Ian On The Red Dot

Saw this tweet:

Unemployment is always caused by global factors, but employment gains are always due to the Resilience Package. Huat ah!

My government’s view on their contribution (and sometimes lack of) to Singapore mirrors that of my father (admittedly this is unfair to him):

When I did well in school:

Father (to friends): My son did well in school. Scored all distinctions.

When I did something wrong:

Father (to mother): Your son is late again. He doesn’t know how to be punctual.

There used to be a time when parents were able to understand what their kids were doing for recreation. Football, tennis, badminton, softballs, rugby,squash – these were activities that parents understood, and could even support if not join in the fun.

Then those blasted contraptions called computers came along and things changed. Kids started getting lost in new worlds created by – what parents must surely think are the devil’s playthings – computer games.

“So son, what did you do over the weekend?”

“Oh, nothing much dad. Me and some clan mates played a few games where we gang-banged some idiot noobs.”

And the conversation pretty much ends there, with the parents’ hearts breaking into a million pieces, them wondering what they did wrong to raise such a deviant child.

In a move to help create an environment where father and son can bond over the sharing of spoils after slaying a level 200 monster in a faraway virtual land, the event Licence2Play is being organized by SPHere Exhibits and the Singapore) Cybersports and Online Gaming Association.

Its aim was to introduce cyberwellness and responsible gaming elements into the industry, thus engaging often-neglected stakeholders like parents, educators, and the Government. While at the same time having loads of fun and family entertainment, which is what gaming–a pretty recession-proof industry–should always be about.

Find out more about the event from Aaron over at his cnet blog.

A Philips fruit juice machine. After 10 years ( might be longer, but we can’t remember the exact date we bought it ) it is still going strong. Philips, if only you made all your products like this – I’ve got an electric shaver that didn’t perform its job very well.

Anyway, my mom is on a fruit-juice making craze. Yummy …

Last Saturday, my gf and I did the flower arrangements for the wedding of a family friend. Well, actually she did all the flower arrangements. I was the manual labor.

The Reception Area (After):

My contribution to the reception area was the cutting of the cloth and the subsequent covering of the table with it.

The Reception Area (Before):

The Seats (After):

The Seats (Before):

The Altar (After):

The Altar (Before):

As we now know, Christian killed Tommy.

Which probably does not explain much to the people who didn’t come to the dinner. So here’s what happened – I wanted to host a dinner at my old place and have a mini gathering where the participants (aka guinea pigs) will pretend to be certain characters and the aim was to solve a murder mystery (which didn’t turn out to be quite the mystery as it will soon be obvious why).

So, the characters:

1. Denise – a TV star and Tommy’s ex-lover.
2. Nigel – Tommy’s body guard.
3. James – a former contestant of Singapore Idol who got kicked out due to a sex video scandal.
4. A palm reading psychic ( I realized that this role was perfect for my friend’s friend and even more perfect for me…considering that I am damn cheekopek and can use that character as an excuse to touch females’ hands…KIV).
5. Christian – a former actor on one of Tommy’s hit TV shows who got booted out because he didn’t respond to Tommy’s advances.

Yes…Tommy was gay (actually more like bi) and having sex with tons of beautiful women was just a front.

And Christian was the killer.

I realized that one of my close friends was right. It was probably easier to solve the mystery by thinking what I would write as opposed to what the characters would do. And I didn’t even realize that I was making the character named Christian the killer. I guess my disdain for religion is so deeply embedded that even when I try to write a murder mystery my subconscious makes someone named Christian the killer.

I realized it is damn important to have a few more writers.

My friends really played their character well throughout the night.

And it was great to have a dinner with a bunch of close friends at my old place – the sharing in the closing of a chapter for my family.

I was hoping certain new friends would take the bait and join the dinner – hence the scattering of random messages on Plurk and my blog. So, if in the future you get some random mail from me or see some random message, hopefully it would be the start of a better written/coordinated mystery with Seng Kang as the scene of the crime and you would take the bait.

I’m moving house in two month’s time. I’m almost confirmed going to go insane just packing the stuff that’s been accumulated over the course of my 27 years on this earth. I’m trying to use this period as a chance to let go. Throw away the stuff I don’t need, especially the stuff I don’t need emotionally. I’ve always been sentimental and it has always been hard to let go of stuff that bring back sweet sweet memories but now, it increasingly seems senseless to collect things or just have so many material possessions.

