinda wonder again, why do i bother when nothing good can come out of it all?

So, am trying to achieve some old resolutions in the next 6 months or so (resolutions for 2008 i might add!) with some of those pretty urgent since i will be turning another year older pretty soon!

Wish me luck. But dun make any bets cos we all know the odds of me succeeding!

ps. as part of resolutions, just burnt almost $400 on supplements! argh! 

Just cos i am not getting a promo shouldn’t mean you don’t deserve one!

Btw, i do not have a data plan, so not applicable to me. Just posting in case you might find it useful.

http://www.starhub.com/smartsurf.html

And you can tell who the "other Telco" is right?

Remember how i said i am banker to the family? Now i have expanded my operations.

Someone i hardly meet but whom my family goes back a long way with, visited me for Deepavali. That was on Sunday. Today, this family friend called to ask for a loan.

I trust this person and believe i will be paid back. (then again, even if i din, i would probably have ‘lent’ it anyway)

But i am still surprised that the person called me since we aren’t close. In fact, Deepavali was the second time we communicated this year. And none for the last year or so. In contrast, it is pretty tough for me to ask someone for a loan. I once did it cos it was obvious to that person that i would need help since i was unemployed then. And i decided that i shd ask for a loan of a small amt just so that person will not start doign some research and realise i had a ton of debt. That person was my brother.

Obviously, i am lousy at saying no. I have tried and end up feeling guilty - though i know there is no need for me to feel so. Just me, i guess.

And no, this is not an invitation to YOU to also start asking me for loans!

Understand from my IT colleagues that the govt, as it moves to the SOEasy platform in the coming months, will be switching from Windows XP to Vista. I know very little about these IT stuff but even i can see this is a train wreck waiting to happen. Read the article here.

Windows is releasing Windows 7 to counter the damage of Vista and whole of govt is hoping to become more efficient and cost effective by switching to Vista? Hmmm.

This has to be a first.

The only time you see me talking about the same issue in successive posts is when i am whining about my life. However, due to a strange series of events, am blogging about this movie i had known nothing about, 3 times!

I have learnt something from the professionals and shall apply it here:

"Spoiler ahead".

Yup that is about all i have learnt, as you will see from my post that i have absolutely no review skills. But when has the lack of skill ever stopped anyone from doing something?

One comment from a friend kind of coloured my perception of the movie. He said they were all theatre actors.

How does that matter? Things get exaggerated on the stage cos only something larger than life will get across. On screen, that just comes across as bad acting. At the start, i felt that my friend’s opinion was actually correct. However, as the film went on, i felt things got a bit more settled.

Some random thoughts since i obviously have no structure in mind. You already know from my previous post that i saw a remarkable resemblance to a certain family in Sg. As you listen to the dialogues about suing everyone, it just sinks in more. However, i am unsure of how much to read into that setting. Is it biographical - does the writer know something we don’t? Or is it meant to be representative of Sg - that we as a people have been forced to live lives against our wishes? Or is it just about a patriarchal family in an East Asian society? Obviously, i will leave it to you to decide for yourself.

It was getting a lil annoying when you can see the jokes coming. Like when the ghost father says exactly what the children suggest he would have said. And the caricatures of the indian detective and his assistant. And references in the movie to how the movie inspector is behaving just like a movie inspector in an Agatha Christie story. Bleah.

How was the acting? Like i mentioned, it was a lil too theatrical at first. There seemed to be great emphasis on stressing every word and facial expression. However, as the story carries on, it slowly recedes into the background and the story tells itself better without the actors forcing it on you. And the language! It was all too Queen’s English for me. Anyone who watches this will swear Ris Low is not from Sg. There is the occasional ‘la’ but all the pristine grammar and diction make it so unreal. A local movie that i had difficulty identifying with. No doubt, they are of a certain class and had elocution lessons from age 2 but still! 

One thing came to mind - how Forever Fever was ‘neat’. In that somehow everything sort of settled into place and the remaining loose ends did not trigger new questions. As i said, this is a spoiler, so i can tell you the ending makes you realise the whole movie was for nothing. But it is about the journey, no? And the journey was worth it. It was in the tradition of ‘whodunit’ where the answer is ‘no one’. The movie makers may have been gunning for a shock epiphany ending but i dun think it was carried thru that well. The Director doing a cameo is very M. Night Shyamalan but the ending wasn’t quite Sixth Sense. 

Another point to highlight. When the (another spoiler!) topless female scene came on, i immediately thought it was gratuitous. However, after seeing the successive scenes, i felt it was necessary. I might even say it was one of those few times i felt the naked body was used very well for its significance to the story. Almost felt it was as necessary as the (almost) naked scenes in American Beauty, a movie i regard very highly.

One thing which resonated with me. As Deepavali just passed, had to face the inevitable question of when i was getting married. Thought people had decided to move on as haven heard it in quite a while. And this led to me eating a lot of chocolates. How? When they asked the question, i immediately popped a Ferrero Rocher stacked on the table into my mouth so i could mumble a ‘hmm. emm’ sorta thing. I ate quite a no of Rochers i tell you.

