Cinema Fee Hikes

Hell, from1 May 2005, going to the movies is gonna gouge a deeper hole in all our wallets.

Shaw, Eng Wah, and Golden Village cinemas will raise weekday ticket prices by 50 cents and weekend prices by $1. This means a future price range of between $6.50 and $9.50.

Kenneth Tan, managing director of GV, says that while GST rates have gone up twice in the past three years (incidentally, he glosses over the increase of a mere 1 percent each time), ticket prices have remained unchanged.

Okay, so now the bloodsucker assholes implement a one-time increase of between 8.333 percent and 11.764 percent, supposedly to cover the increasing "utility costs for exhibitors". Does that refer to those huge stand-up posters and gimmicky exhibits like a giant blown-up Shrek for example? If so, why isn't Cathay increasing prices since they seem to have the best and largest collection of such exhibits? Even the larger GVs like Plaza Sing don't seem to have as many exhibits. Seems like a bleddy loopy excuse if you ask me.

Looks like we've gotta cut down on weekend movie outings after chorale. Then again, we don't seem to be watching that many movies now compared to pigging out. I'm just waiting for the day to come when buying a DVD becomes cheaper and more value for money.

Or when they increase prices of snack items by 10 percent, in a socially responsible bid to "deter our valued customers from excessively consuming potentially fattening and harmful processed snacks". Oh, and if they happen to double their profits in doing so, all the better because what can be better than a win-win, right?

What's On Jimmy's Wish List?

Saw this in the Apple store at Wheelock Place last Friday and couldn't resist. So Jimmy, is this beautiful machine reserved under your name or is it another jimmy?

Boh-liao Photos

First up, a close-up of the pretty rosette and ribbon that adorned the wedding favour chocolate box at Elizabeth's Sheraton Towers wedding. Incidentally, Mandy loved the rosette and Yann suggested she attach it to her bra. Methinks it may come in useful for her potential matrimonial adventures into NUS's medical library, eh Mandy?



Next up, in response to criticism from nosy quarters that my blog is devoid of photographs, I shall be narcissistic and post a picture of the boyfriend and myself, taken also at Elizabeth's wedding. Yes yes, my head is bigger than his and my face is also oilier and shinier. Can I help it if he's slimmer and has better skin, sobz?

Premature

The Sunday Times columnist Catherine Lim (not the author) today mused about the tussle in US over severely brain-damaged Theresa Marie Schiavo. Her husband had succeeded in a bid to remove her feeding tube, insisting that she would not have wanted to be kept alive like that. Meanwhile, her immediate family insisted too that there was still hope for her as she exhibited signs of consciousness in that she smiled and responded to their attention. Both camps had been battling each other for years.

I can only imagine the pain gnawing away at her parents and siblings, watching their beloved daughter and sister waste away bit by bit over the years, going to bed each night filled with hope that the next day would bring good tidings, and waking up every day to the tormenting realisation that for today, hope was dead. And with that insight, I'm sure their hearts died a little too.

I can't comment on her husband Michael Schiavo though. Accusations of him lusting after insurance payouts aside, I can't really pass a judgement on a man who apparently had already embroiled himself in affairs with two women within three years of his wife's collapse. Rationally and intellectually, I can understand the loneliness and weakness of the flesh that comes with an enforced celibacy, but really, it's not surprising that people have questioned how devoted can such a man be.

I would never want my loved ones to come to blows in the event that I should end up in a persistent vegetative state with little hope of awakening. It may seem morbid, but I have given some thought to establishing a living will soon, perhaps after marriage. God forbid that my husband and parents will be slugging it out in court over whether or not to pull the plug on me. More importantly, I think that personally I would rather be allowed to go early, with dignity and no extra cost to my loved ones even though I know they would fight tooth and nail for my life with the merest glimmer of hope.

It's such a small world, because later on in her article, Lim goes on to talk about how the whole saga got her thinking about the three deaths she has encountered in this past one month. And one of them, according to her, was the death of a premature baby who had been in the ICU for seven months. Baby Hannah. And this was like a small lightning shock for me, because how many Baby Hannahs are there in Singapore who are premature, had been in the ICU for seven months, and had just passed away in the previous month?