The above was the first windbreaker my dad bought me. I got it around the time I entered secondary one. The new school brought a whole new concept of an air-conditioned studying environment. Also, that was the first time school was more than just one street crossing away and it was to provide me some protection in case it rained on the way home.

I outgrew this windbreaker quite quickly. But it didn’t become useless. My dad started using it for his golf games. It got retired from active duty only recently when it became too worn out and too permanently stained. I don’t want to throw it away but a part of me knows it is pointless holding onto this artifact that links together so many phases of my life.

More than just being there in my life, the windbreaker represents all the qualities of my dad that makes him a good man – his frugality and the understated way he chooses to express his love for my sister and me.

Throwing this is like letting go that part of him i cherish, that part which I love. But maybe, just maybe, it is time to stop loving items and the memories but start loving again the person who is in the home.

One of the simple pleasures in this life that I really enjoy is spending time to talk with my sister. I think she is one of the few people who really understands the kind of person I am. Plus our conversations if not always funny are at least interesting. Anyway, over the last weekend, my sister and I went shopping for a new laptop.

I have a policy. If I enter a store, and you are the first salesperson to talk to me ( or rather help me) , if I ever come back to buy an item, I’ll look for you and get the item from you. I’m not sure if every store implements a commission or quota policy for their sales people but I try to enforce this policy on myself just in case it might help the sales person.

Anyway, so in the first store we entered, this male sales person approached us and basically answered some of our queries. We wanted to look at the prices at other stores so we told him we might be back later.

We walked around Funan and finally decided to return to the first store to get the laptop. We tried to get the guy’s attention but he was servicing another customer by then. So we waited for a while. And waited. And waited. It came to a point that we couldn’t find him. So, after waiting for about thirty minutes, we finally decided to just ask the sales girl who had gravitated to where we were standing.

Before making that decision, I told my sister,

“You know, we are just going to see that guy once we ask one of his colleagues for help.”

And …. guess what. When we moved to the counter to set up the laptop and pay for it, the first salesman that had approached us was at the counter too.

Murphy, oh Murphy, you wrote your laws just for us, didn’t you?

Anyway, my sister came up with this:

Ouch!

There are days when you get careless. You let your mind and thoughts wander down a particular road. You start seeing the world through cracked lenses – everything good fades into the background, every mistake, every transgression takes center-stage.

You don’t want to be ungrateful. You don’t want to be angry.

Yet you can’t help it.

The gates open and every demon, every raw twisted emotion is unleashed.

You start making distinctions to justify the turmoil in your heart.

Doing your duty is different from making sacrifices.

Inconveniencing yourself is different from making sacrifices.

You scream – you cannot abdicate your responsibilities by emotional blackmail.

You cannot say we’ve been spoiled and a better child would be less demanding.

You cannot be the one demanding more from us.

You can actually. But if we meet those expectations or even exceed it, you cannot turn around and say we have no right to not walk in step with you anymore when we are ahead.

We should both expect better from each other. We should be iron that sharpen iron.

But you chose us, we didn’t choose you. The onus is for you to lead. Be our leaders. Our mentors. Don’t demand our respect. Earn it.

Yes, we are older. Maybe even more mature. That does not mean we must pander to your emotional needs.

That sadness is something we all must bear.

I have an uncle who I was quite close to when I was young. He was the uncle who brought me to see movies and football matches at the National Stadium. I’ve always thought that he didn’t have much of a hobby except trying to figure out the next winning number for 4D – he would record down past winning numbers in a spreadsheet and try to analyze them. Recently, as I thought about my uncle and the big part he played in my life, and in a way still does, I realized he had a rather unique hobby – taking part in competitions.

I realized my uncle was a serial competition winner. I have another friend like my uncle who would take part in all sorts of competitions like those you hear on the radio, find in the New Paper, read about in magazines like 8 Days and where you need to collect stuff.

Over Chinese New Year, when visiting him, I asked him about this hobby of his. My sister created the image below which gives one of the reasons why he takes part in such competitions.

To my Uncle, the prize of the competition isn’t important. It is the taking part in it or more importantly the winning of it.

Apparently, there are forums dedicated to competition junkies like my uncle. If anyone knows of any, please do share in the comments section.