there's something about ..... village people

This is one very enjoyable weekend.

I visited 2 famous villages in Singapore and went home with many things. I felt like a tourist. Damn Shiok!

Yesterday I went to Bugis Village with my family in toll, including my irritating maid. My mind is getting quite disturb lately. Sight of her irriates me. Let her stay home will make me happier. But the thought of her idling at home and not out with us, helping with our shopping bags makes me Buay Song. Nabeh...

Bugis Village is really quite good to shop. Armed with a 50 bucks budget, my objective is to maximise my marginal utility. Wah.. I very got ink!!

Anyway, after about an 1hr, I bought a $10 watch, a T-shirt... also at $10. And another casual shirt at $20. And I still got to save $10!

The salesperson where I bought the last casual shirt from told me price is not negotiable and they were fix-price. Nabeh.... In the past, I would have walk away without buying it. But now, I will suan them first, then buy it. I reckon My suanning would have cost about $5 in terms of ego, meaning the shirt cost me $15. Afterall, any discount is also to satisfy ego... I mean seriously 10% discount only save me $2, and you can't even buy a Wan Ton Mee with that nowadays. But we just like to negotiate, especially in places like Bugis Village.

Today I went Holland Village. I was in-between appointments and decided to check out Holland V.

It was great.

I went to Cho Lon. That place has a very calming effect on you. Even if you don't buy anything from them, you felt peaceful. Almost bought a book there... but decided to come back another day. Not too nice to use credit card to pay for something only $10.

Next, I went to Parisilk to check out electronics. Touch base with of the sales guy, nice chap.

After that, I went to Anthropology. Again, very therapeutic. Nice things but very expensive. I find joy in going to shops like that. You know you wouldn't buy cos it's ex... and you have no temptation to buy cos it's out of reach. It's like visiting a museum of interesting things but who buy things from museum anyway?

And today there's a flea market at Holland V. Mostly second-hand stuffs that you don't need, but I came across this stall selling new things at wholesale pricing, like photoframes etc. They happens to sell this table clock which was sold at Molecule for about $50, for only $15!!!!?!!!! Wah... now we know what obscene profit margin Molecule earns. I just have to buy it.

Went into Holland Shopping Centre on the third floor, I saw this corner shop selling CDs. Very small shop selling acid jazz, jazz, techno, house stuffs. The shop owner is very friendly, passionate about music and knowledgeable on his products. Almost bought 2 from him but his payment machines are not working and I have to pay cash. Bo bian..... bad for him. Good for me. Will pay him a visit another day.

Now, I feel damn recharged. Why spend 100 over on Spa treatments so that people can burn scented candles for you to smell, put mud on you while you can still feel recharged at half the amount, with things to bring back home?

there's something about ..... chinese idioms

To the disbeliefs of some of my friends, my mandarin is actually very Tok Gong one.

Every day I will try to spew out some profound chinese idioms, firstly to demonstrate to my baby that his daddy is very bilingual. Secondly, to amuse myself.

Today I will teach you one such chinese idioms that I abused regularly.

陪了夫人又折兵

I will not touch on the origin of this, since from the look of it, you will roughly guess.... must be some king loses his concubine and lose his army.... somthing to that effect. But how to you use it in modern times where the only person that could lose his army but will not lose his wife is George Bush?

Anyway, will highlight a personal experience to demontrate the meaning and usage of this.

Last night, I had my dinner about 10pm. It was too much for me but I don't usually waste food. So I finished them off until almost vomit.

Anyway, everything was fine until I tried to sleep. It was about 12am but I couldn't sleep eventhough I was dead tired because I kept burping and keep feeling that the food is coming out of the throat.

So I decided to sleep sitting up. My wife suggested that I should go drink Yakult.

I told her that by the time I walk down to the fridge, drink my yakult, walk back up to bed, I will be too awake. And I don't want to be too awake, I want to sleep.

For a good 1 hour plus, I was there sitting up, not falling into deep sleep but more napping. I decided.... Heck... since also cannot sleep, might as well go drink Yakult.

Decided to drag myself down to the kitchen.

Ninabeh..... to my horror... YES.. it's HORROR.... there's no more Yakult!!!!!

I ended up in my room feeling more awake than before and still having my indigestion.

陪了夫人又折兵

there's something about ..... competition

Caught Allan Wu in Fear Factor today.

Wah Biang. I dunno what to say.

I wish he didn't go on the show, but at the same time, I had hope that he won. Nabeh, he miss out winning the 50k by just 2 secs!!!

That is the most expensive 2 secs ever.

I must say he had done Singapore proud... but then again... is he a Singaporean? Nabeh, even in reality TV, we need foreign-born player to represent Singapore.

He was asked what language he speaks... he replied ".... taiwan...." Great... now american would think Singapore is in Taiwan.

The day before, I was watching US Open in the morning between Agassi and Blake. It's weird seeing Agassi in Addidas attire. It's like Michael Jordan wearing Puma. Unthinkable.

I watch the game.... 1st Set... 6-3 to Blake. Nabeh. I was of course rooting for my Tennis Idol, agassi.

2nd Set... 6-3 to Blake, again.

I decided it's too painful to watch and I off the TV.

KNNB. I miss out one of the best comeback game ever... with Agassi winning it in 5 sets in a tie-breaker last set somemore.

I cannot believe it. In professional sports, that is super-choke big time. I bet if I'm given 2 sets handicapped by Agassi, he would still have beaten me in 5. Meaning to say, I'm not any worse off than blake. That is to say, Blake is damn condemn!!

I wonder which is worse.... Allan Wu missing out on US$50k in 2 seconds, or Blake losing the match in this manner.

there's something about ..... names

I wonder what's with our government bodies these days.

They like to come up with bombastic names for certain town planning concepts that either costs them $400000 for the same name, or technically wrong name, or bad acryomns for certain schemes.

Let's not go back to how government spend $44,444 per alphabet so that these branding expert could come up with "Marina Bay" which we were using it for many years.

But this week, JTC launches this Massive Project near Buona Vista where the Bio-tech industries are located. This massive project will house 20,000 condo units plus offices plus whathaveyou that will take 20 years to be fully developed.

It's located Somewhere between Queenstown and Clementi on the Southern side of Singapore.

This Massive Town Concept is called

“ONE NORTH”

HELLO!??!?!?!?!?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!!??!?!

Is it just me…… but shouldn’t this project be known as “ONE SOUTH” or “ONE SOUTH-WEST”?!?!?!?!?!?

I bet JTC spend couple of hundred thousands to this same Branding company to come up with this name. How else will you explain that they conveniently use the first letter of “North Buona Vista Road” and named it One North. Like they conveniently use Marina Bay and named it Marina Bay.

At least named it “ONE BUONA” or “ONE VISTA” or really desperate “ONE ROAD”

Today our dear MAH BOW TAN, you know that minister that invented COE and ERP back then, and decided that perhaps managing public housing is more interesting as it affects 80% of Singaporean and thus he can play GOD, announces a new scheme call DBSS. It stands for Design, Build and Sell Scheme.

This is HDB flats build by private developers.

Ah Meng: Hey Klang…. you stay in which type HDB huh?

Me: I stay in that DBSS lor.

Ah Meng: Wah you very rich hor…. so which branch of DBS you stay?

Me: No… not DBS…. but DBSS.

Ah Meng: Wah… you very can hor…. anyhow add one S to DBS.

Me: No…. not I add one…. Mah Bow Tan add one.

Ah Meng: So you stay in which type HDB huh?

Me: Nabeh.

there's something about ..... Project Superstar Winner

superstar winner

So he won.

And who is the biggest loser..... the 500,000 people who called in to vote.

The biggest winner...... The producers of the competition. They sold albums and they managed to "con" people into making those phone calls, and indirectly making a profit.

But the winner has been "declared" even the final started. Not so much thru the results of the album sales which show the Kelvin having sold more albums. But with the coverage of the Finals being rather uneven with more coverage of Kelvin, you know Kelly has no chance at all.

The Wan Baos, The Sin Mings and the Zao Baos, carry more coverage of Kelvin and they are news worthy coverage that you know Kelvin would have won more sympathy votes immediately.

Now... sympathy is a dirty word here. Fans of Kelvin has bombarded anyone that says Kelvin won it because of Sympathy. They said he won it because he is a better singer.

I can only agreed that when he sings.... he send goose-pimples to everyone, including me. He is fantastic in singing sad songs. My mum is a big fan.

Whether he is a better singer overall, that is debatable. Kelly is an equally good singer and she could sing a wide range of songs. Yesterday the judges with no voting rights have given her the thumps up for 4 out of 5 categories.

But if sympathy is a dirty word, then how would one explain the high coverage of Kelvin being blind, feeling stress, cried during rehearsal, production crew crying with him etc etc. That is because everyone is touched by his perseverance, his determination. Naturally people would feel sorry for him, and most human beings will vote for him to support him.

Don't get me wrong here. Kelvin won the competition fairly. He did have more votes than kelly, his fan based may be wider, thus making him the rightful winner of a competition. Whether he will one day become a Superstar, his passage to it will be a tough one.

This is probably demonstrated by the recording contracts they each received.

Before the finals, it's being reported that both the winners will sign a recording contract with EITHER one of PLAY MUSIC or UNIVERSAL MUSIC.

Now, that is weird. Why not announce way before that winner will sign for A and loser will sign for B. Why EITHER.

Why couldn't such a decision being finalised before the Finals. Wouldn't any recording companies like to sign the Winner of a major competition? And if 2 companies are vying for the winner's contract, this can still be sorted out either via a toss of a coin, or a bidding. This was not carried out before the Finals.

The announcement of that was only made after Kelvin won the competition and the hosts announced that Kelvin will signed for PLAY MUSIC and KELLY for UNIVERSAL MUSIC, almost immediately after Kelvin was announced as the winner.

It looks to me that Kelly got a better recording contract with a Big Brand name, while I have never heard of PLAY MUSIC.

So my only conclusion is that, one of the recording company has a preference. And it's not too difficult to draw a further conclusion who has that Superstar Quality.

So, I think yesterday so-called "Final" is meaningless. Kelvin do not need a be crown the Main Winner to sell albums. Kelly do not need to be crown to sell albums. They are already winners.

So is Mediacorps.