Baby Hannah was my colleague's, let's call her L, daughter. Born exactly three months premature, she was a teeny wee bundle at birth. With her lungs and eyes not developed fully then, doctors predicted that Baby Hannah was most likely to be almost completely blind in future. In fact, L told me before that Baby Hannah was almost given up upon at one time, but being the feisty little fighter that she was, she clawed her way back.

When I joined the company, she had already been in hospital for three months. Pinned up on the walls of L's cubicle were printouts of Baby Hannah, tubes and all criss-crossing her tiny body. When L showed us albums with Hannah's pictures, it was all we could do not to cry, because in that album too were pictures of many other ICU babies, too heartbreaking to express in words. But I never once saw or heard L lose heart, or voice any bitterness.

When she showed us pictures, it was always with a fond smile while we struggled to find appropriate platitudes. L shuttled between numerous clients' offices everyday, and still managed to find time to run to the hospital twice ever day to be with Baby Hannah and hold her and tell her she's loved. This was really important to her as she told me before how sad it was because there was an ICU baby boy with cerebral palsy who didn't seem to have any visitors, not even his parents. At work, in the office, she was upbeat and unfailingly cheerful to the extent that it was only about a month into my work that I found out she had a very sick baby daughter. Through it all, she never once complained about the burden she and her husband had to bear; in fact, they even bought a bigger new car to ferry Baby Hannah around in comfort once she could be discharged from hospital.

On chu san of CNY this year, I found myself with ony three other souls in office, the rest having taken leave. One of them was L, and being bored and lazy with noone around, I chatted with her and found that Baby Hannah was not doing so well lately. She had developed some pressure problems in her organs and, as I understood it, was not coping well since her lungs were already very weak. And about one or two weeks after that, we received an email message in the morning from the boss that started thus: "I regret to have to inform you colleagues that Baby Hannah has gone home to be with the Lord...".

I remember that day well, because it was the day of Chorale's Lei Yu performance. Seven months in the ICU. I wanted so much to go to the wake, but couldn't.

It's been about a month after Baby Hannah passed away and I think, after reading what Lim wrote, that it's true that Hannah's life, though short, had been extraordinarily blessed. She had devoted parents who loved her and did their best for her, and she had in return blessed them with the discovery of a strength and love from deep within that they had perhaps never realised themselves capable of before.

It is said that Jesus loves the little children, and I am sure that Baby Hannah is one of the blessed and loved. L says that she'll take a long time to recover, but is hoping to have kids again. I hope and pray that her next pregnancy will be easier and that Baby Hannah will bless her mother with another child. God Bless.

Decisions, Decisions

I can't bleddy decide which I hate more.

Having painstakingly written stories I'm proud of cancelled or shortened just because the weeklies beat us to a similar angle, or because sales keep coming in with weirdly-sized ads,

or,

Incompetent, cheapskate, irritating, pesky, two-faced, and toadish PR people who treat you like shit but fawn over your editor, then in the same breath wonder why your publication isn't giving coverage to the same people esteemed media like ST and BT are interviewing. Fark off, bitch...

or,

Cheapo clients who demand coverage when all they have for us in return is a teeny one-eight page classified. Either that or they want their products or brands to be weaved into my stories. Assholes...

Object Of Desire

I've never been a fan of that stuffy pantheon of luxury goods Louis Vuitton, having found their bags boring, stuffy, and lacking in fun.

Recently however, their partnerships with japanese contemporary art visionary Takashi Murakami have yielded numerous temptations yummy enough for me to consider conversion.

Presenting!!!

The Cherry Blossom Monogram series.


The Eye Dare You LV.


And, the Multicolore LV.


Aren't they loads of fun? I think these are already a few seasons old, and as for exactly how old, I couldn't begin to say since I'm no fashionista and am unlikely to ever be one. Anyway, I liked the Eye Dare You most since it's so bright and colourful and cheery. But then I still hesitated to consider myself a fan since I was never seriously tempted enough to even get a Grade AAA Korean replica.

Until I chanced upon Murakami-Vuitton's latest-Monogram Cerises. Darned, I am so so so hooked. Check them out.

So cute and round!


And number one on my current wishlist. So elegant and glamourous!


Cherries are so 50s chic and glamour, and they add so much fun, colour, and vibrance to the staid brown lines of LV's monograms. Oh no, I so so so want to get my hands on the cherry granny!!! Ebay and other auction sites haven't really gotten in on the action as yet, but I'm counting on the trusty pirates to deliver the goods really soon. Failing which, perhaps the pasar malams of KL and BKK will turn up some Grade AAAs too, judging by the thousands of Eye Dare You models I saw a few months back.

ARGGGHHHHHH!!! I wish my surname was Melwani and I am a socialite who collects LVs like the real me withdraws money from an ATM. Why can't I be born rich???

I Have A New Toy!

And it goes by the name of the Nikon Coolpix 5900, a nifty little silver package that sadly is equipped with merely three times optical zoom. Would have loved one like yannism's Panasonic with a droolworthy 12 times optical zoom and damn pro-looking lenses, but it would have been a waste since I'm not really one for photography.

From now on, Fangorn, you can shut your big trap and quit going on and on about my ancient, clunky Minolta with its humongous external battery pack. Be nice and you may even get to preview the pics.

I never meant to leave a friend out when I met up with another friend lately. Like I said, we worked across the road from each other (he was doing his internship at a company across the road from mine) and from the start I had always wanted to give him a welcome lunch. But he's always out with his colleagues during lunch so we thought we'd just do dinner instead. Ah well, I don't know what to say that doesn't sound lame so forget it.

I'm really happy for fur that she'll be returning to school soon to start on her teaching course. Many people turn to teaching because it's relatively well-paying and provides an iron rice-bowl. But fur has always had teaching in her long-term plans and I can really see her sweet, caring, and nurturing person hard at work in our institutions moulding the minds and characters of our, errrr, "future generation of leaders".

Aside. Argh, how I hate these overused platitudes. Why can't we ever think of anyone or anything in non-utilitarian terms? Can a parent not desire to educate his or her child for the simple reason that he/she wants to empower the child with knowledge, intellect, and skills so that the child can be a complete, thinking person? I trust fur not to subscribe to such rubbish.

Anyway, it takes much courage to junk one's comfort zone, though the question remains as to whether fur's old place could be rightly considered comfortable. I even wrote a trite crappy short story on the same topic for the short story GE I took in our last semester in school.

Like last year when I temped at my former internship company after graduation. I liked the CBD area and enjoyed the company of my colleagues (those around my age chummed together and the older ones indulged us like they would their daughters). I settled in the routine after a while and slacked off in my search for a job of my own. Even as I moaned about finding it hard to land a job, I was too comfortable where I was to be more pro-active and aggressive about marketing myself, either cold or in response to recruit ads. As it neared the psychological barrier of six months (from graduation), I started to panic and that was when I picked up my pace.

Fur's not the only one to be quitting her job. ~Y~ has also done so, though I don't really know what are her plans. I don't know how far I can go in my current job, even though I enjoy what I'm doing. But should the time come when I feel a need to move on to something different or if my pay is way below par with my contributions, I hope that I will be able to throw off the shackles. For if I can't even find the courage to do that at a time when I have so little burdens and obligations, how am I going to do so when I get married and have kids?

On a different note, sometimes I am amazed at the most inane and stupid things the Government can come up with. Most recently, it was senior minister of state for Health Dr Balaji's suggestion that the spike in new HIV infections could be attributed to homosexual parties. I mean, the parties take place once or twice a year and he chooses to blame that instead of fingering the 24-hour activities in red-light districts? Or effing dirty ah-peks who go to Batam and wherever else for nubile young things?

Previously, acting minister for youth, community and sports also warned that bar-top dancing can bring about social instability. I Googled this ludicrous idea and found this gem on TalkingCock.com. It is my humble opinion that the contributors to TalkingCock are total geniuses. Who says our smartest people have all become 'quitters' and migrated overseas, or are to be found only in Parliament?


Bar Top Dance Leads to Riots, Collapse of Nation
Date: Sunday, October 06, 2002
Topic: Local News

Minister for National Development Vivian Balakrishnan's warning last week on the price of liberty proved prescient when a bar top dance led to the collapse of the nation.
The devastating chain of events began when a Miss Zhao Yangren, 22, leaped onto the bar counter at popular nightspot The Devil's Butt at Orchard Porridge Hotel.

Wearing clothing that eyewitnesses consistently described as "like dental floss, only thinner", Miss Zhao immediately attracted the attention of all the expatriate men in the room.

Apparently, most local men simply ignored her. Said Mr. Quah Kao Hsien, 28, "See what? It was just the usual Coyote Ugly routine. Some more she look like ugly coyote. If ang mor like, then let them take, lah."

To the pulsating beats of the music, Miss Zhao then allegedly engaged in a series of calisthenics which involved the vigourous quivering of her gluteus maximus muscles.

An argument rapidly broke out between the expats, over whether her gluteals should be properly described as her "bon bon", or her "booty".

According to a Mr. Fidel Castrato from Puerto Rico (currently playing for the Bukit Gorblok Bodohs FC), "bon bon" is more accurate, as the repetition better represents the dual buttocks, and besides, that was what Ricky Martin called them.

However, Master Sergeant Redd Neckk, on shore leave from the USS Warmonger presently docked in Sembawang, said that "booty" was preferable, as it alluded to Miss Zhao's hidden treasures, and besides, Ricky Martin was a wussy.

This immediately led to a fist fight amongst the expats, which soon embroiled locals in it too. Apparently, this happened when the fight caused a lot of locals to spill their beer.

"Na beh," spat Mr. Lim Chuay Chiew. "Alcohol here so bleddy espensive and the chao ang mor make us spill! Of course we hoot them, lah!"

Mr. Lim also added, "Anyway, this is Singapore, so her kachng should be called, um, 'kachng', lor."

The fight became truly explosive when the police arrived to arrest Miss Zhao. She protested, "But bar top dancing now allowed, what!"

Inspector Chin Tua Kow, however, informed her that by her gyrations, she had overstepped the O.B. markers. Her performance, she was told, was now beyond a "bar top" dance - it was now classified as a "buttocks" dance, an offence under the Penile Code (Cap. 666) punishable by spanking and a fine.

When Miss Zhao said that it was unfair to prosecute her for contravening an OB marker whose boundaries are unknown, the policemen simply burst into laughter.

Fuelled by alcohol, the mob stopped fighting amongst themselves and turned their attention to the police, and vented their anger at what some of them claimed was unjust treatment of Miss Zhao.

Some of the men started stomping on the roofs of cars, shouting, "No bar top dancing? Then arrest us for car top dancing, lah!"

Some women even got in the act by removing their brassieres and trampling on them. "What about bra top dancing? Lai, lah! Scared what?"

The riot police had now arrived, and had intended to use a water cannon to quell the crowd. However, HQ apparently radioed to deny them use of the water cannon as Singapore had to conserve resources to make Newater.

Unable to deal with the growing mob, the SAF had to be roped in. NSF troops were sent in, which proved to be a huge mistake. On being briefed that the incident had arisen from a sensual dance, the deprived teenage soldiers' hormones proved stronger than the threat of court martial, and they all defected to the rabble instead, in the hope of seeing repeat performances. Said Lance Corporal Khee Choe Pheng, "Ho say, ah! Who needs the cheapo tigershow at Kanchanaburi?"

By now, news of the small rebellion had spread to the rest of the island, especially the heartland.

Thousands of senior male citizens, on hearing that people were shaking their butts and trampling their brassieres in Orchard Road, promptly thronged the buses and MRTs, causing a total public transport shutdown.

Meanwhile, some opportunists had taken advantage of the confusion to start looting some stores, which somehow led to a rumour that the Great Singapore Sale had organized an impromptu shopping marathon. Soon, hundreds of thousands of screaming women citizens began to rampage through shops, engaging in bloody cat fights over the best bargains.

The Gahmen's attempts to use the media to restore calm failed, because all the Ah Liens in Mediacorp, constituting 92.8% of their workforce, were down in Orchard Road fighting. Similar messages broadcast over MediaWorks went unheeded, because no one watches them anyway.

The cabinet were being advised to leave the island for their safety, but were thrown into a moral dilemma as to whether they would thus be considered "quitters". Eventually, they decided that they would not be "quitting", they would just be "taking leave".

As the nation spiraled into anarchy and chaos, Dr. Vivian Balakrishnan was found kneeling in the lobby of the Ministry of National Development, surrounded by commando bodyguards, sobbing, "I told them! I told them it would happen, but would they believe me? Noooo!"

TalkingCock.com will bring you more news on the rapidly deteriorating situation in the once orderly country of Singapore, after our reporters join the looters at Best Denki and Harvey Norman.

Source: the very venerable, irreverent, and clever TalkingCock.com

Friends Of Old

Tis a week for meeting people I've known for years but haven't been in touch with for some time.

First up was bumping into Zijia from CS at Japanese Dining Sun, a new Japanese restaurant at CHIJMES that has really nice decor, food (especially the tofu cheese cake and sukiyaki!!!), and ambience. We were both there for food-tasting. As there were actually four slots that the media could pick from, it was really coincidental that we both chose the same slot. We stuck together, united in the relief that for once we newbie reporters had a familiar face around at an event and weren't pretending to read the press release for the seventh time or replying mobile messages. The only other time I felt so excited at an event was at the Singapore Heart Foundation press conference for their fund-raising event, where I met Jeanine and Hwee Leng. Anyway, both of us chatted with the cute captain, who was rather stiff and formal at first but soon loosened up and rubbished around with us. Then both of us took eons to decide what to order from the menu, dithering over whether or not to order the lobster sashimi (priced at $95). Throughout the lunch, ZJ told everyone that both of us went way back to our first day of orientation in the same OG.

That very same evening, I was scheduled to meet the bloggies for our usual bimbo evening. Bloggies are uni friends, the only really good uni friends I have, may I add. How sad right. Dinner was at Magic Wok, around a too-big table where I had trouble following the conversation. Then we moved on to Coffee Club at Raffles City, where noone wanted to have dessert with me. Sigh, and then we took our usual unglam photos with topo's camera. Cue oily faces, narcissistic self-portraits and ugly poses. At one point, we wondered how come we weren't like one of those groups of yuppie women who sat poised and pretty, coolly sipping at a fancy drink and chatting sophisticatedly to one another. For sure you don't hear hysterical roars of laughter or giggles out of them. But then, we had fun and always have! Nothing gets better than that.

Day after. Met up with Pamela from CS at her client's event at chi-chi Whitebait & Kale @ Camden Medical Centre. The place's really damn white lah! But anyway, I was late by twenty minutes yet ended up the earliest there. Tells you all you need to know about our country's beauty writers eh. Pam's really steady at her work, I must say. She's enlightened, so to speak, and very friendly and informative without being pushy. If I ever intended to switch to PR, which was what I was initially trained for, I would want to be a PR person like her.

After the very white Whitebait do, I left to meet caustic Jianhao for dinner, or JH for short. Now, JH and I go way back to DHS, even if I didn't know he existed then while he said he knew of me but didn't know me. We met at Heeren and were just walking around when we bumped into Mr Teo, our civics tutor during our time in the "only college by the sea". He was sitting around in a boutique, comatose while waiting for his wife to finish plundering and pillaging the racks. The three of us talked for about twenty minutes, and the conversation turned to the subject of my future marriage. Mr Teo demanded to be invited to my wedding, and if not, he would personally turn up at XH's house to pummel him into insensibility. Anyway, after we left him, JH and I had Korean and thereafter walked around aimlessly chatting. Funny thing about JH and me is that we never seem to run out of things to talk about, even though I can count on one hand the number of times we've met up like this in the past four or five years after leaving college. Then again, the bulk of our conversations always end up with him laughing at me about something, so I'm not really sure if you can call that talk. Haha...

That kind of sums up my experiences with old friends this week. It's been quite a hectic week; been having events every day. Sometimes that's really wonderful, but on days when I need to catch up with actual writing, I wish we had more staff so that I wouldn't have to go out. Oh well, no point lusting after such luxuries. After all, I do enjoy all the freebies and education.

Nostalgia

I caught a programme this afternoon on Channel 8 which left me nursing a huge wave of nostalgia for the glory days of drama serial theme songs.

In a nutshell, the programme was a journey through the present MediaCorp's drama serial history, beginning with the very earliest blockbuster 雾锁南洋 starring Huang Wen Yong and Xiang Yun. It focused on how drama theme songs of the past were customised to the contents and storyline of the shows to make it as realistic and memorable as possible.

The producers of 雾锁南洋 had gone all out to make it as outstanding as possible, and the theme song wasn't spared. They apparently held a competition inviting people to send in their own original compositions that would capture the essence of the serial-which was to detail the hardships and indomitable spirit of the immigrants who landed on our shores and made good. I had heard a lot about the show despite it having aired way back when I was a kid of three (it aired in 1984), and was really interested to hear the chosen composition. As I would expect, it sounded vaguely 'communist' (the term is bandied around rather loosely these days) with its stirring majestic 'ching chong' chords, operatic singer, and soulful lyrics. IMHO it sounded rather cheesy and contrived in my living room, but somehow it seemed to convey the determination, strength of will, and almost overwhelmingly despairing circumstances I imagined my own ancestors would have faced. In any case, the 1980s were still a period of economic growth and nation building, and I believe the drama and its theme song would have greatly resonated with the adults then.

Next came songs and shows that I remember even now, even though it took the act of listening to the theme songs to dredge up the memories. I even remember how to sing the songs. Next up was serial 芝麻绿豆 and its theme song 小人物的心声 . Lyrics as follows:

也许我一个人

不能成就一番大事业

让我努力贡献一份微薄的力量

也许我自己

不能发出万丈光和亮

但我能为斗室带来足够的光芒

我从来就不在乎

自己不是个大人物

因为平凡也是一种幸福

看到名人总是忙忙碌碌

我的时间于我控制

平凡日子一样会充实。

Other memorable songs included Kopi-O from a serial of the same name 咖啡乌 (which means kopi-o), sung by 巫启贤. Who can forget the hearty shouts of "kopi-o、kopi-o，喝一杯浓浓的kopi-o；kopi-o、kopi-o，把不愉快的事情都遗忘…”? I think both Kopi-O and 小人物的心声 successfully captured the colourful dalily lives of so-called heartlander Singaporeans like you and me; our dreams, struggles, relationships, and routines.

No less outstanding were 城里的月光 from豆腐街, performed quite excellently by Mavis Hee with her quietly intimate and pensive voice, and 走出去就有路 from 出路, by the band Power Station 动力火车. These two serials were set in the war-time periods, I think, and were very nicely complemented by their respective themes. Instead of the blaringly loud, almost ostentatiously patriotic songs like that for the pioneering 雾锁南洋, it seems that over the years theme songs have evolved to sound more pensive, introspective, and close to the heart.

While watching this excellent documentary, I found myself able to sing along to all the songs, and sing along I certainly did. I have always appreciated beautiful themes to the movies I watch, such as May It Be for Fellowship of the Ring, but all these years gems were to be found in my own country and I had been blithely ignorant of them the whole time. It set me lamenting the state of things now, with shallow, inane cookie-cutter songs carelessly plonked into just any drama serial. Perhaps I watch much less television nowadays compared to in my teens, but I seriously can't think of any drama theme song in recent years which touched me and embraced me to the show.

Is it that the production process had changed over the years, such that timely completion for the sake of maximum productivity was of utmost importance? Or could it be that it made no economic sense to compose just one great song for merely one local drama serial? After all, customising the song to our local shows necessarily demands the expectation that the song may be localised, and hence of little appeal beyond Singapore shores. Also, music genres have exploded and it is so so so easy to find a song to suit any theme with just five minutes of Google. Or is it that we're producing less niche shows, with unique selling points? Such that there is absolutely no need to customise the song to the serial. Maybe, just maybe, there's no demand for such songs anymore because teenagers, who I presume watch the most television, would be most receptive to pop songs. Note that I am making a whole lot of assumptions here and that this is purely my own hypothesis.

In any case, I mourn the dearth of such songs of identity, so to speak, and I would consider them to be as much a part of our socio-cultural-national fabric as the Esplanade, the National Day Parade, National Service, the iconic HDB block, and the national flag. I wish that many people other than myself had also caught the show and likewise experienced a sweetly nostalgic hour.

Lastly, my sincerest congratulations to The Moving Visuals company who produced the documentary. While it wasn't the sleekest of works, nor the most sophisticated and impressive of effects, sound or otherwise, it was a production that spoke to me where it mattered most.