"Happy" Birthday?

Yesterday was my 17th birthday, so all day long, people were wishing me "Happy Birthday". After the first half dozen of such wishes, it really got me thinking. Do these people have any idea as to what they are saying? In this post, I'm not even going to touch about how sincere they are in their words, also because i think Nosey has already posted about that.
How happy was I on my birthday, I wonder to myself. Frankly speaking, not a lot. To me it was just another day. I woke up with some difficulty and rather late due to leftover camp-fatigue, touched the com for an hour, and went to work. So yea, unless I have been through substantial hell in the days before 30 March, I don't see how happy I can be.
Perhaps its due to the fact that I didn't call for any celebration, or simply because I chose to uphold tradition and abstain from celebrations for a year, or I simply kept refusing my parent's queries as to what I want for my birthday (its a bad economy nowadays, business isn't exactly booming).
So in short, despite all of your wishes, I'm afraid I simply didn't have a "Happy" Birthday. Also, I have yet to touch any of my presents. No offense to my present-givers.
So now, I'll end off with this quote:
"I find it pointless to celebrate my Birthday. I'd really rather celebrate my Fertilization Day, after all, that is the day I won the first race of my life."

Speak (2004) review

I've going from hardcore social dump-postings to more traditional ones (for Pfort, anyway). What changed my mind? I remember during one of our meetings we began to categorize, like section off what each of us was doing with the fort. i can't remember for Giant or Lime, but TOFU was "current events", Panzer was "politics and ideology", and I was "social". When I heard that I knew immediately that wasn't quite... it.

I don't want to lock myself down to commentary on how bad my social life is. So I'm not going to talk about the past month and a half in a new social environment (it's definitely not all bad). Here's a movie review.

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Drama is a risk. You're always treading multiple lines, threatening to screw up something or the other. Some media resolve this with gimmicks. Some people throw in action. Scifi/Fantasy . Purposely addressing sensitive/popular subjects because they are sensitive and popular. These gimmicks aren't always abused, but when they are... (Elfen Lied) oh shit.

Speak centers around a girl who got raped. They could have gone overboard and milked the feminism cow for sympathy and rave reviews - they could have snapped their fingers and did it; and just like that every female watching the film will be in support. I'm an egalitarian, and I absolutely hate the feminism concept.

What turned me around? 4chan. Yep. 4chan isn't just /b/. I went to /tv/, and one guy recommended the film, saying, "I normally hate 'I was raped' movies, but Speak was good." So I took a chance; sometimes you find cool stuff that way.

Speak starts off at the beginning of high school (ironic, given what I just vowed not to post about). Our protagonist, Melinda, has been a social reject since 8th grade. Back then, at a massive party with her best friends and schoolmates, she called the cops, who busted all the underage drinkers, essentially destroying the gathering. She doesn't tell anyone why she dialed 911, is more or less exiled from her social circle, and becomes very, very quiet.

From her first unsteady, tentative days in high school Melinda is already outcast as a "squealer". The discipline master has her targeted for trouble, and even the enthusiastic visionary of an art teacher can't really get through. Nobody can - Melinda doesn't even bother to try, doesn't even bother to talk - she vocalizes mostly in monosyllables and the only interesting stuff we get from her is through her monologues with herself.

The thing about being friendless and outside of society is that it gets you to expand on other things. There's so much empty space that soon you find something to occupy yourself with, something to fill up that black hole. Melinda fills it with art, and she doesn't do it incredibly well, like a prodigy (another gimmick that could have been abused), her art is fascinating because she has something to say and this is the only way she can express it. One thing the movie explores is what we do when we have no one to talk to. We look to strangers for help, we make art, we invest our emotions heavily in a select few things, we even start excluding ourselves by our own will, long after the initial issue and problem is over. The movie looks at all this.

There's some symbolism in this movie, art being one of the central focuses. I didn't really get all of it, but I didn't need to, because the immersion of the film worked to great effect. The setting of an American high school is designed to be ageless, so it could be anywhere from the 90's to the present. The story is compatible with our culture as well.