Now back to the movie-resonate-with-me part. The movie hints that the children sorta do what they honestly want after the parents pass away. And i was telling myself that i felt that i could only come out to my family after my mum passes on. No matter how much i think my siblings will not bother about this (i am guessing they cant all be so daft not to have guessed by now), i jus dun see how i can do this while she is around. Something tells me she wouldnt really care but knowing how drama-mama she is, she will make a big scene of it with everyone and i will never encounter peace again. A pity that, for some, the shadows of our parents suffocate us. Sure, you can say it is an individual choice but actions have consequences and not all of us can bear them.

But overall, i would say it was a good movie. Not cos it was a local movie and needs support, but because it was a movie i enjoyed. Sure, it wasn’t perfect in my view, but i think it was well-acted (really!) with good character development and a story that was entertaining, though it did get OTT at some points. 

Go catch it! 

Oh! My! Goodness!

Read this review of the Blue Mansion which reveals a lot of the character details.

An umarried daughter who was not allowed to marry her indian lover?

A son who was a CFO, in an unhappy marriage and had an affair?

Another son who gave up a scholarship in a field he loved? First marriage with a special needs son? Remarried after losing wife? (dunno if the gay bit is metaphorical though)

The mother as an empress dowager who actually ran the show?

Is it not obvious already who this familee might be?!?!?!

One of the reasons i have been hanging around this place is cos i learnt that i can be considered for promotion next year (unlike pte sector, ordinary govt officers only get promotions several years after the last one, hence have been waiting for this for a while). I dun need the title or the extra ‘challenges’. Just that a promotion will double the increment (increment, not salary!) i could be getting without a promotion. Hence, looking forward to it.

Just learnt that my boss is coming up with new guidelines which will take me off the list.

Thanks for nothing!

"For an indian, you’re not that bad."

Wow. If this is what a friend thinks of me, i can imagine what others think.

Banta Singh walks into a bar in London , orders 3 glasses of beer and sits in the backyard of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn.
When he finishes, he comes back to the bar counter and orders 3 more. The bartender asks him, "You know, beer goes flat after I fill it in the glass; it would taste better if you buy one at a time."
Banta Singh replies, "Well, you see, I have two brothers. One is in Dubai , the other in Canada and I’m here in London . When they left home, we promised that we’ll drink this way to remember the days when we drank together."
The bartender admits this is a nice custom and leaves it there.
Banta Singh became a regular in the bar and would always drink the same way. He’d order 3 Beers and drink them in turn.
One day, he came in and ordered only 2 Beers. All the other regulars notice and fall silent.
When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bar tender says, "I don’t want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my sincere condolences on your great loss."
Banta Singh looked confused for a moment, and then he laughs…. "Oh, no,"
He said, "Everyone’s fine; both my brothers are alive. The only thing is . . I just quit drinking!"

Seriously, why?

Just about everything today was bad. Apart from being forced to wake up much earlier than planned cos of renovation noise outside to wasting almost 2 hours travelling for some event i didnt want to attend to a meal which i ended up throwing away, everything has been bad.

Back in depression cos my imagination went into drama mode and i almost started tearing on the train.  I already know the sensible thing to do is see a doctor. But am not going to.

I have always been depressed. I am not coping with it but i dun know how to live my life any other way, i think. It’s like getting into a relationship. I am not happy being single but am pretty sure i will be a lot more unhappy in a relationship cos i just will screw it up for someone else, apart from myself. I can’t do happy.

Just when you think the depressing day is ending, my mum tells me a piece of news. There is this one black collared top i absolutely love. It is absolutely wrinkle-free. And looks silky/satiny. I feel good when i wear it. I dun feel as ugly as at other times. I bought it with my hard-earned money when i was still schooling and doing part-time work. It was originally $60 but was at 20% off, so that made it $48. I walked around and around the display asking myself if i should buy it cos it was so pricey then to me, as i was earning very little. After probably about an hour, i finally bought it. It was for Deepavali, so i tried to justify the purchase by telling myself this was a special occasion. That was 10 years ago. I still remember the day i bought that T. It remains a very important symbol to me of some better times in my life, when i felt a lot better about myself. Just some days ago, i wore it cos i wanted to feel better about myself. I did for that day.

Seems the bamboo pole with the T fell today and someone took the T away. 

Maybe i shouldn’t have tried to feel better about myself some days ago.

Check out details of the contest here.

Just finished Welcome to the Working Week by Paul Vlitos. Male version of Bridget Jones’s diary. The whole book is actually just a series of emails. 

Story is about a loser guy - dumped by girlfriend, lost roommate and caught for misuse of office email. 

But it is really really witty and funny. Strongly recommended.  

This article has a very interesting take on homophobia and its consequences.

Reminds me of one of the wives in Brokeback Mountain, whom i thought was the one who suffered the most among the lot.

But seriously, a term like "mixed orientation marriages"? Enough already. 

Thankful that i am not gonna put someone else through this hell. Not that it never crossed my mind. When i was ‘questioning’ ie. wasn’t quite sure if i was gay when i was a teenager, i thought marriage was the only option.  Thank goodness for my uni education which really opened my eyes to the notion that marriage was an opportunity, not an eventuality. 

Sweet story of romance between an old couple who share everything:

‘THE TEETH.’

As usual, some stuff being forwarded from my email: