Genes on the Internet - E-DNA

The Procrastinator's Dilemma

2012-02-16T23:08:00.002+08:00

So it's happened to me multiples times and I want to throw out this paradox to you. I don't know whether this is an existing paradox (phrased differently), but here it is anyway.

This dilemma requires you to have to two things which are equally important. For the purposes of illustration, let's assume that you're at home, and that a) a very close friend is coming over sometime this afternoon BUT DID NOT SPECIFY EXACTLY WHAT TIME, and b) you need to go out to buy food for dinner OR ELSE THERE WILL BE NOTHING TO COOK AND YOU WILL STARVE.

Let's assume that you cannot buy food while your friend is over (because online delivery doesn't exist or something). Let's also assume that you can't bring your friend to buy dinner with you (because he/she is over from some exotic overseas location and isn't willing to spend time with groceries). While we're at it, let's also assume the absence of cloning, time travel, multiple universe theories, and handphones.

The dilemma goes like this: it's 3pm in the afternoon. Your friend has not arrived yet. You also have not bought dinner yet. You need to go buy dinner or you'll starve. But you need to be here to receive your friend. If you go, then you might keep your friend waiting for hours while you select the most exquisite piece of gourmet lamb shank. But if you wait for your friend, then your stomach acids slowly devour yourself from the inside.

So, here's the question: what is the best course of action here?

One will always wonder,
The Edna Man

ZI MOOOOOO

2012-01-25T21:51:00.002+08:00

Another successful mahjong party at Ernest's house this Chinese New Year. I love how I zi mò on the gàng draw tile TWICE (which is also known as a gàng-shàng-zì-mō). So many Koizumi references. It was so much fun, I can't wait till I'm out and free and can do this all day.

PUUUUUNNNNGGGGG
The Edna Man

Best of 2011

2011-12-31T23:59:00.005+08:00

Another year, another round of awesomeness that is 2011.

1. MAHJONG PARTY! (Written 12th February, 2011)
Awesome fun with awesome friends with an awesome game and you get a completely awesome time. Throw in a couple of references to The Legend of Koizumi and it doesn't get any better than this.

2. Anime of the Year: Toradora!, Angel Beats!, Puella Magi Modoka Magica, Toaru Majutsu no Index and Toaru Kagaku no Railgun (Written 30th December, 2011)
Toradora! was a nice show, with Taiga being adorable and all. Angel Beats! was clearly the heart-breaking anime of the year, and it came with great music to boot. Puella Magi Modoka Magica was the mind-blowing anime of the year, with a completely crazy ending that made it legendary. Index and Railgun sold me with the great character designs and enormous amounts of cute girls (Himegami!), hilarious side characters (Kuroko LOL) and a kickass universe which combined magic and science.

3. Anime Festival Asia 2011 (Written 30th December, 2011)
I am slowing seeping into the world of anime. My first AFA was a blast. From authentic cosplays to amazing artwork and awesome interviews with seiyuus and MIRAI SUENAGA AND HER ORANGENESS to THE NYAN-NYAN PERCENT OCCUPYING AFA and awesome concerts with LiSA. Best weekend ever.

4. Singapore Toys, Games and Comics Convention 2011 (Written 30th December, 2011)
Still not worthy of ComiCon; nevertheless I had a great time and an awesome discount on Civil War trade paperbacks. I also got an autograph from Steve Ditko, CEO of DC Comics, while wearing an Iron Man shirt. Most awkward moment EVER. And also photo with a Black Cat cosplayer, that was priceless.

5. World Building (Written 30th December, 2011)
So Hui Jun and Xi Min thought it would be a good idea to create a world together. Needless to say, it was. I loved using information and ideas across all my areas of knowledge, to contribute to everything from history to politics, magic particles to illusioned golems. The world-building is definitely going to continue, and we'll see where our imaginations take us.

6. Selling my Soul to 9Gag (Written 30th December, 2011)
9Gag is possibly one of the most unobtrusive websites that slowly gained popularity over the year, and I am proud to admit that I was suckered into it from (near) the beginning. I now proudly boast a wide range of knowledge about almost every Internet meme alive, which probably contributes to my Forever Alone status. (Look it up!)

7. The Extremely Dumb News Agency (Written 30th December, 2011)
I started writing spoof articles about current evens a la the Onion this year, and I even started a Facebook page on which to publish them from. It's mostly died down now, since I'm getting pretty lazy (and I haven't been having many good ideas), but there was a bunch of good satire there. Archives, archives; where'd I put the archives?

8. The Genius of Terry Pratchett (Written 30th December, 2011)
So I borrowed a bunch of Pratchett's books from Juzzie this year, and I tore through them (not literally) and I found that HE IS HILARIOUS. I read one of them long ago (The Fifth Elephant, if I remember correctly) when I was sixteen, and I didn't get it. But now I do! And it's hilarious! And witty! And an accurate satire of human nature and the world around us! Very, very well done, Mr. Pratchett, my hat's off to you.

9. The Team Fortress 2 Experience (Written 30th December, 2011)
This is definitely the Game of the Year. I was amazed when it was released Free to Play sometime in July, and I was amazed that it could run on my computer. Since then I've spent a few hundred hours firing oversized rocket launchers and dragon-tipped flamethrowers. It's a really fun game, with no steep learning curve and a bunch of fun game modes; just watch out for spies.

10. GEP Christmas/New Year Gathering (Written 30th December, 2011)
This was a nice time where most of us got together for what might have been the last time in our lives. It was nice to see people who have been friends for the past six years, some even more, come together for a large gathering, barbequeing food and having the most typical gift exchange ever. Hopefully there'll be more of these gatherings in the future!

The Year in Entertainment

Anime: Toradora!; Angel Beats!; Needless; Puella Magi Modoka Magica, Toaru Majutsu no Index and Toaru Kagaku no Railgun; Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below

For most of the anime, see #2 above. Needless was okay, mostly a fanservice show, but there was one HILARIOUSLY AWESOME part somewhere in ep. 18 or 19, where Adam Blade shouts that HE IS ALREADY IN PARADISE. That was seriously the best part of the whole show. Children Who Chase Lost Voices from Deep Below was made by the same guy who made 5 centimetres per second, and it's freaking sad too, and also really creepy, in a way.

Movies: Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides; Inception; Captain America: The First Avenger; Thor; 3 Idiots (DVD), Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows

Pirates was awesome, as always. A movie with Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow cannot go wrong. Inception was mind-blowing. Captain America was good, but it looked too much like a designed prequel for The Avengers (I STILL CANNOT WAIT). Thor was okay, but a bit awkward when I realised that Valhalla was actually multiracial. Loki was quite well-portrayed, though. 3 Idiots is a Bollywood movie, and it was great. I wouldn't mind watching it again, but I know all the plot twists already. This is a must-recommended. Sherlock Holmes was awesome; I didn't watch the first one but I really love how they portrayed his logical thought and deductive reasoning in the slow-motion shots; it really shows off the Sherlock Holmes' playing-a-few-steps-into-the-future characteristic.

Books: Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy; Terry Pratchett's Equal Rites, Reaper Man, Soul Music, Witches Abroad, Interesting Times, Men At Arms, Mort, Guards! Guards, Moving Pictures; Marvel's Civil War series; Philip Reeve's Fever Crumb trilogy: Fever Crumb, A Web of Air, Scrivener's Moon

I re-read His Dark Materials this year and it was as good as ever; maybe even better. I picked up a lot more from the second reading, more of the allusions and symbolism. The ending still broke my heart though. Terry Pratchett re-introduced me to his fantastic and satirical Discworld, which is brilliant in every way imaginable (and in some unimaginable ways as well). I got a few more Civil War books this year too, and the whole crossover event was very well executed around the whole Marvel universe. I picked up Scrivener's Moon only a few weeks ago and loved it. Reeve sure knows how to put a universe together. It also surprised me that he revealed his main character to have homosexual leanings, which was unthinkable for a book aimed at British teenagers, but it was very well-executed.

Music: Sam Tsui; Christina Grimmie; Owl City; Girls Dead Monster (and by extension LiSA); fripSide (specifically the Toaru Kagaku no Railgun openings, only my railgun and Level 5 -Judgement-)

No big shakes in the music department; Sam Tsui is a great singer who has the charisma to make it big in the American music industry. And because of his duet with Christine Grimmie (Just a Dream), I was introduced to her as well, and she's really cute and has a nice voice. I also discovered the awesomeness that is Owl City's Adam Young: the way he plays with words in his lyrics are amazing. Take a look at the bridge of Plant Life and you'll see what I mean. And the Railgun openings are stuck in my head. That is all.

Games: Team Fortess 2; War Metal: Tyrant; Dragon Nest; Borderlands; Poxnora; Portal; Portal 2

Tyrant is quite fun; I've been following it with Juzzie for a while. I like how they manage to make a simple concept of cards fighting cards so complicated on so many levels. Dragon Nest was my MMORPG for this year, and I found it great, a very well-done action MMO; but ultimately I found that I don't really like chasing quest chains and waiting for parties. Borderlands I got from Boey; it's quite fun with the mix of FPS and RPG elements. Poxnora is a turn-based strategy game that JX intro-ed me some time back but couldn't run properly on my computer then. It works now, and I find it very intriguing. Portal was released for free for a short period of time this year and I managed to get it, and Kyle gave me Portal 2 in December, which was great. We're almost done with the co-op mode; just the advanced levels left. Wheatley is HILARIOUS.

That's it for 2011. Apocalypse year 2012, here we come!

The end, one way or another,
The Edna Man

The Word

2011-12-21T16:19:00.002+08:00

The disciples shuffled silently into the sacred place. Around them, the towering shelves rustled with the pages of a thousand hallowed tomes. The altar was bathed in a soft, yellow light from the small frosted lamps; for candles were not allowed, and no-one was heretical enough to bring in a naked flame.

It was cold. The disciples were glad of their thick hooded robes, which kept them warm. The more restless ones shifted around nervously, occasionally glancing towards the altar, which was bare save for the podium with one of the Holy Books.

As last, the Head Librarian arrived. Immediately, the congregation was silent. The Head Librarian did not like loud noises in the sanctum. He was an elderly man, and he slowly made his way up the small flight of stairs until he stood at the podium. He cast a knowing eye upon the crowd before him, seeing the hundreds of faces looking up at him anxiously, expectant.

Smiling slightly, he reached into an inner pocket and withdrew the ceremonial reading glasses, placing them upon his crooked nose. Then he opened the Holy Book, and in a thin, wavering voice, began to read.

"The Book of Merriam-Webster, section P, entry 243," he read. "Perspicacity, noun, one: keenness of mental perception and understanding; discernment; penetration. Two: archaic, keen vision. Origin: 1540-50, earlier perspicacite, Late Latin..."

-----

Just an idea. Influenced a bit by Philip Reeve and his Mortal Engines universe, of which Scrivener's Moon I have just finished reading. He is an amazing writer with an amazing world, and he better finish writing the next book soon.

The definition is taken from Dictionary.com. The entry number is made up. No slights on religion were made in this short story. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is strictly coincidental...

"The Future is something that sneaks up on us while we are busy doing other things."
The Edna Man

Forever Alone

2011-12-14T21:34:00.002+08:00

So as I was eating my solitary dinner in Takshimaya this evening, I had an idea for a for a short movie.

It's about this guy who has this shirt. It's a simple shirt with the words "DO YOU BELIEVE IN LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT?" printed across the front. He wears it everywhere. (He's quite desperate.) He goes about doing his daily routine for most of the short (2-3 minute) clip, while people pass him by every day. Then right at the end, a girl with a shirt with the word "YES" printed on it says hi to him. The film ends.

My god I am lonely.
The Edna Man

A Certain Emotional Review

2011-12-13T20:09:00.002+08:00

I've just finished watching To Aru Kagaku no Railgun, following both seasons of To Aru Majutsu no Index, which I have to say are both awesome.

Both shows, set in the same universe, have a huge number of characters. I think the creators did a really good job with the character designs, because they're all distinguishable and unique in their own way. I thought the frog-faced doctor, the Heaven Canceller, was hilarious, and even more so when Misaka mistook him for a real-life Gekota (which I'm guessing means frog, or something). I liked Index, Misaka 10032, and Himegami Aisa, and Last Order, who are all adorable, and Misaka Mokoto herself, of course. Kuroko Shirai is FREAKING HILARIOUS. Saten Ruiko has a really nice voice (actress).

What I liked about Index was the way they merged magic and science. It's a very interesting system, and like the universe itself, was quite well-balanced. The graphics for both were amazingly well done. Loved all the magic circles and battle nuns and crystal ships and everything. The world was complete and cohesive, with nary a plot hole anywhere. That's my kind of universe.

Railgun ended nicely, which gave me that heart-accelerant feeling that I now associate with brilliant stories. When I was done, I thought it was a bit demoralising to realise that I don't have that kind of really close friend, the kind that you can call up during guard duty to talk without feeling like you're bothering them. But my friends are awesome in their own other ways, so I don't think I should be complaining. Besides, they're all not girls, so.

And there still isn't any Index season 3 or Railgun season 2.

Such misfortune.
The Edna Man

Privileges

2011-12-03T23:53:00.002+08:00

There's this problem with people. They seem to think that they're entitled to things, even when they're not. They think that all their supposed hard work is supposed to pay off in the end, that they get their dues, and what they're owed. They don't imagine for a moment, that perhaps they are not worth the rewards, that they came up short, that they are not worthy to hold the titles and accolades which they demand.

And that is how the world works. And that is why the world is never happy.
The Edna Man

BEST. WEEKEND. EVER.

2011-11-14T11:53:00.013+08:00

My first Anime Festival Asia and I am high.

Three weeks ago I was at somewhere stupid wasting my morning, when Bryan came up to me and bugged me to go AFA. I went back and looked at the schedule (and pricing) and was debating it for a few days. I should go back in time and tell my past self to go for it, no regrets.

I wanted to check out the Miku concert, but tickets were sold out by the time I made my decision, so I forsook it. I heard it was not as awesome as a real Japanese one though, so I don't think I missed out that much.

Saturday at arrived early to redeem my tickets. It was quite exciting first stepping through the entrance to the hall. I wasn't very interested in the merchandise since they were mostly figurines, which I don't go for, so I wandered around with a few of my friends, watching them steam over the characters they love. There were a lot of good artists at the indie corridor, and I purchased a nice matte poster of Kyoko-chan. I was considering getting the full set of Magia posters, but they didn't have Madoka and the Homura one wasn't very to my taste.

There were many cosplayers at the festival. Some were good, and many were brilliant. I wouldn't mind cosplaying in the future; it's fun to pretend to be someone else, but I will go over the edge and remain completely in character. That would be awesome. I can't go through all the cosplayers I saw over the last few days, but there were a few good ones I remember (that I recognised): Madoka, Mami, this girl in the centre of the second floor with the huge red dress, the awesome hair girl from Index who just took off her hair, cute vocaloid girl, Black Rock Shooter, the random rage comic memes.

Boey dragged me to watch LiSA's artist appearance in the morning, where she sang the opening of Fate/Zero. I was also there to catch the live dubbing of Magia by Homura's seiyu, Chiwa Saitou. Danny Choo is awesome in that he went to live his dream in Japan. He's also quite funny. However, he doesn't know how to host properly. He keeps pointing out all the mistakes, which is very pointless and quite unprofessional. He doesn't even turn it into a joke, which is what should be done. But I have found out I arbitrarily LOVE Mirai Suenaga because she's so ORANGE! Gotta give credit to him for that, if nothing else.

Saturday's concert was awesome. I didn't know many of the artists, but I thought the music was quite nice. For all the criticism Sea-Star-A seems to get, I don't think they're horrible; their songs are quite happy and catchy, and one of their songs did get chosen to be this year's AFA theme song. Ichiro Mizuki/Aniki was from a generation before mine, so while good, not very emotionally attached. Also, his blowing-in-the-wind scarf was hilarious. I didn't really like Flow; they were too loud, and they came on after LiSA.

I shall now dedicate two paragraphs to LiSA and her performance.

LiSA was easily the best performance of the night. She was really energetic and looked like she really enjoyed the music and performing. She's adorable. It didn't hurt that I knew a few of her songs from Angel Beats!. I loved her whiplash-hand action thing. She stole my heart when she cried after Ichiban no Takaramono. She put her heart and soul into that song until it became too much to hold in and it exploded out of her. I'd admire any singer who can do that, and LiSA was it.

Boey Yang was (probably) the happiest person alive in the concert hall that night. He is a huge fan of LiSA, and wants me to tell the world (or whoever reads this blog) how much he loves her. You should have seen him explode when he recognised all her songs from Angel Beats! and the Fate/Zero opening. I have never seen another person quite so happy. I mentioned to Jonas that it's a nice feeling to see Boey happy, because he's never happy: he's always complaining or emoing about something or other.

I noticed that many of the artists thanked us for supporting Japan after the tsunami disaster earlier. It made me feel a bit bad that I didn't really do anything to help Japan back then. I shall do more in the future.

So I was exhaused after jumping around for LiSA and my arms were dead. Unfortunately the concert ended at 11:30pm and it was a mad rush to the MRT station to catch the last train. Split an ice milo with Jonas (sweet elixir of life, after three hours of dehydrating concert) and managed to catch the last train, AND a bus back home. So awesome.

Sunday was more of the same, but this time following Bryan Ong around, who refuses to take photos of everything and didn't even want to look around. So I ended up wandering around the same stalls of figurines I didn't want to buy. I found out that the booth which I bought my Kyoko poster from was now selling Madoka, so I was wondering if I should get the complete Magia set, but I found out they were out of Mami, so I just got Sayaka instead. Jonas got a signed Anisong poster from one of the artists in a lucky draw.

Managed to bump into Xi Min who found out his neighbour (who is a girl) was cosplaying there as well, and around our age. START OF A BEAUTIFUL FRIENDSHIP XI MIN. She looks like a loli though. Speaking of which, Xi Min used me as a human blocker to shoot a photo of a really small girl cosplaying as some loli character. Like a true pedobear. Sigh. And speaking of which, there was some guy in a pedobear costume going around in the afternoon, and many photos were being taken of him and little kids. And then, he met with another pedobear cosplayer, and they acted like they knew each other and embraced like old friends. Best cosplay meeting ever. I was hoping the Homura cosplayers would go around shooting all the Kyubeis, but I never it happening. I was also hoping the Ash and Misty cosplayers would bump into the Bug Catcher, and he would shout, "Hey! You looked at me funny! Let's battle!" But nothing happened.

Also went to check out the AKB48 artist appearance. One of the girls (there were only two) was quite pretty but didn't seem very honest; the other was not as pretty but more honest, I felt. I always thought they were a Korean group until yesterday, when I found out they were actually Japanese. Oh there was this really funny part when one of them said something-something-otaku-something-something, and the translator was like, "...and all the... uh... anime-fans...", which I found hilarious.

I also checked out the cosplay competition in the afternoon, and the Philippines one was clearly the best of the lot, with a light-up display that no one expected, and a dramatic twist ending. The Lightning was not bad, and the Singapore girls dressed up as guys (with really low-cut top and revealing abs which were not real), which I thought was a bit weird. I never really understand crossplay, especially guys dressing up as girls, which is not appealing at all. But oh well, whatever floats your boat.