The film sweeps from one end of the school year to another, and doesn't manage to feel rushed and remind you that this is a 2 hour flick, thanks to its excellent characterization. Not just for Melinda, but for her parents, her teachers, her schoolmates - though few actually stand out as special, all of them are incredibly real and alive. No depthless stock characters, no obligatory negative portrayal of "the popular kids". Speak's characters aren't tailored or forced by the writers to be special, to stand out with some ability, they're just very real and very, very good. (It was also funnier than Pink Panther 2 and a lot of teen movies I've seen.)

And that's what this movie is about. Reality, coming to terms with it, Melinda inching her way to a place where there is no wall and no pretense. This could have been about a girl who was raped and made to stay silent, but it's about much more, because Melinda chose to stay mute. Many films get emotional responses by focusing on a character's weakness that was forced onto them, so much that the weaknesses are more central to the film than the character itself. Not here.

Here it's more about strength, strength to open your mouth and also do something about your shit. Speak isn't perfect, but it is extremely well done and well worth ninety minutes of my time.

It's also an inspiration that you don't need big bucks to make good films. Heh.

You and I

I've hit another crossroad of my life. Where I ask myself what have I been doing and what am I doing with my life. Where will each different path take me.

I'm struggling, with almost everything. Grades, my religious walk, friends, my social scene, sleep, girl.

You name it, I have it.

Indeed, times like this makes me suicidal. For the first time in decades, I consider alternatives that I would normally never consider once I put my foot down.

It all seems like a really sad maximum point on a parabola. 

The places where I used to draw refuge and encouragement from, now just serve like an empty abandoned house. 

You know what, I've decided. For one night, let me try to drink myself to sleep.

IPhone OS 3.0 (FUCK YEAH)

Initially, I would post a youtube video about the key new features of the IPhone OS 3.0 software update but then all the videos are all pretty lengthy, well there ARE many new features which mostly shuts all the IPhone's original critics with large doses of jealousy.

Remember when the IPhone 3G was announced? Most of the criticism was directed at the IPhone lacking many basic features and with this new 3.0 software update announced, its pretty much a TAKE THAT BITCHES. Its really amazing, because every other ordinary phone would never improve their applications, meaning, "you bought a phone, it comes with what it does, now deal with it."

New features would include,

SMS forwarding. ( I know its stupid, but think about it..it didn't have it, and now it does. Just nice to know Apple listened.)

MMS (same thing.)

VCard support (finally. And it automatically updates with your contacts in your mac and IPhone.)

Copy and paste. ( basically you can copy from virtually anywhere, e-mail, Safari, notes and paste Virtually anywhere as well, even pictures. Great feature to save time.)

Landscape keypad in more apps. (originally landscape keypad was only for Safari, but now extends to notes, sms, e-mail and also 3rd party apps.)

Voice recorder. ( YES NOESH, MAH IPHONE IS A VOICE RECORDER.)

Additions to stock. (landscape view, prices of stocks by pressing anywhere on the charts.)

Spotlight ( Mac users will understand this. Search function which VERY quickly does a search of the entire IPhone+dictionary+web based on your keywords.)

Password Auto-fill (self-explanatory)

Turn-by-turn GPS directions (AWESOME) "Turn left to Rodeo Drive."

Push notifications ( great new feature. Lets say you have Live messenger running. Now on all phones, OS 2.0, Windows mobile, symbian, it runs on the background and having to keep you connected to the server. NOW, on OS 3.0, whenever you send an IM, it goes to Apple's cloud then to the server. SO, IM client doesn't have to keep running. when you receive a reply(or a new convo) server sends message to Apple's cloud then to you. MEANING, it saves a hell lot of battery life and increases performance.)

Improved Bluetooth support.

So yeah, its a huge update which really puts back the Iphone 3G back in the game by fixing many of the disappoints which initially held it back.
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"If you do not turn on to politics, politics will turn on to you." -Ralph Nader

Its a powerful quote on how if you ignore what your politicians are doing, they will eventually do something that fucks you, citing the importance of transparency, awareness and civil disobedience.

"Happiness is a prison Evey, happiness is the most insidious prison of all." - V commenting after how Evey said she was "happy" until V imprisoned her and showed her the truth and was finally truly free.

-Panzerz

Flyer Beware

In this time of economic uncertainty and enormous deficeits in the airline industry... I present to you, the award winning idea from RyanAir : Paying for the use of the aircraft's lavatories!

Is this just plain stupidity or what. RyanAir has already contracted Boeing to retrofit its lavatories to a 'pay-to-use' style. The original idea was to have a coin operated toilet door where the user would have to pay £1 to use the toilet. RyanAir's cheif executive conceded that this original idea was not feasible as most of RyanAir's flyers use the euro as well. On top of that, Boeing couldn't come up with a coin operated toilet door. So they are settling for credit cards. Swipe to poo, is the idea. Amazing stuff man.

RyanAir is a low-cost airline and the world's largest carrier in terms of international passengers. It is also Europe's fastest expanding and most aggressive airline. Its other money-spinning ideas on the drawing board include charging for reading of the safety card, charging for the use of oxygen masks in case of depressurization (mad; swipe and die due to lack of time), and paying for bikini clad crew. 

Mad cow or what. This is why, I fly Singapore Airlines.

My own

Some old woman actually walked up to me today when I was walking from school to the bus stop to ask me for money to take a taxi to new bridge road. She was really old and looked as if she carried her home in a trolley she rolled around. At first I thought she really needed a little amount to take to the city. But as she tried to convince me that she was really frail and injured and couldn't take a bus to the city, the more I began to think it was just a hoax. A shameful, unpleasant hoax to get money out of JC kids. To top it off, it was raining a typhoon and she claimed her rheumatism was acting up and etc. I told her she could take a bus to tanglin CC and transfer bus to new bridge road without getting drenched in the rain. But she kept pushing on about how she can't take the bus because she got injured twice in the past by taking the bus.

What a shameful and sad sight. She kept saying, as well, about how she always had to eat bread for dinner cause she's injured and can't work and didn't have money. The more she tried, the more I was sure this was just some stupid ploy to get $2 notes from every single person she approached.

This is disgusting. I am lost for words over how some of the older generation people behave like that. TO LIE to try to get money from kids. LYING about all the injuries, LYING about going to new bridge road to see the doctor and LYING to gain our sympathies (money).

Maybe if you approaced me for money to eat it wouldn't be so bad. Because I'm a compassionate guy. But telling me a cock and bull story about the past just makes me feel even more disgusted.

Society needs help.

Percolation, isolation

Just wanted to share this extract from a blog I read...

"They say there is good out there in the world-but why dont i ever see it. The world is hard and cruel and we should accept it. Just ytdy i went to the post office to pay my cousin's phone bill and there was this elderly man about 5 people in front of me in the queue and he was paying his electricity bill- his electricity had apparently been cut and he didnt have enough money to pay his bill. He was 9 dollars short and he started to cry- i mean wtf the 5 ppl in front of me just ignored him and this man with his family told his kids to look away. I was just so pissed and saddened. I walked over to the man payed his bill for him and i'll never forget the hug or the look of gratitude he gave me.

Most of all i'm disappointed. Disappointed at my countrymen. what kind of society has my country become. Heartless,cruel, impatient bastards is what i believe my countrymen are. Even at the bank when i'm taking out my wallet before walking over to the teller the guy behind me pushes and exclaims loudly for me to move( never mind the matter that i can break his face).

Forget Singaporeans- my country has a hell lot of expatriates and foreigners and i believe that they are the worst. Forget the fact that the majority of them are from India and china. What i really hate about them is how they always criticise Singapore and how much better their homeland is and the way look so degrading at anyone else.

Firstly, if your homeland is so much better what the fuck are you doing in my country and secondly they should remember that perhaps they form the elite in their country but in this country they arent the elite and they should learn their place and they should really keep their sniveling sucking up to themselves cause it aint going to work on me nor my mum and especially not my dad. The government should really consider having some kind of Compatibility test to determine if these foreigners will be able to fit into society before allowing them to work or live here.( something like what perhaps Australia has)

i may sound like some elitist arrogant toerag- well if u want to believe so its your problem. I just believe i'm privileged to go to a top school and have my parents trust me to have my own condo but what i cant stand are rude impatient dis-compassionate assholes. Singapore is a society, lets act like members of a society and help one another or perhaps even smile once in a while. I've never felt so ashamed to be Singaporean before."

Fucking finally

The best way to predict the future is to invent it.
Alan Kay

The past few weeks have been a landslide. 4 months' worth of lectures and fully-fledged projects crammed into 7 weeks is no joke. I created a small film production in a matter of days, wrote lengthy essays into the dawn, got to know a few more people, and it wasn't all fun, but it was exhilarating, and it was important. This is the result of a choice, something Secondary School couldn't provide me much of. I began to leave sec school behind the moment DPA results came in.

One thing I always hate about many schools is how they try to mix idealism and pragmatism. They tell you that everyone can go on to a bright future. So many people can't. They just can't.

I guess I feel betrayed and misled. Though I'm not much for school loyalty, it was still a kick in the shins when Ms Z told me over the phone that she wasn't going to help me get through the gate because she was in a bad mood.

Now, unless we have a signed form committing us to servicing our school further, we're not allowed in. We've been living half our lives in that place for 4 years and suddenly I'm locked out. Ms Z said it was my own fault. Maybe it is.


Well, fuck it. Most of the people I liked in there are either moving on or gone. Only people left have strings, or they're the kind of scum that TOFU encountered. The Drama Club's glory time is over. Geia's over, India's over, Mikana's over, Ms Aza is over, I moved a lot of MSN contacts into the obselete group, gonna finish a few last favours and I'm done. I'm through.

Next project.

Assholes, and you guys deserve it SOBs.

I went back to my secondary school today and truffled the feathers of some sec 3 gangster wannabe in school. When I left school, he and his small gang were outside waiting for me. Notably, little roy as his boss. Those assholes were such losers.

They were on my cca groud trying to be funny so I asked them to go away. He couldn't understand me. by this time I was damn pissed and had enough. "Sometimes I wonder why I bother talking to animals" I blurted. And I didn't bloody hell regret it. If they can't understand, obviously that makes them animals. 

So this wannabe actually confronted me outside school and asked me to climb the stairs to meet him. I couldn't be bothered and ask him to come down if he wants to talk. He didn't move, but hurled a string of uncouth vulgarities aloud at me. I shook my head and walked the other direction. Eventually he budged and tailed me and confronted me (losers). And confronted me by repeating the same irrelevant points over again on how he's just born a loser and wants people to treat him like a loser. Eventually I decided that it's enough. If I wanted to talk to animals I would have paid money to the zoo. Eventually, I just walked away with those bastards being real losers and repeatint the same string of hokkien vulgarities over and over again.

Sometimes I wonder why we keep these assholes in our schools. Grow up losers. You're not going to live by knocking people's shoulders anymore cos you're no longer in school. grow up, cos I think you need it. I used to pity you for having low IQ, low EQ and coming from a poor family background. I changed my mind. You should commit crimes as soon as you turn legal. So they can throw you into jail and hopefully they give you the rattan early so you grow up quicker. Get a life bitches.

apathy, apple tea

JC life sucks tremendously where work is concerned. Already getting used to all these lectures and tutorials, that is I'm so used to not getting stuff. 

SPA for Chem and Physics is going to be damn anal.

Chemistry is going to be damn anal

GP is going to be anal (cos getting a grade A is super hard)

PW is going to be damn anal

Chinese is going to be damn anal

You can see how my life is taking the turn for the worst with more emphasis on the backdoor. I think I won't need sex ever in my life.

I finally understand when people tell my O levels are easy. I never did get it, until the gigantic, massive, super black A came. I'm at the third topic for most of my topics now, massive pace, and look at the f____ dept... Life sucks take drugs.

Have anyone noticed my previous few posts was about life in school? What a life. Bitch.