We were approached in the middle of area next to the cafés by some showgirls working for Canon who wanted to give us free photos, to advertise the portable photo printer. As there were five of us, we had to stand around awkwardly while the photos were being printed. Boey and Jonas asked them some questions, and they said that they weren't into anime, and were just working for Canon, so they were probably quite lost as to the whole atmosphere of the convention. There were also a few girls advertising Kit-Kat and Milo and giving out free samples, and they were affectionately known as Kit-Kat-chan and Milo-chan by my more otaku compatriots.

Before the concert on Sunday we didn't bother to queue with hordes of people, so we walked around a bit more and discovered the graffiti wall, which had a lot of awesome art and a lot of hilarious stuff tacked to it, because it wasn't an officially-designated spot, just a large area where there weren't any posters or anything. There were some funny Kyubei recruitment posters, and a whole wall dedicated to Singapore's Bronies, but my personal favourite was the poster which read "OCCUPY AFA: WE ARE THE NYAN NYAN PERCENT (who were denied a drawing space) *pic of nyan-cat* WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE". I thought that was hilarious, and whoever did that, I totally salute you for your awesome pop culture references.

Sunday's concert was okay; I didn't know a single song except the Magia ending theme by Kalafina. I kinda liked Kalafina; they have this edgy refined goth-opera style which I didn't dislike, and one of them had the awesome half-cornrow hairstyle which is probably my favourite hairstyle for a girl. The Stein's Gate singer (whose name I cannot remember now) was not bad, but I didn't know the songs. I thought Milky Holmes was like Sea-Star-A, in that they were cute, with happy songs, but I cannot say I really liked them that much. Angela was nice, with a lot of stage presence and audience interaction, and there was a special Nico Nico Douga live stream in the middle of their performance too. May'n was good, I think I shall start listening to her songs. It's hard to believe she's only in her early twenties. I also realised that Day 2 performers had a lot more English than Day 1, which was quite surprising. I'm sure that all the screams from the audience is totally oblivious to every line of Japanese they say.

So that was my two days of anime festival, which totally rocked, and we ended with a group shot of all the GEPs into anime, which was a nice finishing touch to the whole weekend.

WE ARE THE NYAN-TY NYAN PERCENT,
The Edna Man

Angel Beats!

2011-10-18T20:19:00.002+08:00

Angel Beats! is another really good anime.

I got through my weekend guard duty on this wonderful masterpiece by Key, which is (for me) on par with Love Hina for pure Crowning Moment of Heartwrenching. Albeit this time is heartbreaking instead of heartwarming. Still, I got that same emotional restless adrenaline-pumping mind-blasting feeling that I got when Love Hina ended. I'm afraid I might becoming addicted.

I loved the artwork. When you realise that most anime is just awesome artwork with a slow pan or slight zoom, you start appreciating more of the tiny details of the world. I loved the 3D 180-degree wrap-arounds of Yui at the baseball pitch. I loved the closeup of Yuri's eyes. I loved the artwork throughout the entire series.

The story also tantalizes with so many philosophical thoughts and literary themes. It talks about the meaning and purpose of life, fulfillment of your dreams, of friendship and leadership, of the amazing power of unconditional love in the face of an unjust world. (The world is cruel, and the only morality in a cruel world is chance. As an aside.) It's about acceptance, it's about life after death, and another life after that.

Then there were the other bits that just made my day. Yui was extremely adorable whenever she appeared. TJ was hilarious. I found that the creators mixed the perfect balance of humour and I-want-to-stab-myself-right-now melancholy that you're able to survive the first few episodes without falling into depression. I also loved the Matrix-esque computer room and its Architect. The plot twist which revealed Otonashi's real cause of death also had me mindblown. I also loved the graduation scene, even though it was tear-my-heart-out-now depressing. I thought it was brilliant that the "afterlife" was mostly the same as "life": you can't die, but you can be erased, so accepting your life is also like accepting your death.

The only thing I find disappointing with this anime is that it's part of a mixed media project, which means a lot of the story is found in the light novels and manga, and the plot is also quite rushed and not very cohesive. That said, whatever they managed to squeeze into the anime worked well enough for me.

I would like to grow up and write like these writers do, to take your emotions and throw them on a roller-coaster, and stretch them, pull them, smash them, until you're panting and sweating and you feel so alive.

My soul, your beats
The Edna Man

Inevitability

2011-09-17T13:05:00.002+08:00

Loathe as I am to contaminate this sacrosant journal with green, I feel I should write this down for all posterity, so that in the future I can look back and laugh at the stupid problems I had when I was younger.

I had my first duty as a guard commander (second-in-command) yesterday, and a bit of today. I can honestly tell you that it is a terrific¹ job and I really salute those men who do it every day for two years.

I am honour-bound (and also bound by other prevalent and undesirable punishments) not to reveal precisely how terrific the job is, but the thing I want to rant about involves something that has nothing to do with any organisation whatsoever, but a flaw in the human design system.

Firstly, I get scheduled to sleep, however minimally, from about 10pm to 2am. I go to bed after turnout, which is so hygienic and spotless and not shared by multiple people at all, and lie there for an hour until I fall asleep. Typical problem; but it's duty, so oh well, no big deal.

Then I'm awake from 2am to 7am, fuelled by nothing by Terry Pratchett's Interesting Times (which explains the "highest form of flattery" style of this post) and the fear of seven extras gnawing at my soul. That's okay too; I managed to stay awake pretty fine with two hours of sleep.

So finally when I get on the bus and I'm on the way home, I'm reading again, since it kept me awake for the past six, seven hours. I'm halfway down the page, when I wake up and realise I've missed my stop by about three of them. I had completely no idea when I fell asleep, or how, but the funny thing is, I know at roughly what point I fell asleep, due to the rest of the page being unfamiliar.

Of course, it's funny now, future me, but at that point when it's nine-thirty in the morning and you have to cross hordes of traffic just to get to the bus stop opposite and take a bus three stops backwards which would have been completely unnecessary if not for your falling asleep, it was quite awful.

¹ Horrible-horrific; terrible-?

Because [undecipherable pictogram] you.
The Edna Man

Singaporean ComiCon and Natsu Matsuri

2011-08-21T20:40:00.005+08:00

So once again I dropped by the Singapore Toys, Games and Comics Convention (STGCC) this year and it was a blast. As always, it cannot quite compare to what I've seen at the actual Comicon, but it's close enough I guess.

I went down crazily early this time, queueing up before the doors opened at 10am. And the most amazing thing you see when you step in is this huge booth decorated in pulp-fiction styled posters of almost every comic book-related movie imaginable: Captain America, the Watchmen, Superman, Batman, etc., belonging to the figurines booth. I can honestly say I didn't really take notice of the figurines, even though I know that they are quite awesome and had a few hundred photographers milling around.

I TOUCHED PAUL LEVITZ'S HAND AAHHHHHH! I am such a fanboy. Once President of DC Comics, he's now Contributing Editor of DC Entertainment. I TOUCHED HIS HAND AHHHHH and I, for some reason, COMPLETELY FORGOT that I was wearing my French Connection Iron Man T-shirt (the only genre-appropriate shirt I have) when I asked him to sign my preview of Justice League #1, and he asked me, "What's that on your shirt?" I was like, CRAAAAPPPPP (Iron Man's a Marvel character, in case you don't know). But he was cool, he said it was okay, he's had thirty years of Marvel experience behind him. I got a nice Legion of Superheroes badge from him as well. Should have been a ring, but I'm not complaining. AHHHHH I am SUCH a fanboy.

Most of my attention was caught up at the Marvel vs. Capcom 3 area, where I got to see live-action (in a manner of speaking) MvC3 action. It was kinda disappointing to see everyone using the same few characters, but I guess it was to be expected since it was a tournament and all. Sometimes you'd catch a glimpse of Viewtiful Joe, or Ameratsu, or Felicia, or Storm, or Haggar, but not very many other tier-two characters. Bumped into Cleon after lunch there; he was participating in the tournament. Stalled out a Dark Phoenix in his first game, and I had diahorrea and missed his others. Said he hadn't played for two months, and he was still quite good.

I invested $150 in comics that afternoon. It's roughly the same amount I would have spent on comics over the next three months, but at the insane discounts at the convention, got double the number of books I would have gotten if I'd spent $50 a month at Kinokuniya. Bargain! Plus there were so many Civil War trade paperbacks there that are never stocked on Kino's shelves. Double-victory!

I managed to work up the nerve to ask this Black Cat cosplayer to take a picture with me. She had the most authentic Black Cat costume I've seen ever. I was being so totally awkward and chasing her between booths and waiting for her to get her commissions and stuff and then I finally asked her. I figure I still have so much to learn about talking to girls. Such a nerd.

Anyway, I spent a considerable amount of time watching the guy demo Dragon's Nest, and I have to say, it has gotten me quite hooked. I might try it out soon, maybe once Team Fortress 2 becomes less interesting. Who knows.

Well after that it was a train ride to Tanah Merah for natsu matsuri, the Japanese summer festival. On the way I was standing a short distance away from this girl, really pretty, whom I noticed had a STGCC stamp on her arm as well. I was hoping for a chance to get closer to maybe (I don't know!) talk to her, or something; point out a price tag sticker was stuck to the front of her blouse, then remark about STGCC, and maybe start talking. The opportunity never arose, and a couple of stops from my destination, she moved away to the centre of the carriage. I figure I still have so much to learn about talking to girls. Such a nerd.

The festival itself was insanely crowded. I have never seen so many non-Japanese people attempting to do a Japanese thing outside Japanese restaurants or AFA. I had no idea that it was so popular, or that so many people know about it. It was packed, and the stalls were all overrun, especially the food ones. In the end I didn't try much Japanese cultural stuff, because all the queues were too long, and the festival music stopped just after I convinced Jonas to join me in the dance. SIGH.

After that was a nice dinner at Changi Airport, where Sheu Zhi completely confused the waitress by asking for "wen-leng shui" (warm ice water) and the entire night she was calling him that. Hilarious.

Best part of the day? No mob!
The Edna Man

Otakuism

2011-06-13T21:04:00.002+08:00

No, I'm not. Not yet.

Though I did drop by the Cosplay Summit Asia thing at Orchard Central this weekend. It wasn't very spectacular, though the Sepiroth guy looked quite cool (with LED lights too, wow). I wasn't really looking at the costumes, but more of the people who were there. It was kind of a big, unintentional social experiment.

Obviously there were random normal people who happened to walk by and chance on this eccentric group of people who would spend money, time and energy to dress up as fictional characters, and most of their reactions were "Lol these people are so pathetic" or "WTF is that guy wearing" and etcetera. There were some who were definitely not into the whole anime thing but joined in anyway; to these people, I salute you for daring to try something out of the ordinary. And then of course there were the people who wanted to be there for the event, which weren't that many. The host was vainly trying to rouse the crowd; believe me, I know what it's like to have an uncooperative audience.

There was this performance by the waitresses from the maid café, and they were really not excited about their job. There was one girl though who was really enthusiastic with the dancing, which was nice to see. Oh and there was this creepy old man with grey hair and an overcomb and a huge DSLR taking pictures of EVERYTHING.

It's always so interesting to see people committed to something so willingly and unconditionally. There were one or two really good cosplayers there (especially the two Transformers, they were awesome), and when you see the kind of skill and dedication they put into their work, it's more of an art form than anything.

Speaking about anime, I realise I'm not the kind of person who falls in love with the characters (unlike a number of people I know). Even in novels, comic books, movies, TV shows; it has never been the character which has brought me through. (WITH ONE BIG EXCEPTION: CAPTAIN JACK SPARROW. WHO IS AWESOME. YEAH.) I haven't become a raving fan of a single anime character, even the girls who are always, y'know, really pretty and stuff. But it's more of the story that captures my attention, that leads me through the entire series of unfortuante events and makes me like the show as a whole. Pirates of the Caribbean has pretty good stories too, by the way.

Nothing much else, just wanted to write some stuff.

Kawaii,
The Edna Man

Death is the New Life

2011-05-31T19:55:00.002+08:00

So I hear blogging is dead. Heh. Well, I still write stuff here, so I'll take this URL scratching and kicking to its cyber-404-grave.

I've started listening to more Sam Tsui recently, and I'm sure that this kid is gonna go far. I picked up Sara Bareille's King of Anything from him, and it's crazy good. Got that song stuck in my head a couple of days. And because of his collaboration on Just a Dream, I think I've got a crush on Christina Grimmie, who is also crazy awesome and really pretty.

Hmm just watched Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides this weekend. It's awesome in the Jack Sparrow sense of awesome, and I think I'm kinda watching the shows just to see his suave antics. I found the show quite historically accurate (for a dramatic movie adaptation) because Blackbeard really (historically) stuck firecrackers in his beard to make him look scarier, and the rumour that his decapitated body swum around his ship five times is also in historical records. Quite cool.

And so the piratical exploits have inspired me to continue my TCG roots, and I'm currently making a Pirates card game. I don't know how balanced it's going to be, since I'm mostly creating this game from scratch, cobbled together from mechanics of the various games I know. Only time will tell if it's a good game though.

Gaah I need to write more.
The Edna Man

Election Fever Reaches Epidemic Proportions

2011-05-07T22:01:00.003+08:00

SINGAPORE -- The outbreak of "election fever" has reached epidemic levels, experts warn.

As of 8am this morning, more than 2 million Singaporeans have been infected by this rare disease, forcing Ministry of Health (MOH) officials to raise the disease's Threat Level to five, the highest on the scale.

The outbreak has already claimed hundreds of man-hours worth of news coverage, from both digital and print media. Words like "reform" and "opposition" have reinfected the local vocabulary, and political rallies, which are usually contained within the Speaker's Corner at Hong Lim Park and usually never exist, ran rampant in open fields across the island until officials put a stop to them on Thursday night.

"It has never been this widespread before," said Mr Poh Ah Peng, a spokesperson from MOH. "Since it surfaced in Singapore in 1959, election fever has kept intensifying over the years every time it appears."

"It promises a very frightening future for this country," said Mr Poh.

Election fever, officially diagnosed as democracitis, is a recurring disease caused by the virus votium ballotpox. It is transmitted through the air by political discussions, and, once it infects its host, makes its way to the brain, causing the victim to suffer increased political awareness and a uncontrollable urge to make a choice. It only affects adults, but strains of the virus are increasingly being detected in youths and teenagers, often as young as eighteen years of age.

Earlier this week, dozens of the Ministry's political doctors, or "politricians", took measurses to quarantine the population into various isolation zones, called "constituencies". They are hoping to contain the outbreak until Saturday, when the only known cure for election fever will be administered: an election.

Democracitis is not native to Singapore, where it resurfaces about once every five years. The first recorded outbreak of democracitis was in 507 BC in ancient Greece. Since then, cases of election fever have been recorded in republics across the world.

-----

Why does everybody get so excited over this?

"Truth is not determined by majority vote." ~Doug Gwyn
The Edna Man

BREAKING NEWS: Singapore to Hold First Online Election... On Facebook

2011-04-26T21:08:00.003+08:00

SINGAPORE -- In an unprecedented turn of events, the Elections Department of Singapore (ELD) has announced that the upcoming 2011 General Election will be held online - on Facebook.

The decision was announced at a press conference this morning by Mr Hu Yu Pik, spokesperson for the ELD. He explained that the process simply requires voters to go to a newly-created Facebook page for their desired party and "Liking" it.

"The party with the most total number of "Likes" on their the page will, then, be elected as the ruling party of Singapore," said Mr Hu. He has also revealed that there will be a poll set up on each party page for voters to note which constituency they are voting from.

When asked about preventing electoral fraud, Mr Hu reassured the press that there will be systems in place to ensure that each person can cast only one vote.

"Voters will have to use their own personal Facebook account with a valid email address which has been registered with the Elections Department," said Mr Hu. "'Liking' a page with a fake Facebook account or an account with an invalid email address will void that vote."

In a press release, the Chairman of the ELD, Mr Am See Kew, explained that there were three main reasons for the change: the inefficiency of the original ballot system, its detrimental impact on the environment, and as a way of engaging the youth in politics. He then stated that only one of the three was correct, and invited journalists to choose the best possible answer.

"Singapore has always prided herself as an advanced, modern society," said Mr Am. "The decision to utilise the Internet in the voting process will catapult Singapore to the frontlines of progress, both technologically and politically."

The announcement, which came just days before polling day, surprised many Singaporeans. Many senior citizens are now worried that they would be unable to cast their vote because of their unfamiliarity with using computers and the Internet.

"I don't even know how to use a computer, how am I supposed to vote online?" asked retiree Mr Simi Tai-Chee, 62, in a mixture of Hokkien and English. "Why, pen and paper not good enough anymore ah? How come this gahmen always change liddat one?"

But many younger voters are exited by the prospect of the easier way to contribute to the country's political landscape.

"I can now vote from the comfort of my home," said Ms Cherilyn Lee, 22. "I think it's really cool that the government is doing this on Facebook."

Singapore has entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the first country to hold its parliamentary elections online.

-----

And as election fever hypes up, we'll be bringing you even more live coverage than ever before. Stay with us.

Oh by the way, I know all about ballot secrecy and all that. I just thought this would be funny(ier).

We'll be right back after these messages,
The Edna Man

Dream Sequence #005

2011-04-23T10:01:00.002+08:00

Once again, I just woke up, and I need to write down this dream. I haven't done this since like, 2009?

Anyway I had already "woken up", but drifted back to sleep so it's one of those non-REM sleep where you're half-conscious and exerting more control over the dream imagination that you should.

The dream starts out in this fantasy setting, which I'm pretty sure was based on the Anima RPG system that I am reading about. The most I can remember is that we all were going out on a mission or quest (don't ask me who "we" were). I had turned back to go get my weapons, and I distinctly remember deciding whether to bring all of them (guns, swords and all) or just the short sword, because of guns not being able to get through security or something. So I'm at the top of my hotel or inn or whatever, which is basically this huge circus-tent skeleton with no stairs, and you have to get to the top by climbing up the central pole. And I'm grabbing my stuff when all of a sudden you can hear this growling sound.

Naturally, I guess that it's a werewolf, and I'm obviously right. However, the growling is coming from across the street, so I'm scanning left and right, and then a voice (who it belonged to I can't remember) said to, and I quote, "look in the cupboard above the oven", which was describing an open-front shop directly across where there was a counter, and behind it an oven with a two-door cabinet sunk into the wall above it.

By that time there were a couple of guards there, all holding out their wooden sticks at the cupboard door. At this point, Lou Ee, whose character (RPG remember) looked like Rexxar from Warcraft, jumped out of nowhere and landed with the guards. I remember he gave the order to open said door. Immediately a number of guards with their blue uniforms tumbled out, revealing stairs leading upwards inside the cupboard, and the thin, lanky werewolf. Lou Ee immediately raised his hand and launched a fireball at it, which instantly took down the werewolf.

The next bit I can remember is that I was standing with the crowd milling around the shop, while the guards were passing around an identity disc. These were like our ICs, but they were blue and magnetic, and touching two together imprinted the other person's personal particulars on yours. In this case, they were collecting telephone numbers from the witnesses (technology gap, I know). And wouldn't you know it, Chris Chien was there, and when it was his turn to scan over his identity disc, he said he only had his pink IC. Grrr.

So there was this huge crowd milling around, when suddenly there's this tremors that you associate with someone big and heavy slowly pounding their way closer, and there's this deep, deep growling. Every head turns to look at the cupboard stairs, and the head of this giant, armoured monster appears in the entryway. It's got a huge lower jaw, like some of the dragons from How to Train your Dragon. It looked around for a while at the huge crowd all facing it, then, and this is the epic part: every single hand raised up towards the monster. There was a unified shout of "One! Two! THREE!", but only a single fireball was shot out. And at that precise moment, the monster withdrew its head into the hole, so no-one was sure if the fireball hit.

Time skipped a beat, and restarted in slow motion as the monster burst through the walls and leapt, in slow motion, over the crowd as a thousand fireballs raced towards him. I think I remember shouting "fire at will!" somewhere. And then it got so epic that I woke up.

Gotta remember to make a game based on this universe,
The Edna Man

BREAKING NEWS: Singapore's Parliament Dissolves After Falling into Vat of Acid

2011-04-19T21:44:00.002+08:00

SINGAPORE-- Singapore's 11th Parliament dissolved today after accidentally falling into a large vat of corrosive acid, according to a governmental gazette.

A chemical engineer at the site has identified the solvent as concentrated hydrochloric acid, a highly corrosive inorganic acid usually found in the stomach. Police authorities were unable to explain why the entire cabinet of ministers was near the vat of caustic liquid, let alone how they fell in.

Analysts are refusing to comment on how this unfortunate incident will affect Singapore's political climate, but are advising on a simple way to neutralise the problem.

Said political pundit Mr Alan Kalai, "All we need for this problem is a basic solution."

-----

I'm sorry, I never knew the parliament dissolves before an election. This is the first time I heard it of it.

Pun, pun, pun, pun,
Looking forward to the weekend
Then Edna Man

500th Post!

2011-04-19T21:43:00.002+08:00

I was going to write something but I realized this was going to be my 500th post! Whooo! That's eight years of weird stuff straight from the horse's mouth!

FIVE HUNDRED WHOOOO
The Edna Man

Girlfriend needs Boyfriend to Carry Handbag

2011-04-13T20:22:00.003+08:00

SINGAPORE -- It's her handbag, but he's carrying it.

A video has been making its way around the Singaporean blogosphere, sparking heated debates about whether this generation's girlfriends are too "weak" and "over-dependent".

The video in question, taken with a iPhone, depicts a young man walking in a shopping mall, carrying a distinctly pink tote bag slung over his shoulder, while his girlfriend strolls a little way ahead, messaging on her handphone.

The video was uploaded onto YouTube, and not long after, a number of spoofs surfaced, most of them parodying popular romantic comedies such as Love, Actually and Music and Lyrics.

While some saw the funny side of the situation, the circulation of the short thirty-second clip has left a trail of disgust in its wake, with many netizens complaining about the over-reliance of Singaporean girlfriends on their male counterparts.

"They say Singapore girls are so independent," commented Alfred Tay, a student at Nanyang Technological University (NTU). "So why do they always need their boyfriends to carry their things for them?"

"How can we expect women to hold executive positions if they cannot even hold their own belongings?" asked netizen ntrprnr401K, who would only reveal that he works as a manager at a multinational corporation based here.

Others have brought women's rights into the fray, deploring the social traditions which encourage men to carry the bags of their significant others.

In an online press statement issued by local women's rights organisation the Beautiful Liberation of Urban Rights (BLUR), spokesperson Ms Lee Chio Bu wrote: "It is a sad, sad day where women are not even expected to carry their own fashion acccessories."

However, there were some who believed that the girl should be given the benefit of the doubt, saying that she might have had an injury which did not allow her to carry her handbag. Others claim that the boy is a "true Singapore gentleman" for helping his girlfriend with her heavy load.

"Nowadays the boys are so selfish," commented Amita Saravawaj, a student at Catholic Junior College (CJC). "I wish my boyfriend offered to carry my schoolbag for me."

With the controversy surrounding the video, it is no wonder that a digitally-edited version appeared on the Internet about a week later.

Uploaded by the anonymous Grllvr69, the video also has a short description attached to it, claiming that this video is the authentic one, and that the one with the boy carrying the bag is "a doctored copy".

At first glance, the video seems to show the girl walking with the pink handbag squarely on her shoulder, and with the boy nowhere in sight. However, experts have identified the second video as the fake, pointing out that the area where the boy was standing in the original video was "merely pixellised", that the girl was not the same and was also carrying a different coloured bag.

A spokesman from the Ministry of Community, Youth and Sports (MCYS) said last week that "MCYS takes a very serious view about its youth in public", and that it would investigate and take appropriate action against the girlfriend in question.

Following this announcement, it is reported that the girlfriend has come forward and identified herself to the authorities. However, she cannot be named to protect her identity.

MCYS has also reminded its youth to be aware of the image they project in public.

-----

Honestly, I have no agenda here. I just wanted to transpose the incident (and related news stories) into a different, but similar, situation. I have no anti-feminist leanings, no gripe against any Ministries (mentioned or otherwise), and don't really have anything aganist guys carrying their girl's bags. (I really only don't understand why girls continue to carry stuff in their hands when they have pockets. Or bags.) Seriously, nothing here but some good old-fashioned non-ulterior satire.

I did find it hilarious that someone tried to doctor the original photo though, and it was so hilarious because they didn't even do it properly.

Care for soldiers!
The Edna Man

The Republic of Heaven

2011-04-12T20:09:00.002+08:00

I have just finished reading Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials for the second time. I blogged about it once. Here I am doing so again.

It is a powerful, powerful force that compels you to re-read a work of fiction. And it is a powerful, powerful story to let you enjoy it for so many times. And the ending still pulled my heartstrings, just like the first time.

Maybe that's what falling in love is?

When I first read the trilogy, I thought I understood everything about it. I saw the countless layers of meaning as clearly as Lyra saw the meanings of the symbols on the alethiometer. After four years, online essays/discussions, TVTropes, and a enjoyable re-reading, I find out so many things I never saw before.

And we are still enthralled by the power of love.

"But just keep up this coming here once a year, just for a hour, just to be together..." -- Lyra

Because we have to build it, wherever we are.
The Edna Man

The Final Countdown

2011-04-11T18:58:00.000+08:00

So I invite you to stand with me, one year from tonight, outside the gates of Clementi Camp. And together, we shall give them a 11th of April that shall never, ever be forgot!

Vivaciously,
The Edna Man

Tirade (Parody)

2011-03-12T23:05:00.002+08:00

Tirade, parody of Grenade by Bruno Mars

Ferry comes, ferry goes; every single week
Oh, paint, paint, paint it all; stripes across the cheek
Should've known you was trouble from the field camp
When you stunned my rifle; why stun my rifle?

Followed what you said and you still treat me like trash
You let me get heat rash, you did
To book us out on time is all we ever asked
But what I don't understand is

I threw the grenade for ya
Dug shellscrape with my spade for ya
I drank cordial lemonade for ya
I have to do everything for ya

I spent my whole BMT
Just high kneeling on my bad knee
And what did you do for me, sergeant?
You gave me extra: three

No, no, no, no

Knock, knock, knock it down, pump me 'til I'm dead
Told the OC; I said, "Hey, is this guy right inside the head?"
Mad sergeant, sad sergeant, why you have no life?
You make me RT and then you make me clean my wife

Right after route march then you made us SOC
You treat us like trainees, yes you did
To let us have some sleep is all we ever asked
But what I don't understand is

I water parade for ya
Never stood in the shade for ya
I made myself not downgrade for ya
Yes I'm doing everything for ya

When I go through all this pain
What the hell is going through your brain?
It's only for two years, sergeant
Why be so inhumane?

If I jumped out of the fire
Ooh, you'd catch me with the frying pan
Leaders supposed to inspire
But you never, ever, ever did

But sergeant, I still manned the blockade for ya
Area cleaned like a maid for ya
I do my work underpaid for ya
You make me do everything for ya

If war does come to our nation
This is my only consolation
If I must die for my country
I'll make sure you do the same

Yes, make you do the same
I'll make you do the same
Ooh, you better do the same
Yes, yes, yes, yes

-----

Honestly, I wrote this simply because I was surprised how many rhymes for "grenade" there actually are. I don't know any screwed up sergeants.

Girl, you're amazing; you're a superstar
The Edna Man

Toradora!

2011-03-12T01:25:00.004+08:00

Why do we love?

What is this emotion that powers us through the very essence of our being and propels us through life? Why is it so incomprehensible, so intangible, so incorrigible, so integral, so inexplicable? What is this primal phenomenon that courses through the very fibre of humanity, and is the root of our very existence? Why is it, that when you tunnel to the core of any human situation on Earth, there you will find a soul who is afraid to be alone?

Why does every story on this planet revolve around love? What makes it so compelling that whole industries can be founded on creating stories about love? Is it something that they put into their cast, their characters, that makes them come alive, that makes unreality become reality?

Then, why do we love others who fall in love?

How powerful is this force, that can cause one to love someone who isn't even real? How can you feel for people who don't even exist? Where are these people so I can meet them, talk to them, fall in love with them?

Is it a transferrence of emotion, or maybe a conversion? Or maybe it's the only way in this world to create something from nothing.

Needless to say, I enjoyed Toradora! a lot.

"There is something in this world that no one has ever seen before. It is gentle and sweet. Maybe if it could be seen, everyone would fight over it. That is why the world hid it, so that no one could get their hands on it so easily. However, someday, someone will find it. The person who deserves it the most will definitely find it.

"That is how it is created."
The Edna Man

EDIT: Oh, that's why.

The Quantum Shuttle

2011-02-27T00:00:00.007+08:00

Good evening, fans, and here we are at the George Cayley Stadium. It's a beautiful night for a match; there's not a cloud in the ceiling. We've got quite a crowd out here, don't we, Pete?

We sure do, Ed, it's quite a crowd. There are some big names here tonight: there's Michio Kaku sitting in the third row; he's got his bets on Schrödinger, I'm sure. And there's Democritus, who uh, seems to be cutting his programme into half, again and again. Any idea what he's doing there, Ed?

Not a clue, Pete, not a clue. Well, we've got a very important game tonight, and for all the fans out there who have just tuned in, tonight is the highly-anticipated badminton semi-final between Austria's Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg from Germany, here at the annual All-Star Scientific Olympiad. These are two very competitive players, and the match could go either way. It might be particularly taxing for Schrödinger, since this isn't the first German he's played against at these games, is it, Pete?

That's right, Ed, Schrödinger faced uh, Albert Einstein in the quarter-finals, who is a strong contender in his own right, mind you. It's almost miraculous, how he managed to counter all of Einstein's shots, travelling at the speed of light, as they were; you know, relatively speaking. Young Schrödinger is showing a lot of potential, and he is one of the hot favourites to bring home the Klein Cup this year.

Sure, Pete, but Heisenberg has been at his top game here at the Olympiad as well, having defeated ah, Julius Oppenheimer last week in his quarter-final. I've never seen anyone return one of Oppenheimer's final, "atomic smashes", haha, as his fans have been calling them, but Heisenberg is here today, and Oppenheimer isn't, which, uh, really goes to show what this Austrian is made of.

Right you are, Ed. And here comes the umpire for the match today: Alfred Nobel, who hails from Sweden, walking out across the court. He's actually uh, one of the strictest officials here at the games, well-known for making very explosive judgement calls.

Well, Pete, the strictest officials are usually the fairest, and Nobel is highly prized in this line of work. Aaaaand here come the players now! Making his entrance from the left end of the stadium, Erwin Schrödinger, giving a friendly wave to the crowd there. He looks like he just got off a plane, doesn't he, Pete? [chuckles]

[chuckles] That bow tie probably also isn't standard issue, but I don't think the officials are ah, going to say anything. Schrödinger looks like he's wielding a Catbox 900, one of the latest racquets in the market, although no-one is ever quite sure if it's good or not until they, uh, buy one.

And here comes Werner Heisenberg, getting roaring support from his fans over at the east wing of the stadium. He looks a bit confused, though, doesn't he, Pete?

Ah, yes, he does look a bit uncertain, but not to worry: there's his coach, Max Planck, coming to him now. That's a dedicated coach, that Planck, constantly pushing Heisenberg to his limits. A few words of encouragement there, from his coach... now both scientists are taking their sides of the court, and it looks like the match is about to begin. [Pause] Brilliant serve there by Schrödinger, getting in the first point of the match. It looks like Heisenberg is still getting his rhythm, doesn't it, Ed?

Yes it does, Pete, and there's another point for Schrödinger, putting him ahead 2-0. It's going to be a long, exciting match, Pete.

***

Welcome back, folks. For those of you who have just tuned in, we are now in the final rally of the heated semi-final between Erwin Schrödinger and Werner Heisenberg, and what an amazing match it's been, hasn't it, Pete?

Sure has, Ed. After two hours of hard rallying, the score is now tied; Schrödinger won the first rally 21-19 but Heisenberg came back in the second rally with an impressive 24-22 blowout. Both scientists have been playing their best game, I think, and now the score now is 29-28 in favour of Schrödinger. This is the closest game we've had since the 1958 final, isn't that right, Ed?

Sure is, Pete, but it looks like development time down there folks. Planck called a timeout a few moments ago, and the players both received advice from their coaches. There's a lot of commotion down there as the crowd is literally buzzing with excitement. Now the players are returning to their sides of the court, and it all comes down to this game point. Heisenberg on service... Good backhand there by Schrödinger... Amazing save there by Heisenberg... Wow! Did you see that, Pete?

Not sure I did, Ed! I don't think I saw the shuttle, but I think I knew how fast it was going, and there was definitely no way that Schrödinger could have returned that shot.

Well Pete, I think I managed to see the shuttle, but I had no idea how fast it was going. That was a very uncertain play by Heisenberg, and one of his speciality moves, if I'm not wrong. Quite right that he has been saving it for this crucial moment in the match; a move like that is usually a game-ender.

It's now 28-29, Heisenberg's service, and it looks like Schrödinger can kiss his trophy goodbye if Heisenberg continues to pull off more stunning shots like that last one. Nice serve there... that was a close one! ... Heisenberg launches the shuttle up high... it looks like... Schrödinger is going to smash... Oh my god! Can you see the shuttle anywhere, Ed?

No I can't, Pete, and neither can Heisenberg. This is unprecedented folks! The shuttlecock has seemingly disappeared into thin air! Heisenberg's looking around uncertainly, I don't he knows where he's supposed to swing his racquet! I've never seen anything like this in all my days of science-casting, have you, Pete?

Well it can certainly compare to the spectacular serve in the doubles match yesterday, where John Crocroft and Ernest Walton somehow managed to split their shuttle into two, winning two points as both halves hit the court simultaneously.

Right you are, Pete. And it looks like Heisenberg is going to take a chance here folks. I think he's going to wing it and swing it, doesn't it, Pete?

He's swinging it alright... and it's over! The shuttle is on the floor! Heisenberg missed that last shot, and Schrödinger has done it! He's won! I do believe that last one was a quantum forehand, Ed, and for a brief moment the shuttle existed in all positions of space until Heisenberg collapsed it into a singularity, forcing the outcome.

Right you are, Pete. And so Erwin Schrödinger is moving on to the finals, where he'll be up against Isaac Newton of England. Schrödinger will have to look out for Newton, a dangerous player in his own right, with drop shots so steep it looks like gravity deliberately pulled them down so quickly.

Well that's all for tonight folks. From the George Cayley stadium, I'm Peter Jensen--

--and I'm Edwin Pridham. Goodnight.

-----

Inspired by a story by Levin. What happens when you cross The Legend of Koizumi and New Horizons to Music Appreciation by Peter Schickele. See if you're a big enough nerd to recognize all the references!

The Cast, in order of appearance:

George Cayley is often hailed as the father of aviation and aerodynamics, important in a sport such as badminton.
Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist who is one of the more awesome modern popularizers of science.
Democritus was an ancient Greek philosopher who was one of the first to describe the concept of atoms by cutting a piece of stone in half again and again until you got a piece that was indivisible.
I'm both sure and not sure that you know who Erwin Schrödinger is, and I'll only know when you click on the link.
Werner Heisenberg is most famous for his uncertainty principle. Obviously, you're not sure what it is.
Albert Einstein is relatively famous for developing prism technology and the Chronosphere.
The Klein bottle is something like a 3D Möbius strip. I just thought it would be appropriate.
J. Robert Oppenheimer was the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, which created the first atomic bombs.
Alfred Nobel's name is up there with Oscar's, Grammy's and Tony's.
Max Planck was a German physicist who is regarded as the founder of quantum theory. He has a constant named after him.
John Crocroft and Ernest Walton are the two scientists who first split an atom.
Isaac Newton was responsible for developing most of the ideas of classical mechanics, and is most famous for being concussed by an apple and blaming it on gravity.
And just in case you were wondering, Edwin Pridham and Peter L. Jensen are the first people to develop a magnetic coil loudspeaker.

It's a wonderful day for a concert, there's not a cloud in the ceiling.
The Edna Man

Ode to a Prata Man

2011-02-12T14:10:00.002+08:00

Ode to a Prata Man, parody of Teardrops on My Guitar by Taylor Swift

I need to eat
I park my car in one way street
I step out into the heat
And use my phone to send a Tweet

I take a look around
There's people everywhere
And I can't find a seat
Without tissue choping the chair

The place is small
And there's a queue at every stall
I squeeze and I crawl
To the shop at the far wall

I find an Indian man
(I think he looks Tamil)
I wonder who he is
Until he gets behind the grill

'Cos he's the reason for the curry on my prata
The only thing that stops me going out to buy zhi char
I don't know who you are; But I'll buy it
'Cos you've got no queue

I'm still hungry
Looking down in my kopi
So many stalls, that I can see
But I don't feel like eating hokkien mee

I see him standing there
Softly kneading dough
I smell that wonderful smell
And all at once I know

He's the reason for the curry on my prata
I'll never need to go eat char kway teow or buy popiah
Don't want dhal, or achar; I keep saying
There's no one like you

I bring the da bao home
Try not to drop the stack
I think I'll wash my hands
And maybe have a midnight snack

'Cuz he's the reason for the curry on my prata
The only one who can play Taylor Swift on his sitar
Curry stains on my car; I keep eating
While I'm driving, too

Tried 'tissue', and 'paper', but it's never enough
And the 'egg' is not quite as good, it's true

I need to eat
Maybe next time I'll add some meat

-----

Accepted a challenge from a friend.

Hi Miss Swift, if you're somehow reading this, I have to say I'm a great fan of your work. Don't sue me, please.

You Belong With Me,
The Edna Man

New Ang Pao Index to Track Market Cycle

2011-02-10T21:52:00.004+08:00

SINGAPORE -- That little red packet (ang pao) you get at Chinese New Year might soon become the greatest indicator of the country's market situation.

The Ministry of Finance revealed today that it is considering using a new Ang Pao Index (API) to track the peaks and troughs of the economic cycle. The index measures the average amount of money given in red packets during Chinese New Year to determine the state of the economy.

"The system is actually very simple," said Ms Vivian Tay, a spokesperson for the Ministry, at a press conference yesterday. "Giving eight to ten dollars is around the average during a healthy economy. Six to eight means that there is currently an economic downturn. Receiving an ang pao with only four to six dollars means that we are currently in a recession."

When asked what receiving less than four dollars meant, Ms Tay said she had no comment, but was heard muttering the words "Lehman Brothers" and "bailouts".

Red packets, or "ang paos" as they are more commonly known, contain a small amount of money, and are traditionally given from married couples to unmarried family members during Chinese New Year. The red colour of the envelope represents good luck and is supposed to ward off evil spirits, while the small amount of money represents good fortune and wealth.

Many economists are praising the new index for its simplicity. "We used to have to take note if there suddenly was two months of negative economic growth," said Mr Tan Poh Cheng, an economic analyst. "Now we just wait for Chinese New Year to come around, and the results will already be there for us."

"It also grants us a perspective of the economic situation from the eyes of the people," said Ms Chan Ong Hui, who works in the Ministry of Finance. "If we know that the general population is feeling the economic crunch, we will better understand how to help them through the difficult time."

Critics, however, have quickly pointed out many flaws in the new index. "There is no proven economic link between red packet donations and the market cycle," said Mr Valkrishna Gunselagaam, a financial investor. He added, "Even Steven Levitt wouldn't be able to do it," referring to the unorthodox American economist who uses economic concepts to challenge conventional wisdom.

Dr. Tiffany Lim, economic professor at the Singapore Institute of Management (SIM), also stated that the cultural tradition might not be elastic enough to be affected by recession.

"Singaporeans are too scared to 'lose face'," said Dr. Lim, "and are also profoundly superstitious. For these reasons, it is highly unlikely that they would give less during a recession, even if they are shorter on disposable income."

Nevertheless, the Ministry of Finance has already begun looking at using the sampul hijau, or green envelopes in Malay, the adaptation of the red packets given during Hari Raya Adilfitri, to provide extra evidence to support the API.

-----

Inspired by a status I saw on Facebook.

Xing Nian Kuai Le!
The Edna Man

Mahjong Party!

2011-02-06T15:45:00.001+08:00

So yesterday we had an AWESOME Mahjong party at Ernest/Hui Jin's house(s). It was almost non-stop Mahjong action from about 12:30pm to 2:00am, and it was awesome. SIBERIAN EXPRESS!

And my first ever sleepover! Kinda. Somehow my mom let me stay over at a friend's house for the first time in my life! I know, I'm deprived.

POOOOOONG!
The Edna Man

Maslow is Dead

2011-01-23T19:32:00.004+08:00

...and he has been for about forty years now. But at least his ideas live on. Right?

May I present to you the modern Hierarchy of Needs, v2.0:

It's Maslow's Hierarchy, updated for the new millenium! Made with my society in mind, but probably applies to any society in the First World.

EDUCATION
Right at the bottom, humans of this day and age need an education. It's the very most basic thing you can have in this world. Without it, prepare for a life of busking and road-sweeping, begging for food at every street corner.

PERFECTION
Most people can get an education, but not only that, they need to be good at it. This means passing all your exams. No need to worry about actual knowledge, critical thinking skills or lofty philosophy: all you need is a basic grasp of simple facts and the knowledge of how to play the modern educational system, and you sail through it with flying colours and an impressive cirriculum vitae.

CAREER
What do you do with your resumé? Like any other piece of paper which is worth more than its value in weight, you cash it in, of course! Trading that shiny ten-page monster bursting with your spectacular teenage achievements for a lifetime of constant income seems to be a no-brainer.

FINANCE
This is the real objective here. This should be the base of the pyramid, if they hierarchy could fit into a pyramid. Getting the money is the stepping stone for everything higher up in the system. And you can never have enough. So you invest in various stock opportunities and real estate, hoping to breed your cash like rabbits.

SECURITY
Having the money is not enough. You need to make sure you will always have the money. So some security is needed: in your job, in your investments, in your interest rates.

PHYSIOLOGICAL
Once you have all the money, and you are sure that you will always have the money, you can now fulfill some of your physical needs, because you won't be able to get them without money. You can start going back for lunch break, and getting some sleep, because heaven knows how much of that you sacrificed while climbing the corporate ladder.

MATERIAL
Not that you have sated your most primal physical desires, you can move up a level and satisfy your materialistic lust. This means buying stuff, and lots of it. Fill your lavish abode with things, stuff, objects and random paraphernalia, because the more stuff you have, and the more expensive they are, the more people will respect you as the rich mogul you are.

ESTEEM
Which brings us to the penultimate level of need: esteem. You need to be confident that you are the wealthiest and most successful among your peers, a convenient indicator that shows you have made it to the top of the heap. You need your superiority. You need people to mutter jealously behind your back as you strut around, king of the concrete jungle.

BELONGING
At the end of everything, what a person in this society needs is a family and a sense of belonging. After all, every king needs an heir to pass down his vast inheritance to once his time is up. And now is the time to start making friends out of your enemies, before they jealously stab you in the back, with the intention of taking your place.

SELF-ACTUALISATION
Morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, and an understanding of humanity's place in the universe. Pffft, who needs those?

-----

What a man can be, he'll give it up to make more money.
The Edna Man

Blind Date

2011-01-21T18:31:00.002+08:00

Today for a cohesion activity, our entire office trooped down to Ngee Ann Poly for a Dialogue in the Dark.

Basically what happens is this: They give you a blind man's cane and stick you with a tour guide, who is also visually impaired, then throw you all into this pitch black room with no source of light at all. So you're basically blind for the hour as you maneuver your way across terrain that blind people usually have to go through in real life: a park, Clarke Quay, a food court and a city street.

Honestly, I've had this idea before. We almost come up with something similar with CMPS (Hey! Remember that?) a couple years ago. I've always thought that people don't design with handicap-friendly features more often because they don't have any idea how difficult it is being disabled. I had been toying with the idea of wearing a blindfold for a day to test myself, or maybe even doing it for a charitable cause. But I've never had a good friend (or understanding family) to manage the safety of this dangerous operation.

This experience was totally worth it. I have been completely in the dark once before, crawling through underground tunnels in Vietnam, but that was nothing compared to today's experience. I found it very interesting to attempt to move around like a blind person. I believe it's much easier, physically, to do so if you could see before but got blinded somewhere along the way, because you're familiar with shapes and stuff so you could probably visualise everything you're feeling or hearing. I can't begin to imagine what people who are blind from birth think when they feel or smell or hear. What visualisations come to their mind?

Being blind was one experience, but being in a group of other newly blind people was quite fascinating as well. One thing I noticed is that people tend to talk louder when they can't see. Perhaps it's because they feel the need to compensate for the loss of one sense, or the small narrow corridors which amplified the sounds, or maybe it was just my ears compensating for the lack of sight. The other thing I noticed is that we always need to know the person we bump into, whether from in front or behind. It might be a carry-over from normal society, where you need to apologise profusely for such rude behaviour. Or maybe it's just a security thing, that the fear of bumping into something or someone who isn't any of your friends gets exaggerated in the dark.

All in all, I think it was an awesome experience. I'd definitely go for it again, but by myself. It gets crowded in there.

Best case of "blind leading the blind". Ever.
The Edna Man

Cosmic Irony

2011-01-14T20:08:00.002+08:00

So I woke up late this morning and would definitely not make it to camp on time. I raced across the overhead bridge, keeping my eyes peeled for a taxi, and obviously, due to the nature of cosmic fate, my bus comes EXACTLY as I reach the bus stop. When I'm on time, it takes fifteen mintues for it to appear. When I'm late, it poofs into existence just to spite me.

Damn you Murphy, and to hell with your laws.
The Edna Man

Independent Inc. Perfection Output Up 115%

2011-01-06T19:32:00.006+08:00

SINGAPORE -- Perfection hit a record high last year: its production increased by 115% from the previous year.

According to a report published by Independent Inc. today, its 2010 production batch of International Baccaulaurate (IB) perfect-scorers amounted to 28 units, compared to the 13 from 2009.

"We are, of course, very proud of our achievements," said an inside source, who wished to remain anonymous. "This kind of production history was something we hoped to achieve, but did not dare to expect."

The International Baccaulaurate is a Diploma Programme which utilises a strict grading system to determine the value of the finished product, and grades them with a "points" system. A perfect score requires 45 points, broken down into seven points each in six academic criteria and three bonus points which judge the products' non-academic qualities, among other things.

Independent Inc. also boasted an extremely high international-quality output, which refer to products which score 40 points or higher. Last year 71.4% made the cut, compared to 68.9% the previous year.

The organisation's only setback was the pass rate. According to the release, a product was disqualified from assessment due to malpractice, and as such, the pass rate dropped from 100% the previous year, to 99.8% last year.

"These kinds of figures are unprecedented," said Adelheid Schwartz, a spokesperson for the International Baccaulaurate Organisation, in a telephone interview from Geneva. "It completely changes what we know about mass-produced academic perfection."

"It has certainly redefined the concept of the 'bell curve'," she added.

Independent Inc. attributes its high quality output to a meticulous two-year assembly line and stringent quality control checks spread across that period. It has been known to discard products which don't make it through the first year of assessment checks, or reassemble them from scratch, to ensure the high yield of its output.

The organisation has also promised to deliver greater yields of production output this year. "When you supply the likes of Oxbridge and the Ivy League, you have to step it up a notch," said our anonymous source. "87.8% of our output already qualify to be shipped there for enhancements and specialisation."

Experts, however, warn about the inflationary effects of increasing numbers of such high-quality produce. Professor Ashwarnit Singh, a market analyst specialising in academic economics, says, "Perfection is like any other currency. If its supply keeps increasing, its value will eventually start decreasing."

"When everybody's super, no one will be," he added.

Critics have also criticised the assessment criteria as being too focused on the academic aspects of the product, and is not focusing on other like skills.

"We haven't invented a printing press which spits out Renaissance masterpieces at the push of a button," said one critic. "You can't mass-produce art like that. And life is an art."

-----

Okay, first of all, this IS NOT a thinly-veiled jibe at a specific institution or organisation: all persons mentioned in this article are fictional, and I don't really have anything personal against the IB programme. It IS HOWEVER a thinly-veiled satire of our current educational system. We obsessed with mass-producing top-scorers sate our unhealthy desires for perfection and superiority.

Many people have been saying this over and over, from an awesome girl who spoke about it in her valedictorian speech, to this guy who is inspired by Apple's policy of thinking differently. But nobody says it better than Sir Ken Robinson. We are using an outdated education system which mass-produced "educated" people for the industrial revolution, and that is what we have been doing ever since. We have to stop chasing the numerical results, and look for the quality in people's lives, because at the final judgment, that is all that matters.

Because when everybody's super, no one will be.
The Edna Man

EDIT 080111: Even a Japanese romance manga from the 1990s knows it.

What Would You Wager?

2011-01-02T17:11:00.006+08:00

The scene seemed to play out in slow motion as the spent cartridges hit the table. The tinkling sound was followed by a hollow, metallic ring as the mess tin covered the shells. Somewhere in the distance, the sounds of a marching band drifted across the cookhouse.

"I wager... ten days," said one of the men, whose hand was clamped over a mess tin. He looked at the other two. "I'll match ten days," said a second man. The third man thought for a moment, then said, "Agreed." There was a pause as each man counted the handful of shells they had randomly thrown in their concealed hand.

"Wondering how it's played?"

Fresh recruit William Zhang turned around to see that his sergeant, Bill Tan, had come up from behind him. Relaxing, he replied, "I understand, sergeant," and turned his eyes back to the game. One of the men had shouted "Liar!" and all three men were now counting the revealed shells.

"It's a game of deception," William observed. "Your bet includes all shells, not just your own." His brow creased as the two men laughed at their third companion, who had obviously lost. "What are they wagering?" William asked.

"The only thing we have," said Sergeant Bill. "Years of service."

William scratched his chin as the men gathered up the spent shells. "So any serviceman can be challenged?"

"Yes," replied his sergeant. "Anyone."

William paused for only a second. He said out loud to nobody in particular: "I challenge Captain David."

The was a painful caterwauling as the trumpets of the marching band squealed off key, and a series of thumps and crashes akin to percussion section being thrown down a flight of stairs. All faces swiveled to William's, amazement written on each of them, then flicked towards the main doors of the cookhouse. In the silence, only the soft tread of boots could be heard, growing louder by the second. With each step, recruits shrank away into the darker shadows of the hall.

Captain David appeared in the doorway, framed by the shadow of the dark corridor behind him. His eyes quickly found those of Recruit William. "I accept," he said with his trademark lisp, spittle flying from his mouth as he spoke..

Captain David watched William warily as he sat down at the table. "The stakes?" he asked.

"My life," replied William. "An eternity of servitude."

"No!" Sergeant Bill cried out softly.

William didn't flinch as Captain David asked, "Against?" He slowly reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a photograph. It is a grainy picture of what appeared to be an official document, but clearly printed across its header were the words: "RELEASED FROM SERVICE".

Captain David let out a small gasp of surprise. He suddenly stood up to his full, considerable height. "How do you about the document?" he asked vehemently.

Recruit William was unfazed. "That's not part of the game, is it?" He slowly put the photograph back in his pocket and leveled his gaze. "You can still walk away," he told the Captain.

Captain David scowled as slowly sat back down. He reached into his beret and pulled out a folded sheet of paper. He carefully unfolded it until the words across the header could be read. Satisfied, William nodded. Captain David carefully refolded the sheet and slid it under his beret.

Without a word, the two men each grabbed a handful of shells and tossed them into the mess tin, then quickly slammed them face down onto the table. Out of nowhere, a third tin slammed onto the table as well.

Captain David looked from the hand to its owner. "What's this?" he asked Sergeant Bill.

"I'm in. Matching his wager." Sergeant Bill had a hard look in his eye.

"No," William said forcefully. "Don't do this."

Sergeant Bill looked at him dejectedly. He gave William a half shrug. "The die is cast," he said. "I bid three tracers," he said. He turned to look at his commanding officer. "It's your bid, Captain."

Captain david closed his eyes, like he was seeing what could not be seen. He gave a small chuckle before he said confidently, "Four blanks."

William looked down at his hand gripping the mess tin. "Four tracers," he said.

Captain David's eyes slid back to Sergeant Bill. "Six rounds," said the sergeant. William's eyes darted back to the captain.

Captain David peered under his mess tin, revealing four blank rounds and one tracer round. "Seven tracers."

William looked at his rounds: three tracers, one normal, and one practice. "Eight tracers," he said.

Captain David chuckled, a slow, horrific chuckle. "Welcome to the Force, liar." He continued chuckling, until Sergeant David suddenly interrupted, "Twelve tracers."

The captain's head snapped around. He stared at the sergeant. "Twelve tracers," said the sergeant. "Call me a liar, or up the bid."

"And be called a liar myself for the trouble?" asked Captain David. He grabbed Sergeant Bill's mess tin and looked at the collection of rounds he had hidden underneath. "Sergeant Bill, you're a liar and you will spend an eternity in this unit!" He stood up to leave and turned to William. "Recruit Zhang, feel free to leave camp," he snorted, "the next time we book out!" He roared with laughter as he stomped away.

William turned to his sergeant. "Fool. Why did you do that, sergeant?"

Sergeant Bill looked at him morosely. "I couldn't let you lose."

William shook his head. "It was never about winning, or losing," he said.

The sergeant looked perplexed for a moment. Then it hit him. "The form!" he exclaimed. "You just wanted to know where it was."

-----

Inspired by a discussion about automatic MC machines and down-PES jackpots. But you can't guess where it's from.

The only thing we have: years of service.
The Edna Man

Top Ten of 2010

2010-12-31T00:00:00.002+08:00

Hey hey hey, Year's Top Ten is back in business with another installment of the years... top ten. Here's to an awesome future!

1. The Suicide Survival Kit (Written: 27th Dec 2010)
Okay so I forgot about this until now. Chronologically, this should come first I guess. It's a couple of days before the IB results come out for our year, and of course everybody's freaked out of their minds, but I had been watching too much ImprovEverywhere and decided to get a couple of people to do something awesome to commemorate the occasion and, possibly, lighten the mood a bit. Thus the Suicide Survival Kit was born. It offered a cheap, affordable, easy way to kill youself if and when you find out you didn't meet your expectations for your IB results (and hell, in this country, nobody meets their own expectations). We distributed it discreetly to people we knew, and maybe it didn't have the kind of impact I was envisioning, but it sure was fun to make.

2. Love Hina manga series (Link) (Written: 10th Feb 2010)
This is one of the first few mangas I read; I remember borrowing it from a friend when I was in Sec 1 or 2. I never finished it though, and yesterday I finished the ending. Then I had this feeling; Juzzie said it was just the aftereffects of the emotional ride which stories often give you. I just found it so touching... I mean, Harry Potter gave the sense of awesomeness and Dark Materials had love in it too but I only felt it was awesome... this is the first story that made me love the characters, and not just the awesomeness of the plot.

3. Odyssey of the Mind 2010 (Written: 10th April 2010)
Naturally, one of the highlights of the year. All the girls this year were very friendly, and they all made me really happy. They made me consider teaching as a profession. And of course, I'm really proud of them and their achievements, even if they didn't get a real award. I met a whole bunch of wonderful people and I am happy to know that I made so many new friends.

4. Dog Licked (Written: 15th August 2010)
I have never been around dogs much, since my parents tend to keep their distance from them, but my friend Hui Jun has two, who are misnamed according to their colour (Guiness is the white one). So we were at his house for his birthday party, and I was sitting on the floor, and suddenly one of them just comes up to me and starts licking my hand. It was a mix of ticklishness and revulsion. In other words, it felt DAMN WEIRD but I couldn't stop laughing. Of course, I went to wash my hands afterwards.

5. Fried Rice Paradise: The Musical (Written: 22nd August, 2010)
I watched this musical today and it was a blast. It showed me that Singapore productions don't have to be bad, and it inspired with the idea of Audience: The Musical. And I met Dick Lee! Wow.

6. Getting my iPad nano (Written: 1st January, 2011)
So I've constantly advertised myself as a self-sustaining music player with no need for external inputs. That all changed when I bought myself my very own iPad nano at Comex. I am quite pleased with it, and now I can listen to music on the go! I'm still in the process of organising all the music on it though, which is a tough job considering the amount of songs I have rattling up there in my head. (For those who still don't get it, the iPad nano is the iPod Touch.)

7. Completing Final Fantasy VIII (Written: 1st January, 2011)
Okay this is one of those bittersweet things which is fulfilling, yet sad at the same time. I'm quite happy I finally completed the game (and found out what happened at the end of the story) but it's quite sad to actually finish the game which has been with you for about a third of your life and has influenced you in so many different ways. For the record, I love Selphie best. Squall's limit break is cool, but Selphie's is AWESOME.

8. Left 4 Dead 2 (Written: 1st January, 2011)
Sometime this year a group of us started playing Left 4 Dead 2 at a LAN shop somewhere in Upper Bukit Timah. I found out that I'm more a cooperative player than a competitive one (possibly because I don't like losing), and so Left 4 Dead 2 was just one of the best experiences this year. It's so much more interesting and engaging to be working with other people to stay alive in this endless swarm of zombies, instead of killing each other like in CounterStrike or other competitive games. We're still dedicated to beating the game proper, so we're probably going to be doing it again very soon.

9. Singapore's ComiCon: Toys, Games, and Comics Convention (Written: 1st January, 2011)
It definitely was one of the highlights of the year, even though it didn't live up to my expectations. But yeah, it's the first comic-ish convention I've been to, and I did get to see some awesome regional artists and their art, buy a lot of comic books for fractions of the retail price, and got an adorable kitty coin box. Who could ask for more?

10. Meeting with People (Written: 1st January, 2011)
It's one of the small things, but yeah, it's also one of the best things. It's nice to know that we haven't drifted apart so much, but we're still held together, just by a broader net this time instead of the small room-sized ones we used to have. Who knows what will happen when we drift into the world? (At five centimetres per second, no less.) But it was nice meeting up with the people I practically grew up with, seeing them again, laughing, making the same old jokes... I hope some things never change.

Highlights from the Media (in the organisation style of TVTropes)

Anime: The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, 5 Centimetres per Second, Gatekeepers and Gatekeepers 21, Akikan
Haruhi gave me a glimpse into the world of the otaku. 5cm/s was just heartbreaking. Gatekeepers was nice, and it settled one of my childhood curiosities. Akikan was just because Boey asked me to - I liked the soundtrack. There might be more (I think I watched Spirited Away for the second time) but I only just started with the Anime.

Manga: Maximum Ride the manga, The Legend of Koizumi, Love Hina
Maximum Ride Manga was drawn by a Korean guy, but I loved the art and it was awesome to see what the Flock might look like in real-life (hypothetically speaking). I blame Bryan for Koizumi but it's so epic that I can't stop reading it and now I have to wait for the next compilation to come out and be translated. Love Hina was, and is, still the best, and it's the story that will stick with me for a long, long time.

Movies: Inception, Iron Man 2, Finding out about the Avengers (!!!), The Usual Suspects (DVD), How to Tame your Dragon, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnarsus, Ocean's Eleven and Ocean's Twelve
Inception was such an awesome mindscrew that I watched it a second time on the plane back from Australia. Iron Man 2 was just so awesome, I vowed to live to see the day when holographic computing becomes commercially available. And man, the trailers for Thor and Green Lantern look quite pffft, but I'm hoping the AVENGERS MOVIE, the first ever proper superhero team movie, will be awesome. Imaginarium was intriguing, but not really spectacular. Dragon was nice Dreamworks with the tsundere and the Stitch-dragon. Ocean's Eleven and Twelve were so awesome that I'm now desperately trying to find Thirteen. I still need to watch Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows pt. 1 and Tron and Tangled.

Books: The Oathbreaker books, Kaimira: The Sky Village, the Alfred Kropp series, Maximum Ride, The Hunger Games and Catching Fire.
I read a lot of books this year, mainly because I make a trip to the library every few weeks, but these were the blockbusters of the literary year. Oathbreaker was surprising nice and rewarding, a nice starter if you're interested in more fantasy-type stories. Kaimira was epic, so compelling and addictive, I'm now dying for the next book (it's been two years already). The Alfred Kropp series was another surprising set, with its mix of humour and emotion and fantasy adventure that is somehow a very compelling read. Maximum Ride was eponymous for the first three books, but then the author started going all environmental on the fourth, which is an important message to put across, but I felt it deviated from the original tone of the book. Hopefully the next two books are better. Hunger Games series was also another very interesting novel, and I went through the sequel as well, and now I somehow need to get my hands on the last book, Mockingjay.

Music: 8-Bit Dr. Horrible, Tim Minchin, Mike Tompkins, Glee
I listened to a lot of music this year, and hopefully DJ Earworm's 2011 mashup will summarize it for me. My MTV Awards are going to the 8-Bit Dr. Horrible soundtrack and game, which totally blew my mind from an already awesome show. Tim Minchin, with his hilarious lyrics and witty satire, gets honourable mentions here too. Mike Tompkins, the guy who bothered to do Dynamite a capalla, that guy is one awesome dude. Glee, I watched more for the music than the drama, which introduced me to a lot of new songs, one of which is stuck in my head now (Kelly Clarkson's My Life Would Suck Without You).

Games: Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Command & Conquer 3 and Kane's Wrath, NeoSteam, Dragonica, Torchlight, Alteil, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
Ah, a good year for games, since my computer got upgraded this year. I got to play three-year-old birthday presents (not as in, presents for three-year-olds), Ultimate Alliance and C&C3, which were both quite cool. NeoSteam was the MMO I got into with Ernest and Hui Jun before enlistment, and we dropped it when we got to army. I replaced it with Dragonica, because I thought it was cure and the art was nice and the battle system was quite unique. I eventually dropped that too. Torchlight, the first game I ever bought for myself, wasn't quite as fun as I expected; it has minimal storyline and repetitive gameplay, so yeah. Alteil, free online card game I found a couple years back but only reintroduced myself with it this year. Brilliant art by Japanese manga artists, and the battle system is also quite unique. I'm mostly playing it for the art though. Lovely art.

And that's my Twenty Ten. And hey, would you look at that. Nothing from army! Huh.

To 2011!
The Edna Man

I Come From the Land Down Under

2010-12-23T22:06:00.000+08:00

So I just came back from a holiday in Australia. It was more of a parents' holiday, because it's more of stuff that they love doing (like shopping). It seems quite grating to travel halfway across the world just to go to their casinos, instead of doing awesome stuff that you can only do there.

Like feeding kangaroos, for instance. The tame kangaroos are really quite adorable! I also fed a cow with milk (not mine) and fuzzied a sheepdog (also not mine).

I did a crossword! A full one, like, in the Australian newspaper. I felt really accomplished after that.

You better take cover,
The Edna Man

UnConventional

2010-12-13T21:59:00.000+08:00

Saturday was my first ever convention. In some ways it was a learning experience, in preparation for my participation at future conventions. And I have to say, I do want to go to more conventions.

So I went to the Toys, Games and Comics Convention at Suntec City. I wanted to get there right when the doors opened, and I did, except that I had to wait outside and watch everyone go in first.

I have to admit, I never knew there were so many cosplayers in Singapore. Some of the costumes were really nice and detailed, and they looked quite cool. There was this one group of people working on a pair of silver wings, which had a fan motor attached to the center, and had a wheel of swords (fake, obviously) attached to the motor. I never saw it working later in the day, but I thought it was quite cool. I remember seeing a really pretty Pokemon cosplayer, but none of us could identify what Pokemon she was cosplaying (yellow and green, if you know by any chance). Jc took a picture with a Venosaur, and Lou Ee got one with Megaman. (I got one with V! But that was later in the day.) There were also a couple of of dudes suited up as Halo shock troopers, those were quite cool.

People usually don't have many good things to say about cosplayers, but me being an actor, I know the kind of liberation you feel when you're dressed up as someone else. It reminds me of this picture I saw about Halloween, which said half of the people get into costume because it lets them be someone else, while the other half does it so that they can be themselves.

As for the rest of the convention, I guess I expected it to be... bigger? I assumed that it would be like ComiCon in the US, but since comics aren't big enough here, they diluted it with games and toys as well. The toys weren't really "toys" per se, more like those novelty gifts and figurines and stuff. Games were mostly new MMORPGs, and they had a huge area in the centre where they kept having tournaments and free demos. One of the more awesome things there was the Artists' Alley, where regional artists (and a few international ones) showcased some of their works. Imaginary Friends Studios was arguably one of the best there, though there was so much talent it was hard to decide a clear winner.

It was the comics that interested me most, and there were few there. There was a booth selling mint conditions of old Marvel and DC comics (I mean 1970s, 1980s), which didn't interest me much. I bought four Civil War trade paperbacks (squeee~!) for only $56 (squeeeeee~!) because they were selling them at a 1 SGD to 1 USD rate. The other three all bought issues of V for Vendetta.

We wandered around for a while before lunch. There was this really adorable cat coin box, where the cat popped out of the top and grabbed the coin before disappearing back in (which I bought, incidentally). Oh, I remember that there was this really pretty girl with an oversized teddy bear advertising for some MMO, but she was kept inside this small booth with a glass screen, and people (guys, mostly) kept stopping to take pictures of her. I thought it was quite cruel and depressing to see her stuck in that box.

There was this Marvel panel discussion in the middle of the afternoon, and I guess it was quite interesting to see the people behind all the great contributions to graphical stories. I remember people asking them quite typical questions, and I was going to ask one about how Asian art was influencing Western comics, but they ran out of time and I didn't get to ask it.

All in all I got a whole bunch of freebies and an idea of what to expect if I come for this expo next year. I'm hoping that they will bring in more comics the next time around though.

That night, we went to watch Walking with Dinosaurs. It's a funny story acutally: we went to meet at Junction 8 for dinner, where we ended up eating Manhattan Fish Market, and we only left at 7.30 (the show was at 8pm at the Indoor Stadium). But when we get to the train station, Shaun Ong managed to get in without having an EZLink card. So we waited for him to get a one-shot ticket, and when we get to the platform, we find out that the train was delayed due to some technical fault. So we stood around for a couple minutes, hoping that the train would come, until it hit 7.45pm. We rushed out of the station to catch a cab, and wound up there at around 8.10. Hopefully we didn't miss much of the show.

The show was quite spectacular. It was extremely well choreographed, and I loved how they made the plants with inflatable balloon-like things. The dinosaurs were so real; the animatronics were fantastic. The T-Rex was AWESOME (and the baby one was quite cute). I kept expecting the narrator to suddenly burst out in Crocodile Hunter, though.

So that was my Saturday. Comics and dinosaurs, always an awesome combination.

Voilá!
The Edna Man

Chance Encounters

2010-12-04T23:09:00.002+08:00

I take it back. You do meet random people you know on the street.

Today I was coming back from the library and I walked right past Hern Hern and her boyfriend. She didn't recognise me (or didn't notice me, either one, take your pick).

Then at the bus stop at Newton MRT, who do I see walking past to the MRT but Arun, who is apparently taking French lessons somewhere around there. Don't ask.

On the bus, I sit directly behind Mr Raymond Poon, who seems to recognize my face but not my name (I'm that forgettable). We didn't get to talk much because he got off at the next stop.

So yeah. Maybe I should have bought 4D or something today.

What were the odds?
The Edna Man

Slot: The End

2010-11-29T23:14:00.002+08:00

And so Selphie cast her ultimate magic spell on my game and it ended. After seven years of investing the the Final Fantasy VIII game, I finally defeated all five forms of Ultemecia and got to the happy ending.

It's a funny story actually. I first played it seven years back when my cousin lent us her Playstation for the December holidays. I played through Disc 1 I think, until I had to return it when school started.

In Sec 2, I then managed to borrow the PC version of the game from Jun Yi. It was old and badly scratched, and the game hung occasionally, but I somehow managed to get to Ultemecia's castle on Disc 4. (By the way, I love the theme song for her castle. The pipe organs are the best.)

Earlier this year, I managed to procure a PS emulator. I played through Disc 3 (The Salt Flats) until my computer crashed. Fortunately, I had saved games. Unfortunately, they were all the way back in Disc 1.

So I fixed the problem and continued from the save game and fought through all the monsters and got all the GFs and smacked Ultima Weapon (he was quite pathetic) and I finished the game. I feel a mixture of accomplishment and disappointment, because now that it's over I feel like I'm going to lose six friends who I followed through seven years, four discs and hundreds of hours of gameplay.

It took me seven years to see that kiss, and it only lasted half a second.
The Edna Man

Wonder Girls Transcend Race, Nationality and Gender with Latest Audition

2010-11-25T20:24:00.002+08:00

SINGAPORE -- The Ministry of Education (MOE) will lauding the Korean pop girl group Wonder Girls as the latest example of meritocracy. Today, its label JYP Entertainment announced its plans to hold a regional talent audition for the ASEAN region.

The audition is the first of its kind to allow applicants from outside the stereotypes of Korean pop (K-pop) group members.

"Anyone may participate, regardless of nationality or gender," said JYPE spokesperson Mr. Suu Kim Yi in Korean yesterday, at a press conference which was also translated into English, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil, Tagalog, Thai, Bahasa Indonesia, Lao, Burmese, Khmer, and Vietnamese.

"It doesn't matter where you are from or what sex you are. If you have the talent, you can still make it big as a Korean girl group star," he said.

When asked about the reasons for this new international casting call, Mr. Suu replied, "We believe that music and art transcends things like gender, race and nationality. That is why we are doing this."

Local fans are delighted at the latest opportunity to become a famous K-pop star. Said Mr. Thavitharsan Sarmamugan, 22: "I love the Wonder Girls and I can do all the dance moves to their song 'Nobody'. It has always been my dream to be in a K-pop group and I will be so excited to be there for the auditions."

JYPE has also announced that they will not be changing the iconic names of their K-pop group. "The name is now synonymous with successful K-pop, and changing it now will just cause fans to become detached from their favourite artistes," said Mr. Suu. "We also wanted to give the fans and aspiring artists the opportunity to actually be a part of Wonder Girls."

"We want to give everyone a chance to be a Wonder Girl."

Singaporean auditions will be held at Republic Polytechnic on the 9th and 11th of December.

-----

Okay, no offence to Korean pop groups and their fans, or to the Ministry of Education. I just thought that it would be funny if the Wonder Girls actually did host an audition to get new talent from anywhere, and still be labeled as a Korean-pop girl group. Also, no offence to any Indians or any real Mr Thavitharsan Sarmamugan out there, but just imagine photoshopping a typical Indian guy into any pic of the Wonder Girls or SNSD and the juxtaposition would be completely hilarious.

That thing about music transcending race and gender by the way, is true. I believe it anyway.

JYPE Auditions, if you're interested.
Lao is the official language of Laos. Khmer is the official language of Cambodia. Tagalog is the official language of the Philippines. You should be able to guess the rest.

NOBODY NOBODY BUT ME,
The Edna Man

Scientists Pinpoint Exact Cause of Hearing Loss in Teens

2010-11-21T17:35:00.004+08:00

SINGAPORE -- A study conducted by researchers at the National University Hospital (NUH) has pinpointed the exact cause of hearing loss in youths today. Currently, experts believe it is because teens spend much of their time listening to music at dangerously high levels, but head researcher Dr. Stephanie Tay says that this is not the root cause.

"There is a reason youths are turning the volume up," said Dr. Tay, an otologist at NUH. "It's because everything else is too loud."

"Bus engines are too loud. The trains are too loud. And even if you're just walking from place to place, the drilling and pounding from construction sites are too loud," said Dr. Tay.

"It's either turn up the volume or not hear the music at all."

A survey of youths suffering from hearing loss also complemented the findings. "I take the public transport a lot," shouted Jeffery Lim, a student. "I keep turning up the volume on my iPod because the roar of the bus engines always drowns out the music." When asked if he experienced the same difficulties on trains, Mr. Lim only responded loudly, "What? I can't hear you! Speak up!"

Ms Chan Yan Sing, a student at NUH, tells us this story: "I was on the bus one day. I saw this lady not even bother to use headphones at all, and just blasted her music into the air."

"That's just how bad it is," she commented.

Up to one in five youths suffer from hearing loss in America, according to a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association. It showed that 19.5 percent of children aged 12 to 19 displayed slight and mild hearing loss, an increase from 14.9 percent in an earlier study.

Dr. Tay advises the public to take care of their ears, because hearing loss can be a life-long condition. "Wear noise-cancelling headphones, so you can listen to your music at a safe volume. Alternatively, don't take public transport. Drive."

"And if you are male and enlisting into the army, stay away from guns and the artillery officer vocation," she added.

-----

Seriously, I think that it's kinda ironic that I bought my iPod Touch to listen to music on the go, but whenever I travel I can't hear anything over the industrial noise.

I wanted to add a couple of paragraphs about how public transport operators were angry with the accusations, but I couldn't see hwo to work it in without insulting public transport companies. Go, freedom of speech!

And lastly, some links. Aren't I so fun-ducational?

Study on Hearing Loss
Otology, if you don't know what it means

Oh and the lady blasting music into the air is a true story, by the way. Buggered me out on my way home today.

BOOM BOOM POW,
The Edna Man

It's Beginning to Look too Much Like Christmas

2010-11-11T20:54:00.002+08:00

It's Beginning to Look too Much Like Christmas, parody of It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas as popularized by Johnny Mathis

It's beginning to look too much like Christmas
Everywhere you go
Once the Halloween profit fails,
Run out the year-end sales,
And line all the shop windows with fake snow!

It's beginning to look too much like Christmas
Toys in every store
When you go on your shopping spree
Must buy two, get one free!
And discounts galore.

They start to hang up the stars and give away cars
For advertising campaigns
Put up the tree as a guarantee
To increase their capital gain
Salesgirls in their santa hats: "Thank you, please come again!"

It's beginning to look too much like Christmas
Everywhere you turn
But the last that I remember,
It only turned November,
And I don't have that kind of cash to burn

It's beginning to look too much like Christmas:
Two more months to go.
This commercialized holiday
Must have started back in May
But I missed the memo.

-----

In other news, a black kitten crossed my path when I was coming home today. It was ADORABLE. I stopped walking and it came up and sniffed my boot before sitting down in front of me. When I started to move, it gave me that upward glance by bending over backwards (you know the one) and mewed! Then it stretched itself and wandered off.

I guess this uniform does make you look like a tree.
The Edna Man

Oathbreaker

2010-10-28T21:18:00.003+08:00

It is rare that I fall in love with a new book or series, and such books are few and far between. The Oathbreaker books, which comprises of Assassin's Apprentice and Prince Among Killers, is one of those stories which really managed to engage me in the full experience of it.

I believe that this story is a good place to start into the forays of epic fantasy fiction. It's longer than its more "accessible" contemporaries, and starts off a bit slow. But that is what made me endear to Aron's character more, and throughout the chapters, I almost felt his pain as mine. I was so disappointed when Aron discovered the true fate of his love interest, and was delighted to find out that he still had a happy ending. I think that's what every great author hopes to achieve, to have their readers so absorbed into the story that they start to believe that the fiction is reality.

The series takes its place on my hallowed Imaginary Bookshelf of Awesome Stories, along with the likes of Harry Potter, His Dark Materials and the Mortal Engines series (all of which you should have read, be reading, or be reading in the near future).

To Stone go the Stones,
The Edna Man

Juxtaposition

2010-10-23T19:19:00.002+08:00

I Gotta Feeling (Bad Day), parody of I Gotta Feelin' by Black Eyed Peas

I gotta feeling
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad, bad day

A feeling
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad, bad day

A feeling (Oh no)
That today's gonna be a good night
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad, bad day

A feeling (Oh no)
That today's gonna be a good night
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad, bad day

Where is the moment
We needed most
You kick up leaves
The magic's lost

Tell me your blue skies
They fade to grey
Tell me your passion
Has gone a-WAY!

I don't need no carryin' on
You say you don't know but you're singing sad songs
You work at a smile and you go for a ride
You're coming back down and you really don't mind

You stand in line
To hit new lows
You're faking smiles
Coffee's to go

Tell me your life's
Been way offline
Falling to pieces
And it happens everytime

It's stupid, it's stupid, it's stupid, it's stupid
So stupid, so stupid, it's horrible
And stupid, and stupid, it's stupid, stupid, stupid
it's stupid, it's stupid, it's stupid

'Cause I gotta feeling (Boohoo)
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad, bad day

A feeling (Boohoo)
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad, bad day

Where is the moment
(Moment!)
We needed most
(We need it most!)
You kick up leaves
(Kick up the leaves!)
The magic's lost
(Lost!)

Tell me your blue skies
(Blue skies)
They fade to grey
(They fade to what?)
Tell me your passion
(Passion!)
Has gone a-WAY!

You stand in line
(Wait)
To hit new lows
(In line)
You're faking smiles
(Ha ha, hee hee)
Coffee's to go

Tell me your life's
(Your life)
Been way offline
(It's so offline)
Falling to pieces
And it happens everytime

It's stupid, it's stupid, it's stupid, it's stupid
So stupid, so stupid, it's terrible
And stupid, and stupid, it's stupid, stupid, stupid
it's stupid, it's stupid, it's stupid

Sometimes the, system goes, all on the blink
(Blink blink blink blink blink)
The whole thing, turns out wrong, can't even think
(Think think think think think)
You might not, make it back, and you're not wrong
(Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong)
That you could, could be well, well oh that strong
(Strong strong strong strong strong)

Well you, need a, blue sky holiday
(Bad day!)
The point, is that, they laugh at what you say
(Bad day!)
Take, take, take, take, take one down, you've seen what you like (like)
The camera don't lie, t-t-t-the camera don't lie

And I'm feelin' (Boohoo)
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad, bad day

I gotta feeling
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad day
That today's gonna be a bad, bad day

Good Night, parody of Bad Day by Daniel Powter

Tonight is the night, let's go live it up
I got all my money, let's go spend it up
We'll go out and smash it, like oh my god
We'll jump off that sofa, and just get it off
And then we'll do it all again

Please fill up my cup; hey thanks, mazeltov
Hey, look at her dancing; should just take it off
You want to go and paint the town red
You want to go shut it, and shut it down dead
And then we'll do it all again

'Cause you had a good night
You just want to dance
You take a nice song and you tune it to trance
You wanna get drunk
You bring out the beer
You just want to party 'cause the weekend is near
Your house is soundproof
You burn down the roof
You're bring the house down and enjoying your youth
You had a good night
You had a good night

Well I know that we will have a ball
If we get down, go out, and just lose it all
And then we'll do it all again

'Cause you had a good night
You just want to dance
You take a nice song and you tune it to trance
You wanna get drunk
You bring out the beer
You just want to party 'cause the weekend is near
Your house is soundproof
You burn down the roof
You're bring the house down and enjoying your youth
You had a good night

(Oh... Every night...)

We come or we go, we gotta rock
And we all turn out on top
You feel shot, body rock, and don't stop
Round and round, around the clock
And I'm in shock

(Yeah...!)

Tonight is the night, let's go live it up
Oh, you and I
I got all my money, let's go spend it up

'Cause you had a good night
You just want to dance
You take a nice song and you tune it to trance
You wanna get drunk
You bring out the beer
You just want to party 'cause the weekend is near
You had a good night
You've seen what you like
And what you can have just one more time
You had a good night
You had a good night

-----

WHY DID I NOT SEE THIS EARLIER.

I am not really proud of this mashup/parody hybrid, but it was funny when I thought about it first. The Powter parody was harder; the Black Eyed Peas are definitely not known for theit lyrical diversity.

Ruining nice songs since 2005,
The Edna Man

NEWSFLASH: Indonesian Slash-And-Burn Farmers Actually Combating Global Warming with Geoengineering

2010-10-21T20:57:00.004+08:00

Sumatra, Indonesia -- Global warming is often hailed as one of the world's biggest crises of today, but that is not stopping local farmers from playing their part in fighting this international problem.

Last week, slash-and-burn farmers in Sumatra and Kalimantan once again started burning large areas of tropical rainforest, in a centuries-old tradition aimed at combating global warming.

"It's a legitimate technique called 'geoengineering', and it will change the world," Wakarno Suparputra said yesterday, on the grounds of his family's farmstead in southern Sumatra. Suparputra is the chairman of Indonesian Agriculture for Climate Change (IACC), an organisation renowned for using radical techniques to reverse the effects of global warming.

"The science is sound," he explained. "Burning these significant amounts of organic matter releases millions of kilotons of sulphur dioxide into the atmosphere. This gas transforms into sulphur dioxide droplets, an aerosol which reflects sunlight, and will eventually lead to global cooling."

"It also has the unfortuante side effect of creating hundreds of hectares of fertile farmland, and we are taking measures to control its spread by using them in the production of large quanties of crop," he commented.

Similar solar radiation techniques have previously been employed by The Krakatoan Initiative, a group of volcanologists who believe that increasing the frequency if volcanic eruptions would also contribute to lower average global temperatures.

"Nature has been doing this for thousands of years," said Dr Petrasiva Widjaya, a top scientist from the Initiative. "Historically, large volcanic eruptions have cause discernable global cooling. Mount Pinabuto's eruption in 1991 caused global temperatures to fall by 0.5-0.6°C, due to the huge amount of volcanic silica thrown into the upper atmosphere. The slash-and-burn technique is really just based on the same principle."

Mainstream environmentalists, however, are in an uproar over the drastic measures employed by the IACC, with one even calling it "the worst case of 'paving the road to hell' in the last decade". They are expressing outrage at the numerous negative side effects if the forest fires, the least of which is the large haze cloud which has drifted over the Malaysian peninsula, causing an increase in the risk of asthma and other breathing-related ailments.

"Not only are they destroying the habitats of thousands of species, they are increasing the likelyhood of acid rain, as well as thinning the ozone layer," fumed conservationist Peter Hartono at a press conference yesterday.

But Suparputra is adamant that his methods will save the world. "The western countries are still sitting on their hands with regards to climate change," he says, "and it is about time someone stood up to make a difference."

"At least this makes more sense than that Peruvian guy who wants to paint his mountain white," Suparputra added.

-----
Man, the haze is really bad here.

First off, please don't take this the wrong way. This article is a work of fiction, and should be treated as such. It was an attempt to write a satirical news article a la The Onion, but it didn't turn out quite so satirical and not nearly as funny. You might learn a couple of things from it though...

1. Geoengineering
2. Stratospheric sulphur aerosols
3. Krakatoa
4. Peruvian Andes Whitewashed

I really hope you can sort the fact from fiction.

This is
The Edna Man
for E-DNA news. Goodnight.

101010

2010-10-10T18:42:00.002+08:00

It's not much of a comment, but today's a Perfect 10. You gotta wait a whole millenium for these things. What an occasion. Too bad it wasn't really special or anything.

Ten Thousand Thundering Typhoons,
The Edna Man

Dr. Horrible: The Game!

2010-09-26T21:08:00.002+08:00

Now as often as I've raved about the genius that is Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog, I've never come across something as awesome as this. It's a Nintendo-style interpretation of the entire story musical, and it is AWSOME. I find the similarities in the storylines so well done and thought out, and it really is quite funny to see all these in game format. What's more, the 8-bit soundtrack is SO WELL DONE. It's not orchestra level audiophonics, but it was just so integrated and I loved the way he utilized the themes to great effect. Why don't you check it out yourself.

I hear that he's making a similar game for Glee, which I think might prove very interesting.

It's a perfect story, so they say
The Edna Man

Friends I Haven't Yet Met

2010-09-25T16:30:00.002+08:00

If you don't know by now, I have a side blog called Friends I Haven't Met, which was set up on this initiative to start talking to strangers (against all my mother told me) and connecting with more people in this world. It hasn't been very successful so far, bit today I had my second encounter, so hopefully it'll kinda gain some momentum from here. I'm just slightly disappointed that it wasn't a cute schoolgirl though.

Gambatte!
The Edna Man

Teh-O!

2010-09-21T22:15:00.003+08:00

Teh-O! parody of Dynamite by ~~Teh-O~~ Taio Cruz

I come to eat, eat, eat, eat
The best kopitiam by the street, street, street, street
My kaki-lang come for a treat, treat, treat, treat
My tissue paper chope the seat, seat, seat, seat
(But, but)
The queue goes on and on and on
And it's so long, so long, so long

Yeah!

I throw my hand up in the air and shout:
"Auntie, Teh-O!"
"How come so slow?"
I need a drink and I need it now
Need a Teh-O
Auntie, let's go!

No Milo Dinosaur
'cause my throat still ache
Don't want teh-C, please
Don't want teh tarik

I don't want chin chow
Don't need Tiger Beer
Is it ready now,
Can you bring it here?

My favourite drink, drink, drink, drink
It is the best; don't have to think, think, think, think
I feel bandung is just too pink, pink, pink, pink
I always pour it down the sink, sink, sink, sink
(Yeah, yeah)
And it just flows and flows and flows
And it just goes and goes and goes

Yeah!

After some time you will get sick of lime
Get a Teh-O!
Don't be bodoh!
Don't have to ask me; you can ask my wife
She loves Teh-O!
Baby, let's go!

I buy it all the time
Just don't care the price
Drink it everyday
Maybe once or twice

Don't add anything
It won't make you choke
Don't need to make it cold
It's already shiok!

First make sure your cup's free,
And then make sure your water's boiling,
Add sugar and the tea
Make sure you don't drop any oil in
And then, then, then you leave it
And then, then, then,
You just wait a while, you just wait a while
I'm gonna make one more cup for you
More cup for you
Get one more cup for you

You know how hard it is to make this rhyme?
Get a Teh-O!
Don't be kaypoh!
You can't even cut it with a sharp knife
'Cause it's Teh-O!
ORD, LOH!

'Cause I spend all my cash
Got no more money
Cannot even pay
For a kopi-C

'Cause I drink too much
Getting quite sian, leh
I think I changing to
Maybe Bubble Teh...

----

I'm not really into modern hip-hop/dance/electronic/Autotone, but I just was inspired to do this. Army sure teachs you a lot of bad English.

Thanks to Wikipedia's articles of Singaporean cuisine and the Singlish database on TalkingCock.com.

And arr, missed anotherrr Speak Like a' Pirate Day. Avast.
The Edna Man

Sigh

2010-09-09T18:43:00.001+08:00

There's a cute Japanese girl who takes the same bus I do home everyday.

Sigh.
The Edna Man

Audience: The Musical

2010-08-22T20:49:00.002+08:00

Since I'm hyped from watching the musical today, I was firing with all cylinders, and I had this idea for Audience: The Musical. Before I continue, I would like to stress that all these ideas are mine, influenced by ImprovEverywhere and Fried Rice Paradise and actually any musical which ever existed.

The basic premise is this: you have a musical where the audience is the stage and the performers are scattered around the auditorium. My basic story involves these random people who are part of the audience coming to watch a musical. The performance fails to begin on time due to technical difficulties, and the audience gets restless. The actual musical begins when the first performer in the audience begins to sing (probably about his irritation at why the show hasn't started). This continues in the vein of a normal musical, touching upon the stories of a few random "audience members" in a musical fashion.

Current ideas I have of potential numbers are: a young couple on a date; a man running in late; a family of four; a troupe of schoolchildren on a field trip; the supposed performers of the musical is actually there to watch on the real stage; and a STOMP-inspired percussion piece.

Of course, to be successful, the real audience cannot know the premise of the show before they are in the theatre. I'm wondering if it's false advertising to promote the show as something else, or maybe to keep it mysterious, secretive and vague about plot details. Then of course, in true ImprovEverywhere fashion, you have to get the actual performers to enter the auditorium with the real audience, blending in with the crowd, with their wireless microphones discreetly hidden under their clothes.

One of the snags I have right now is that once the surprise wears off after the first song or two, it will mostly be a musical, albiet that the performers are in the audience. Performer placement is another big worry as they have to be in a spot where everyone else in the audience can see them. A backup idea I had was to use live-feed cameras to spotlight on the performers, but that kinda takes out the whole, "unrehearsed spontaneous musical" feel.

Aside from that, this is something that I really really REALLY would like to do. Maybe it won't work in Singapore, or maybe it will, given the right creative team. All I need now is songwriters and lyricists and performers and a theatre and a director-producer-lights-and-sound team.

Shouldn't be too hard.
The Edna Man

Fried Rice PARADISE!

2010-08-22T19:09:00.002+08:00

I just watched this production at the Esplanade. And I thought it was awesome. It was really funny at parts, and I discovered that Singaporean productions are actually pretty good. I loved the audience interaction, which is something you don't usually get in musicals or performances, and the music was amazing. Once again I'm reminded how much I would love to perform, and once again I'm reminded how much my parents love killing my dreams.

Oh oh oh and I met Dick Lee! He signed the CD that I bought. And I shook his hand! It's probably the closest I will ever get to someone remotely famous. Whoo!

Nasi Goreng, very nice!
The Edna Man

The Youth Olympics

2010-08-16T20:21:00.002+08:00

I don't understand why some people are so negative towards the VERY FIRST EVER Youth Olympic Games held in Singapore. I mean, it's not about being patriotic or whatever. It's about the world coming together to celebrate the unbridled potential of the next generation.

I'm very much interested in these Youth Olympics. I've never taken much interest in sports, and I never followed the actual Olympics, but I'm very drawn to the ones being held here. Maybe it's because I know what it's like at competitions, when your goal is not just to win, but to meet with people and make new friends.

I strongly believe in tabula rasa. That's the idea that people are born as a blank slate, which mean that the possibilities are endless. I have worked with children for three years, and believe me when I say that children have so much more to offer the world then adults do. I have seen how parental influences can change a child's creativity and innocence, for better or for worse.

I see this first YOG not as another event in a list of a country's economic injections for the fiscal year, nor as an excuse to make a name for itself on the world stage, nor as a pride and propaganda for its people. I see it as an opportunity for youths all over the world to meet with one another, to open their eyes and see the world, an experience that will hopefully shape them into the awesome people we all hope to be in the future. And heck, it's a once-in-a-lifetime experience, happening right on your doorstep.

"I used to think that people from all over the world will be very different, but now I've learnt that we are all pretty much the same. We just live in different places." --Jasmine Alkhaldi, Philippines

The Edna Man

Light Up the Nation

2010-08-09T21:34:00.002+08:00

Hello, fellow Singaporeans!

In commemoration of our nation's 100th birthday, let us come together to perform a feat never before attempted by any other country in the world. It is a very simple idea, and requires very little effort on your part, but we need your fullest cooperation from each and every one of you, if we are going to make this work.

On the 9th of August, 2065, the Google Maps™ satellite will pass over Singapore at night, for the first time. We took this opportunity to plan the largest national endevour since the Great Wall of China. And all you need to do is to either turn on, or turn off, the lights in your building, depending on where you are, for about five mintes. As the satellite passes over our island, we are hoping that it will capture the word SINGAPORE glowing on an otherwise dark island.

So we ask for your support, from each and every one of the seventeen million of you, to step up and Light Up our Nation.

-----

Okay, so I had another idea.
The Edna Man

NDP Ideas

2010-08-09T20:40:00.002+08:00

I don't know why, but this year's NDP doesn't seem to have much kick in it. I think in the near future, when our nation becomes more receptive to new and unconventional ideas, I'll go volunteer design some of the performances.

So the first idea I had was of a Singapore Song mashup. And I mean a mashup, not just one of those community song medleys, a real honest-to-goodness electronic-audio-manipulation kind of mashup. Someone go check if Norwegian Recycling or DJ Earworm do comissions. (Or better yet, find someone in Singapore who can do it.)

My second idea was to have some kind of ImprovEverywhere influenced flashmob in the audience. So we plant some performers in the audience (or better yet, get the audience to flashmob it themselves) and get some kind of larger and more meaningful audience participation. As to exactly what that performance would be, I still have no idea.

And my last idea (for now) is to have a song performed by many different instruments from across the performances and across cultures. Someone needs to find a way to perform a mix of Chinese, Malay, Indian and Western instruments together in a Nat Day song. Then, you use one or two of those instruments in each performance before this one (which, incidentally, would be good as a finale or penultimate song). Then you fake a "technical difficulties" and get a portion of each performance (a number of performers, a float, etc.) to "accidentally" come on stage, looking bewildered, each trying to play their own instrument. Then they sync and come together in a impromptu song performance.

Yeah well. We'll see where this goes in the future.
The Edna Man

I Love My Country

2010-08-09T12:00:00.000+08:00

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

-----

Happy Birthday, Singapore
The Edna Man

Inception

2010-08-07T20:39:00.000+08:00

Inception was one of those awesome movies that makes you think and think about it even when it's over. I understand why people can watch it multiple times (though wait for the DVD, it's cheaper) to try to understand the multiple layers. It's awesome awesome awesome, and you should really go watch it if you haven't. To commemorate this special occasion, here's a song:

WARNING: SPOILER ALERT

Dream Within A Dream (Ode to Inception), parody of Dream A Little Dream of Me as performed by Mama Cass
Guy washes up onto a beach
Stealing secrets from the mind, out of reach
But water wakes him and he's forced to flee
Dream within a dream for me

Jap guy raises the stakes up
Falling and dying both make you wake up
But pain is felt psychologically
Dream within a dream for me

The new team continues deception
Not stealing ideas
They're longing to trigger inception
Despite the fears

But there's a problem that will chill you
His dead wife's around and trying to kill you
Don't sleep deeper than level three
Dream within a dream for me

(Instrumental Break)

The rules are making everyone confused
Inconsistency
They think that the gravity's misused
To certain degrees

They plant the thought and get free
Synchronous kicks wake everyone before the
Abrupt endings making everyone disagree
Dream within a dream for me

Yes, dream within a dream within a dream within a dream... for me

-----

Hoping for a train, that will take me far away,
The Edna Man

The God Secret

2010-07-13T19:55:00.004+08:00

Terry stepped into the Barnes & Noble bookstore, hair splattered with rain. The lady behind the counter pursed her lips as his jacket dripped water a little too close to her precious books for comfort, but Terry didn't notice. He was too busy staring at the rows and rows of books: fairytales, novels, anthologies and autobiographies, tomes, grimoires and manuals. He was more at home here that at his own house, which had a bookshelf against every wall and was situated next to a public library.

As he meandered through the aisles, glancing at covers and spines, he was suddenly reminded of something a friend had told him last week. She had said that bookstores were - what was it, exactly? - "graveyards of trees, their bodies mutilated and defiled with archaic runes". Looking at the leatherbound pages before him, he could not have disagreed with her more. These were sacred halls of knowledge, where most of humanity's collective information were sealed within paper and ink, silently waiting for its readers to unlock its secrets. There could never be any macabre feeling with bookstores.

Something caught his eye as he strode past the theology section. The aisle was dimmed, its overhanging lightbulb dead. Terry could just make up a pile of fallen books, toppled over in a jumble by the large glass window. Outside, the rain was hammering on the pane, winds rushing as though trying to force entry.

Terry could never stand the mistreatment of books, and stepped forward immediately to shelve the fallen bibles. As his foot entered the pool of darkness however, lightning suddenly flashed in the window, giving him a fright. But the sudden flash of light had also illuminated a small object lying on top of the pile of books.

Reaching down, Terry picked it up. Instantly, he felt something ripple across his skin, though there was no wind in this airconditioned bookstroe. It felt like a rush of power or knowledge, which emanated from the small pouch which fit in the palm of his hand. It was oddly shaped: pentagonal, made of old leather, with a gold lining around its edges. Each corner was connected with each other corner with another thin gold line, forming a star; and in the centre of the smaller pentagon was inscribed a circle.

Terry was confused by the strange feeling he had upon picking up the pouch. Giving in to temptation, he pulled on the drawstring and flipped it open. He was instantly struck by a feeling so powerful that he could only describe as divine illumination, and slammed the leathers shut again. The pentagonal pouch was no pouch, but a book, its pages yellowing with age. And the voice which spoke in Terry's head and heart told him that this was no ordinary book.

He clutched it to his chest protectively, and whispered to nobody in particular: "It's the secret. It's the God's Secret."

-----
Inspired by a dream I had a couple of weeks back, which I unfortunately had no time to put down in words since then. I distinctly remember having a small book-like thing, and the words "god secret" were quite obvious in my head. I have been having more dreams which I can remember lately (which I blame the army and its screwing up of my normal sleep pattern for), and I guess it's an indication of how awesomely my subconscious is influencing (or being influenced by) my imagination.

Not meant for mortal eyes,
The Edna Man

Silence Will Keep Us Alive

2010-07-06T21:57:00.002+08:00

So I wanted to write something today about something that happened on Saturday but unfortunately events which transpired today makes it impossible (or at least, highly dangerous) for me to attempt to do so. I also had a number of highly creative ideas which will now never see the light of day due to the reinforcement of certain legislations which I ambiguously refer to. Perhaps if I lived in a different society, things might be better. Then again, I can't be arrested for having ideas.

Or maybe I can.
The Edna Man

Now That's What I Call CHANCE!

2010-06-14T20:29:00.002+08:00

What do you know of chance? I've often wondered why, even though I know so many people, that I rarely (almost never) meet anyone in public coincidentally. True the chances are mathematically improbable, and there's also the time factor involved, not to mention the social justifications and demographics, but somehow don't you feel that you should be bumping into more people you know?

And of course, Lady Luck has that knack of dumping a whole lot on you at one time.

So yesterday I went out to Plaza Singapura to catch A-List with a bunch of friends (it was an okay movie; not spectacularly awesome, but entertaining nonetheless). So as I'm walking around I notice Nadia singing on the stage for some Great Eastern Kids' Performance competition thing. Cool. I went over to talk to her mom and wish Nadia good luck, then went to buy snacks (for the movie, obviously). And in the supermarket I met Kathy's mom. So we chat for a while, and I rush off to catch my movie. I'm walking past the stage again, and the previous team had just finished performing The Emperor's New Clothes and are being interviewed by the host. And who do I spot at the front of the group but Elena. I didn't get the chance to talk to her, but I did wave at her, and she kinda waved back, so I guess it's cool.

So ladies and gentlemen, that's not one, not two, but THREE OM-related people I met in one day.

Seriously, what are the chances?
The Edna Man

Break Into Song

2010-06-12T13:54:00.002+08:00

Okay, so I've been watching Improv Everywhere's musicals again, and I had this idea, see. This really awesome idea, which borders on the "how-the-hell-are-we-supposed-to-pull-this-off". But it's still really awesome.

Improv Everywhere has done quite a few spontaneous musicals, which, if you want to argue about it not being actually "spontaneous" when the performers rehearse beforehand, are technically spontaneous to the people who are watching. And it's a really great idea, both playing on the fact that in musicals (Broadway, movies, whatever) people can suddenly just break into song and dance, just like that. It's a very magical thing to observe.

The only problem is that the songs are mostly one-offs, that don't connect to a broader picture. It sure is entertaining, but it isn't part of a bigger story. But maybe we can change that.

So what my idea was is that we can have a whole musical, performed in public places all over a city or town. The ultimate combination of public art and Improv Everywhere-ness. I was thinking of having a story which requires people to travel all over the city looking for something, maybe within a day, and so at different times in that one day, the next song of the musical would be performed, according to a story. The people at each spot would be entertained by that single number, but only get a fragment of the story.

Maybe that's good, maybe not. So I'm thinking again, what if the producers had hidden cameras at each of the locations, and at the end of the whole thing, tied everything together into a single movie musical? A whole story of spontaneous musicals erupting across the concrete jungle.

That my friends, would be epic.
The Edna Man

AUTO TECH(TRAINEE)

2010-06-04T20:57:00.002+08:00

You know why it's so inefficient? Let's look at it from the economic perspective. You've got a constant influx of surplus labour who are guaranteed job security and a minimum wage for at least a year and a half with no drawbacks unless you get caught, and how often do they police? Add this to the cultural mentality of "it's not my problem anymore" and "don't give me trouble" and you get an inefficient workforace which gets the job half done and cannot respond to quick changes within the system.

Sigh. Why doesn't MDC want me?
The Edna Man

Survivor

2010-05-31T22:35:00.002+08:00

I've finally been voted off the island. (Which, contrary to reality television, is a good thing.)

Yes it's almost been a week since, but I haven't gotten round to updating this blog since I've been reacquainting myself with some fascimille of civilian life before I get posted to my new unit, which I sincerely hope is MDC.

I've got a lot of stuff to say about the army, but since there's that whole information blackout regarding what I say in public to people who may or may not be listing, I have a convenient excuse not to publish any of my opinions on this blog. Which saves me the trouble of writing it down.

I do have something to say though. It's about the people. You meet a lot of different people in the army, and it's a whole new life lesson, learning how to communicate and interact with them without getting beaten up or arrowed into doing IC stuff. It's a delicate art, beign friendly enough to get friends who are willing to help you, yet un-famous enough to not have your name called whenever sergeants ask for volunteers. Inconspiciously under the radar, that was my life in BMT. I can count the number of commanders who knew my name on one hand.

That being said, I did everything I was asked to, to the best of my ability. Enough such that in the dying weeks, my section (what remained of it) started noticing (and mocking). Still, when I look at all the people who chao keng through the seven weeks of modified, less physically strenuous, freaking slack BMT, I wonder how these people survived life this long. Obviously, whatever social system we have in place is failing horrendously.

In the army, I saw both extremes of the human condition. There were sergeants and commanders whom I could really respect, and I don't respect people easily. They were fair, just, and did the best they could in whatever they did (as far as I could tell). Then there were those, mostly recruits, who make me ashamed to be part of the human race. Selfishness is the only word. Nothing could inspire these people to give something of themselves for someone else. Not the best characteristic for a fighting fit army. Probably why this was a PES C company.

But enough about the painful past. I will probably never see many of these people ever again, and in some cases, hopefully I never will. (I also now have a deep hatred for toilets in general, and dread the day I next have to clean one.) Let us, instead, turn to more delightful news.

Three MGS Primary OM teams went to the US last week. They will return over the next fortnight with a 4th, 11th, and 32nd placing. I'm really proud of them all, doing their best at such an international competition. I can't wait to see them when they get back to this island!

CONGRATS MGS OM TEAMS!
The Edna Man

Fighting a Losing Battle

2010-05-14T18:10:00.005+08:00

It must be Fate. Either that, or whatever heavenly power up there doesn't like me.

My last OM finals was way back when I was just fourteen. It was such a blast. As the years went by, it seems like it was going to be my first and last OM World Finals. Then I started coaching. Maybe I could have gone again. But for the past three years I haven't gone. I missed the first one because I had to go to the FPS World Conference. Not too bad, that was a nice trip too. Then I missed one last year because of H1N1. Sigh. And now, my request has been denied by the military, so I'm stuck in Singapore for this year again. Three strikes: I'm out.

I have a lot of suppressed emotions which I know shouldn't go on a public blog like this. So let's just say that if I have to recourse because of my Attend C, I'm suing god. For irony.

They say you learn a lot of things in the army. I have to agree. I learn a lot about the society that is confined on this island. The more I see, the more I wonder how the island manages to stay afloat, when the pillars supporting it are cracked and rotten.

Fighting a losing war,
The Edna Man

Sweet Sweet Victory, Bye Bye Freedom, and other Famous Last Words

2010-04-10T23:54:00.006+08:00

OM was great today. Even though not all the teams won something, I really hope they had lots of fun and enjoyed the whole experience. It was quite evenly spaced-out this year, meaning I got to watch all four teams, and hype them up beforehand and everything. Of course I'm biased, so I thought they all were good, but I didn't see many other teams so I can't really compare. But they're all really really cute and I'm so going to miss them all when I enlist in 36 hours. I was actually really really happy for all the winning teams when the results came out, so if I don't sound as enthusiastic here, it's because I've had six hours to think about 36 hours from now, so.

Something one of the parents said today kind of stuck with me. A few of the girls all made small little cards for me with little messages in them, and I was really touched by all their words. One of the mums said that I should really treasure these cards, because what a kid says is really from the heart. So it made me think about innocence, like a child's innocence. Why do we lose it as we get older? When we see how the world really works, both good and evil, why do we stop seeing like a child? I mean, interacting with people in society today is based on manipulation and concealment. But a little kid will tell you what they're thinking straight out. And the excuse parents give for them telling the truth is that "they didn't know better". Why is that? How does that work out? Why are people's feelings so important in this society that we try to keep everyone on good terms? Why can't adults be as innocent as children?

I realized that I'll never be a kid again. Not even a teenager. My next two years will be spent in the army. When I'm out I'll be twenty-one. I've got to become another "respectable" member of this contemptible society. There are so many things you can do as a kid that you can't do as an adult. I don't think I can see myself coaching OM when I'm like, thirty. For one, I'll be out of touch with their pop culture, which is changing at an incredibly fast pace. For another, I don't think parents will be very happy letting a thirty-year-old guy alone with their eight-year-old daughters. It's going to be very different. I miss my youth already, and I'm not even middle-age yet.

I'm really going to miss all the girls I've coached this year. I guess this is the first time that I can feel a bit like they're all little sisters to me, and I'm their big brother. But the bittersweet thing is, I'm never going to have that kind of real brother-sister relationship with them. I'm just a funny guy that can make them laugh and is an easy target for their teasing. And in a couple of years, they'll grow up, and they'll all be different. It's really quite amazing how people can change in just a few years, especially at their age. Today, I met a couple of girls I coached two years ago, and they've both changed quite a bit. Will I even recognize them five years from now? Ten? Twenty? Will they remember me?

I also realized this year that I can't remember a lot of names of the girls I've coached before. So this year to make sure, I'm writing them all down here. So Time Travellers: Sophie, Andrea, Elena, Stephanie, Kathleen (Kate), Roxanne, and Keianna; Lightning Bolts: Beatrice, Caitlyn (Cheese), Caitline, Sophie, Claire, Cara, and Charmaine; Lollipoppers: Mikaela, Sophie and Megan, Ely and Sonia, Ashley, and Renaeta; and Yummilicious: Elsa, Hannah, Jessica, Nadya, Jan, Amanda, and Natalie: if you're reading this, Hi! Now I only hope I can remember the faces attached to these names. And of course all the parents, who I only know by "Auntie" and "Uncle" and by who your daughter is; and the coaches, Tess and Danielle.

Now all I'm afraid of is the culture shock when I'm thrown into camp. After two weeks of nothing but OM, I'm scared that all the regimentation will just destroy my personality, mind and spirit. I guess I've just go to tahan through the seven weeks, and try not to die.

Speaking of which, death is another worry of mine. It's not the unintentional death that scares me; I know everybody has got to die, and it just depends on when. But I'm sure the chances increase exponentially just a few hundred metres offshore. I'm not saying that it's likely, or that it's likely to happen to me, but that it's possible. And if I do die, these might be my final words. It's not easy to think of what you want to say to the world in the event of your death, but in the wake (haha) of recent events, I'm going to try.

I love the world. For all its imperfections, it is still a wonderful place, and the only one we've got. I love my friends. For we have shared many a laugh together. Most recently, I love the girls I've taught in OM, both past and present, and this year's especially, because you made me happy right before my darkest hour. And my only regret is that I didn't manage to find a special someone before my time was up. But life's (and death's) like that.

Oh I almost forgot. I can't remember if I mentioned this before, but I'll say it anyway. If I die, I would really like to have the words "He Died Laughing" carved onto my tombstone. (If no tombstone, then any other prominent place will be fine.)

See you all in two weeks! I hope.
The Edna Man

Echoes of Stories Never Told

2010-04-09T20:30:00.002+08:00

So in two days I'm thrown into the national offshore prison for a two-year sentence.

I guess it's not the most opportune time for that, since tomorrow I finish my third year of Odyssey of the Mind coaching. So after the most incredible high, I'll be chucked into this incredible low of which there is no escape.

I am so going to miss Odyssey of the Mind. I wasn't even originally supposed to do it this year, since I was going in in Feburary. But then I got postponed, and I got to do OM again, which was a blast, as usual. I'm going to miss them all. It's the whole feeling of the 5cm/s thing, since I know I probably won't be seeing them again. I mean, I see a couple of girls I taught in the past two years and I can barely recognize them, let alone remember their names. We're going to drift apart; people in this reality always do. I guess OM is the only thing that links us together, and after that there's nothing left. They have their school thing and I'm going to have my army thing so there's nothing similar anymore.

I am also going to miss the freedom that I've enjoyed for the past four months. Getting up whenever I want, doing what I want, sleeping when I want. Doing whatever I want, especially. After Monday there's no turning back. You're stuck with people planning out your day and your life from dawn to dusk, and after that, (probably) a nine-to-five job. Then university, and I don't even want to think beyond that. I can't even imagine doing something like teaching OM for a living in Singapore. I guess I'll just have to take it a step at a time, and try to keep an open mind. Doesn't help this huge feeling of depression in my chest though.

I guess this is one of those moments in life where you get all existential and wonder what you are doing with your life. The two-year army wall makes you feel so helpless and unable to control your own destiny. Everything seems out of your grasp.

Oh well. Tomorrow will be the last happy day for the next two years. Smile!

Why do all good things have to come to an end?
The Edna Man

April. First!

2010-04-01T23:59:00.002+08:00

Today is a very special day. It is a day that only comes around once a year. A day of laughter and enjoyment; a special day. So I thought I'd do something special today. I'm going to write down some of the romantic ideas which have been bouncing around in my head for a while.

I think I shouldn't be watching all these romance anime and reading all these romance manga. IT IS NOT HELPING MATTERS AT ALL. Eh, but whatever. Ideas are ideas.

So I've got this idea of getting a large number of ping-pong balls and chucking them down a staircase. I considered those bouncy fun balls at first but I figured they'd be too hard and destructive if they were bouncing around a house (because what other accessible staircase would there be?). So I figured if you get around 500 plain ping-pong balls (rough estimate) and painstakingly write "I Love You" on each one, then get your significant other to stand at the foot of a staircase (preferably lured there on some false pretense or mysterious note) and then you release the tidal wave of bouncing love notes. IN THEORY, it should be magical. Results may vary. And obviously, I haven't had the opportunity to test this in real life. Sigh.

I had another idea but at the time of writing this I can't remember what it is. Maybe I will update as it comes back to me.

The last thing I was thinking about was weddings. I had this idea that (just to be different) the bride can wear this black lace dress and the groom can be in this pure white suit. You know, just to be unconventional. And I think it would look really nice. I checked it up, and there's no superstitous or symbolic meaning of the white dress anyway; it's supposed to represent virginity, but that wasn't its intented/orignal meaning, so it's technically not that important. The only hard part (I think) is getting the family to accept it. HAVE FUN GOING AGAINST A CENTURY OF DEEPLY-ENTRENCHED TRADITION.

Happy April Fools' Day!
The Edna Man

Umbrella: The Social Experiment

2010-03-30T23:59:00.001+08:00

So it's been raining a lot the past few days and I have had this idea for a while now so I'm going to write it down here.

Have you been out and about when it starts to rain heavily, you know, the kind of category 1 storm that grounds planes and makes it easier for cars to inconsiderately splash you as they drive past? And have you gotten even more disgruntled when you search your bag and realize that, for the love of god, you've forgotten your umbrella again, and now you have to stay there stuck until the rain actually gets light enough to use your bag or until it actually stops before you can trudge out into the puddles?

So what I thought was, let's have a social experiment. Let's put a stash of umbrellas at major public places like MRT stations and shopping malls, that people can use if they forget their umbrellas. The only thing is that it's not for them to keep; at the next possible opportunity, they should put it back at the nearest Umbrella-Share station (what the stash of umbrellas is called). So it's like a public service, which is completely free, with initial investment but depends on the social conscience of the people who use it. We'll see how long it is before all the umbrellas are gone in sticky-fingers Singapore.

Actually, I've already thought about sharing umbrellas with complete strangers. It just seems to be such a nice thing to do, especially for people who are already halfway across the street with a newspaper over their head. The catch is that people obviously thing it's a violation of their personal space, no matter how dry they've become, and they'd rather stay wet and catch colds that stand within two feet of a guy with an umbrella. Yet I've done it once, albiet for a schoolmate. It was exam time and I figured it would be criminal to let him stand in the rain while waiting for the traffic light to cross to school, before freezing in the stupidly subzero exam hall. I've never talked to him before, and he never talked to me again. But, it's a start, I guess.

Under my umbrella, ella, ella, ey.
The Edna Man

How to Tame your Dragon

2010-03-29T23:46:00.002+08:00

...if you know what I mean.

But seriously, it was a nice movie. I have to agree with the reviews that the art in this movie is also very spectacular, more than Dreamworks' usual, in fact. If they're aiming for Pixar's artistic quality, that's a step in the right direction for them.

I don't really have many witty things to say about this movie. I mean, they're the most Scottish vikings I've ever seen (Craig Ferguson voiced one of them, apparently), and Toothless looked a hell lot like Stitich, and Boey and Darrell said that Astrid is a tsundere, but that's about it. Oh and a dragon that huge should be physically impossible to fly. Just saying.

But you just gestured to all of me,
The Edna Man

Eccentricity

2010-03-27T23:59:00.001+08:00

So I've talked a lot about being different from the vast majority of the normal people of society. It's one of those issues that is constantly on my mind, because I am constantly being reminded of it. Take today for instance.

I got this small job doing voice acting for some Health Promotion Board podcast thing, so I went down to this home recording studio in the realm of Yio Chu Kang. It was an interesting experience, doing voice-acting (for the first time!) and I wouldn't mind doing it again. I had to play this adopted son who was dragged to the beach by his adopted parents to reveal to him that he was adopted. Quite fun, so I had to act stunned and hesitant and completely "WTF" most of the time.

The people there are very... interesting. As in, if I had to describe them, they would be what Ally would be in about twenty years' time, but with like ten times more sophistication. They're really open and don't mind sharing stories and everything, even of the misdemeanours and evasions they did in army, of their repressed sexual fantasies and their overseas escapades. Perhaps that's quite new for someone like me, who is used to dealing with guarded and conservative Singaporeans. I'm going to hazard a guess and say that they were educated overseas, probably in the US because of their personality and command of the English language, and also the references to western pop culture about three decades old. It's a whole different type of body language. They don't even ask the normal questions that I've come to expect from adults. Anyway I think I'm making $200 from an hour's work. Not bad, huh?

So I was going home after the thing, and I was walking with the lady who was there to play the adoptive mother of my character. The sound guy/composer (who is quite a cool guy) brought us out to the main road and gave us directions. When we walked to the bus stop, I pulled out my street directory (I had to get there somehow, didn't I?) and told her that I think I'd walk to the MRT station since my card was out of money. I noticed that she stared at my street directory for a full two seconds before snapping out it. It was as if she had never seen a street directory before, or at least never seen a person carrying around a street directory before. I got the feeling that she was quite happy to get shot of me as I walked off. Oh well. At least I probably gave her an interesting story she would be quite happy to share with all of her friends.

I think that the people in this society is too focused on tiny details. I don't mean that tiny details are bad all the time; I keep telling the girls at OM to remember small tiny details in body language and movement when they're doing acting and performing. But as in the small tiny details in life, like if the colour of your shirt matches your pants, or if you need to walk a few bus stops to the MRT station, or if you... eh I can't think of any more on the fly right now. But my parents do it a lot, especially my mom.

Perhaps I've been influenced by Hermen Hesse's Siddhartha. I know it's cheesy to be influenced by a literature book about religion, of all things, but I now believe that I need to experience things instead of just reading or watching about them. That's why I've started walking from places normal people deem too far to walk to (or from). I'll never know if I can do it until I do it, right? That said, I don't have the courage to do a lot of things yet. A lot of things involving people, especially complete strangers, that's still quite a bit out of my reach. I guess it's the paranoia that my parents inculcated in me.

DifFrent,
The Edna Man

Shiny New Computer

2010-03-24T23:59:00.002+08:00

So here I am, typing at my brand new computer. It's sleek and shiny and missing all the stuff I had from my old one. Ah well. At least I can play games on it now! Not that I couldn't before; I mean I can play more games on it now. I finally cracked open two-year-old birthday presents (to offset this year's lack of them) and I find Command and Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars to be quite difficult, seeing as I haven't played any RTS in a long long time, and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance to be a spiritual successor with few of the good qualities of X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse. But I have to say: Spider-Woman is HOT DAMN.

Windows 7 is really weird, but I guess I'll get used to it. I'm not used to the fact that there isn't a Quick Launch toolbar anymore, and it's really awkward to have to keep shuffling your windows around on the toolbar. The monitor's also 16:9, so it's great if I had movies to watch, but I don't, so I'll have to get used to my head swivelling a lot. Then there's also the thing about the apostrophes, which I think is being used as a hotkey for something, because whenever I press it, it signals the keyboard to come up with funky characters like é and ç and I don't know how to turn it off yet. So I can't type the word 'ços' because it comes out like that. Sigh.

On the plus side though, it's now super-fast and super sleek and super shiny, so it's distracting me from all these other unpleasantries. Ah well.

0110010001001010001,
The Edna Man

5 Centimetres per Second

2010-03-23T23:59:00.000+08:00

Today I watched 5 Centimetres per Second, my first anime feature film/movie. It’s also the first non-happy anime I’ve watched in my currently very insignificant repertoire of Japanese animation. I guess I didn’t feel as sad as I expected to, maybe because Jonas kept making guesses at what was going to the characters, but I think that was better, because I’m quite sure I would have cried if I watched it myself.

There is a story about this particular anime. I think back in 2008 Jonny sent me the link to the ending theme song, and said that it was one of the saddest things he had ever seen. So I watched it, and I found I had to agree with him. (I’m sorry I’m a hopeless romantic.)

So two years later, I’ve started watching anime, and Boey is trying to introduce me to anime that he likes. He says that he doesn’t like sad anime, and at that point I remember that ending theme that Jonny sent me so long ago. I sent the link to him, and said that it’s from a freaking sad anime that Jonny watched. By sheer coincidence, Boey was watching THAT EXACT SAME SHOW AT THAT EXACT POINT IN TIME. Apparently Zhang had told him that it wasn’t a sad anime, so Boey decided to watch it. Of course, after that, a hilarious conversation ensued with both me and Boey discussing whether to watch it or not because of the emo factor and if his parents were home and would he cry and stuff. MEMORY OF THE NIGHT: He asked me if it was sad because the guy/girl died (he had been watching too much Clannad) and I said no, it was worse than that. Then he said, “OMG IT’S A FATE WORSE THAT DEATH I’M NOT WATCHING IT”. That made me crack up.

So anyway. I had read the plot summary on Wikipedia before watching the show. Even though I knew what was going to happen, it’s nothing like watching it unfold in front of your eyes. I guess this is the one type of story that you can’t spoiler, because the plot isn’t a mystery, but it’s more of the emotional rollercoaster ride which it pulls you through. It was really sad.

5 Centimetres per Second is a collection of “three short stories about distance”, as the subtitle says. It tells the story about a boy and a girl, who grew so close together when they were young, but due to circumstances, had to move apart. Of course, they had to fall in love, which made it worse. Another girl fell in love with the guy, but of course didn’t have to courage to tell him, because she realized he was always looking into the distance for something else, and she felt that she could never give him what he wanted. So in the end the first girl got married and the guy was still searching for her in his heart. Apparently 5cm/s is the speed at which cherry blossoms fall.

In a way, this anime is the most realistic one I’ve seen so far (not that I have much to compare it with). It deals with life, a very real and tangible problem in our life today. It’s painful and depressing at the end, and I found myself wanting the circumstances to work out, even though I knew the story was going to end otherwise. I think the saddest scene comes at the end, where the guy thinks he spots his original love at a train crossing, but when he turns around to look, A FREAKING TRAIN PASSES BY and when that train has almost finished passing, ANOTHER FREAKING TRAIN PASSES BY IN THE OTHER DIRECTION and by the time both trains are done blocking his view, the girl has disappeared. DAMMIT LIFE HAVE YOU NO COMPASSION AT ALL?

The story aside, the other awesome thing about this anime was the exceptional artistic quality of the execution. The background art was amazing, highly realistic, and with such detail it was astounding. No surprises that it won some award for best art or something. But it’s not just that, the sound as well; the trains had a Doppler effect as they passed by, which I thought was very impressive.

All in all, it was a fantastic, depressing experience, and I advise all of you to go watch it.

Drifting through life at five centimetres per second,
The Edna Man

Meta-Psychology

2010-03-21T23:59:00.000+08:00

Like I said, I’ve started watching anime recently. I have to say, it’s a whole new style of storytelling. All this time I’ve been more exposed to western-type stories; but it’s not just the stories that are different. The characters, themes, and especially how love is portrayed, is completely different. Quite interesting, comparing the two.

I can only claim to have watched three series so far (only season one of The Melanchly of Haruhi Suzumiya but both Gatekeepers and Gatekeepers 21 so I guess that evens it out?), but they all have some similarities. Oh and 5 centimetres per second too but that’s not a series. Not really. I’m just wondering why all these people seem to be falling in love at like, sixteen (Akikan) or eighteen (Gatekeepers) or twenty (Love Hina). I mean, I’m already nineteen; AM I MISSING SOMETHING HERE? Sigh. Never mind. Maybe I need to go search up all those childhood sweethearts that I had. Oh wait. All-boy school. Sigh. NEVER MIND.

You know how you can learn so many different things from each story? Well the lesson I’ve learnt from anime is a very fundamental one:

NO GIRL WILL EVER BE OR ACT THAT CUTE IN REAL LIFE.

So I realized that the characters in anime will never act that way in real life, and then I guess I realized that people in stories – western or otherwise – will never act that way in real life. Or in another way of saying it, nobody in real life will act as “dramatically” as in a story.

Complementing this great epiphany is the week-long intensive OM session I had. So with all the acting and dramatization and creativity and stuff, I started wondering about this phenomenon. I guess going to all the university talks and being vaguely interested in courses in psychology doesn’t help. Perhaps I should call this meta-psychology, or maybe meta-social skills. So why don’t people act like characters in a story?

I understand that characters in a story have to act more dramatically, with the situations more contrived and coincidental. Actions (in movies and performances) have to be larger-than-life, which is strange, because isn’t art supposed to emulate life? We spin tales based on real-life experiences or observations; why don’t people act in that same way? Maybe it’s because imagination comes into play, and the observations have to be exaggerated to make it more prominent or believable. Or maybe we’re just not that good at observing human actions? But that can’t be true since the overly-dramatized kinds of actions are really obvious: shrugging means uncertainty or is a sign of passiveness; holding your hands behind your back and shuffling one foot while standing on the other means shyness or nervousness; and so on.

So why don’t people act like characters in a story? I think anime is the most exaggerated of the lot. Granted, I’ve not had a lot of experience or chances to observe girls who have a crush on a guy and are afraid of confessing (which always seems to be a major plot device of romantic anime for some reason), but I’m sure that they wouldn’t be that nervous with all those actions and body language (one fist under the chin, one on the hem of your skirt, with the obvious blush and downcast eyes).

It’s especially the “corny” feelings that seem to be attributed to being overly-dramatic or flamboyant or awkward. If you notice, our society is not conditioned to telling the truth; the people in anime seem to be able to say serious things or comforting things or emotional things at the drop of a hat. But in real life, in this society, I know a couple of people who have to hide their compliments behind insults or snide comments; or even feeling corny when giving words of comfort or telling something you truly feel. It’s so strange.

Of course, all this may just be because a) I naturally just don’t see all these things happing in real life, or b) I don’t have enough experience reading people’s emotions and body language to identify all these things in real life, or c) I’m looking at reality and trying to see fantasy but failing. So yeah.

I see stories,
The Edna Man

Codebreakers

2010-03-17T18:20:00.004+08:00

So somehow my last selection of books from the library all happened to be about codes. It was quite interesting in a way; three different genres but all about a similar thing.

Kaimira: The Sky Village is my favourite of the three. It's a fascinating story about two different children on opposite sides of the world in another post-apocalyptic setting. But the story is actually very interesting. I love the whole idea of the beast/human/mek trinity and how humanity is somehow in the middle between the two other extremes, but it's not just the 'golden mean' but possibly a third aspect as well, so it's more like a triangle. And I'm freaking interested in the story now but it's book one of five and the other four haven't been published yet which is really really irritating since now I have to wait for it to come out. Sigh.

The Riddles of Epsilon was quite interesting. It's more supernatural fantasy, but the whole story is based on the codes and riddles which this girl finds in the stone cottage behind her house, which contains the solution to stop these freaky cultists from finishing some ritual about some cursed artifact. I found the riddles quite cryptic and fascinating, and the whole story was done really well, and it had a chronological quandary which can rival any comic book storyline I've ever read.

Finally the Jonah Wish trilogy: Thieves Like Us, The Aztec Code, and The Bloodline Cipher. Code-breaking action in a more modern setting, it's a story about a group of five youths who work for Nathaniel Coldhardt (what a name) as an elite team of thieves who specialize in stealing historical artifacts which are steeped in lore and superstition. It was a very well-executed series, and very thrilling, especially with good action sequences and a very intriguing plot.

I'll see what strange coincidental theme my next trip nets me.
The Edna Man

Nineteen

2010-03-14T23:59:00.002+08:00

Today I listened to music until around 2am on my aunt's laptop. I woke up at ten. I played a bit of DotA. I went for lunch at Island Creamery's Burger Shack. I met Bryan and Juzzie at Serene Centre. I got a free scoop of ice-cream at Island Creamery. We bummed around the comics shop for a bit. Juzzie and I waited for the rain to stop so we could get home. I played a bit of Final Fantasy Tactics: Advance on my aunt's laptop. My family brought me out to dinner at this ramen place. After dinner I followed them as they walked around the riverside. When I got home, I ate some cake and came up with a few OM problems. Then I went to sleep.

Well. I guess they can't all be special.
The Edna Man

The Genius of Tim Minchin

2010-03-05T17:55:00.003+08:00

Hi. Today we're here to talk about the genius of Tim Minchin. Warning, most of the content of this post is NSFW.

I'm going to call Tim Minchin a mixture of Jason Mraz and Weird Al Yankovic. He does novelty songs, but he's such a manipulator of the English language it's mind-boggling. And it's not just that, but his piano is some unidentifiable rock-and-roll/jazz-blues mix which sounds really awesome. It's satire, nice music and wordplay. What else could you want?

5. Some People Have It Worse Than I

Nice satire here, and a nice melody. His ending riff is quite exciting. And just listen to the content.

4. Rock and Roll Nerd

Starts with a ballad, and it shifts to a rap-rock hybrid thing. It's hilarious. Listen to the words, they are awesome.

3. Inflatable You

Another hilarious song, its rhymes are brilliant. VERY NSFW. I love the way he rhymes in this one.

2. So F**king Rock

Not much words in this one, but awesome music. I have always been a fan of the way you can start with one instrument then build up individual kinda-loops of each instrument and put them all together in an awesome melody. He says the f-word more than an army sergeant, so use headphones or turn down volume, but only into the middle of the song. His lip-syncing and actions are also really well done.

1. Prejudice

This one is (obviously) my favourite. Misdirection is not only used by magicians and con-artists, but man when comedians use it, it is freaking hilarious. And the wordplay: MAN. Channeling Mraz's spirit, or something. I mean, it's not only the rappers who can do it, right? Epic brilliant.

Because only a ginger can call another ginger 'ginger',
The Edna Man

Family Antimatters

2010-03-04T23:23:00.004+08:00

I love my family. I love my parents.

So today I get a call from this modeling studio who scouted me last month and said they would like me to come down for an interview on Monday. Well, obviously I had no idea I looked this good, and I am actually quite excited about going for an interview and seeing what the modeling career is all about.

I tell my mom. And she immediately freaks out and switches to her high-pitched "what-the-hell-did-you-just-say?" voice. She freaked out because I told her the interview was at five and she doesn't understand why they "have to interview me at night". She freaked out because "This isn't for some audition or anything, right?" when I told her it was in interview. And she freaked out and asked me to bring a friend along because she asserted that these places are dubious.

I tell my dad. His first words: "Don't waste your time, lah."

I love having open-minded, supportive parents.

I'm sure if you had them, you'd love them too!
The Edna Man

The Existentialist and the Army

2010-02-26T23:15:00.004+08:00

The major slowly put down the mugs of coffee and casually saluted the sergeant, who was standing ramrod straight and looked as though he could smash the table into two when his hand came down. “Rehatkan diri, soldier,” said the major, and the sergeant relaxed.

“Major Lee, you’re here to interrogate the prisoner?”

“Heard he was giving you a lot of trouble,” said the major, looking into the room through the one-way mirror. Though he was handcuffed to the chair, the prisoner seemed to be singing to himself, swinging his fingers and tapping his toes to the music only he could hear.

“Never seen a case like him, sir,” said the sergeant, folding his arms across his chest. “Worse than the worst street gangster we’ve recruited.”

The two soldiers stared at the prisoner for a moment. “Let me speak to him,” said Major Lee.

“It’s no use, sir,” said the sergeant, picking up the keys and moving towards the door. “He hasn’t cooperated with anyone below your rank, and there’s no reason to believe he’s going to start cooperating with you.”

“But you shoot all the bullets anyway,” said Major Lee, picking up the mugs, “hoping one of them hits.”

The door opened with a creak. Major Lee strode over to the other end of the table and set down his mugs again. The prisoner was still singing, though softer now, and he was eyeing the major with a mixture of apprehension and revulsion.

“Good evening, soldier,” said Major Lee.

“Do you know what’s worth fighting for?” sang the prisoner, ignoring him. “When it’s not worth dying for?”

“Shouldn’t you be asking yourself that?” asked the major, and the prisoner went silent immediately.

“Acknowledge the major!” shouted the sergeant suddenly, causing the prisoner to jump, but he kept silent and just eyed the major with a mixture of apprehension and curiosity.

“RECRUIT TAN, ACKNOWLEDGE THE MAJOR!” the sergeant roared. He was about to smack the prisoner’s head, when Major Lee held up his hand and said, “That’s enough, sergeant.”

The sergeant put his hand down slowly.

“Sergeant, I would like you to uncuff this soldier and leave the room, please.”

“But sir,” the sergeant protested, “the prisoner is supposed to be restrained at all times by regulation, and-”

“Sergeant,” said the Major lightly, “that is an order.”

The sergeant stared blankly for a moment, then bent down and unlocked the handcuffs binding the prisoner to his chair. Without a backward glance, he took the cuffs and retreated from the room.

The major was left with the prisoner, who was rubbing his wrists awkwardly, but still keeping an eye on the major.

“Here,” said Major Lee, sliding a mug over the tabletop. “This one is for you.” The prisoner glanced at the cup for a second, before locking his eyes back on the major’s.

“Don’t worry, it’s not poisoned,” said the major, taking a sip from his own.

Still watching the major cautiously, the prisoner slowly reached for the cup and took a sip. Realizing it was only lukewarm, he drained it in one.

Once the prisoner wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the major spoke. “So, why are you here, soldier?”

The prisoner snorted. “Soldier? I’m in training. I’m no soldier.” He reached between the lapels of his shirt and pulled out something on a ball chain. “See this? These are my identification tags. They’re not dog tags. I’m a recruit. Lower than a dog.” He let the chain drop onto the front of his shirt. “That’s the first thing I learned here.”

“You’re more valuable than you think,” said Major Lee. “You’re training to become a soldier.”

“What is this, good cop, bad cop?” asked the prisoner, running his hand across his shaved head. “Maybe I should work toward something more in my reach first, like, maybe, I don’t know, the canine unit?” he said sarcastically.

The major did not respond, but stared at the prisoner for a while. He opened a file which was on the desk. “So, Recruit John Paul Tan Shuo Ren,” he said, reading from the notes inside, “you haven’t answered my question.” He looked up. “Why are you here?”

“I know what I’m fighting for,” said Recruit Tan, and a shadow flickered across his eyes as he added, “and I think it may be worth dying for.”

“What was that?” asked Major Lee, looking puzzled.

“That was the answer to your question. Your very first question. ‘Shouldn’t you be asking yourself that?’ That question.”

“Ah,” said the major, remembering the lyrics that the prisoner was singing as he entered the room. “So, what are you fighting for?”

The prisoner gave him a long, hard stare, before replying a single word: “Freedom.”

Major Lee was slightly put off by this answer. “Well, it’s a good thing you are in the army, because that is exactly what we are fighting for. To protect the freedom of our nation and safeguard our-”

“Save the speech,” interrupted the prisoner. “I’ve heard it six times from six different officers of six different ranks before you came along. And anyway, that’s not the type of freedom I was talking about.”

The major smiled. “Don’t you think that’s worth protecting? Don’t you think that the freedom of this nation is something worth fighting for? Don’t you think-”

“I’m sorry,” interrupted the prisoner again, “was I supposed to think? To actually use my brain and think? Because I thought I was in the army. A recruit in the army doesn’t think.”

“That’s not true,” said the major again. “We’re currently developing the holistic army, with soldiers that think for themselves in battle situations and-”

“Yeah, that’s why the sergeant had to blindly follow your order when you told him to uncuff me,” the prisoner said sarcastically. “Because he could think about it.”

The two men stared at each other in silence. Finally the major gave in. “Look, I’m not here to discuss army regulations. I’m here about your arrest. It says here in your arrest report that you were apprehended for five counts of subordination, one count of desertion and three counts of cowardice.” The prisoner was silent. “It also says here that you physically assaulted your commanding officer. Why did you do that?”

“I got irritated with his swearing,” replied the prisoner.

“Swearing? You mean profanities? Why didn’t you report it to your officer in command?”

“Sure, because he doesn’t swear like a sailor in an R21 movie.”

“That doesn’t mean you can just punch your officer like that,” said the major.

“Actually, I think I can,” said the prisoner. “It’s really easy. I just lift up my hand, like so” - he raised his right arm to demonstrate - “and clench it into a fist” - he did so - “and draw it back and punch-”

“That isn’t what I meant,” said the major, his calm demeanor belying a more worried soul. “You can’t do it because there are rules and laws in place and-”

“Technically, the rules and laws only enforce consequences for your actions,” the prisoner said, tapping his fingers on the table. “There is nothing stopping you from breaking every rule and law in existence, if you were not worried about the consequences.”

The major stared at the recruit, not believing that someone could be this remorseless. “So you are not afraid of imprisonment? Of being behind bars for the rest of your life?”

“It is not my choice to be afraid. I can choose not to be afraid, so I cannot fear.”

“What?” asked the major.

“Look, Major-” the prisoner stared at the nametag above the major’s breast pocket - “uh, Lee,” the prisoner began, then stopped. “Do you have another name? A first name? Or a Chinese name? Because I cannot call you ‘Major Lee’. It’s too hilarious.”

The major looked at the prisoner, wondering if he could reveal his full name. Then he said, “My first name is Percy.”

“Right, Percy.” The prisoner leaned back in his chair, resting his head in his hands. “You’re different from all the other officers who have come in to interview me. You’re smarter. A little bit. And less prone to shouting and violent behaviour. That’s good. That’s interesting. That’s why I’m actually talking to you.”

The prisoner leaned forward in his chair and fixed his eyes on the major. “What do you know about existentialism?”

“Not much,” confessed the major. “Never did follow philosophy.”

“It’s a philosophical idea,” said the prisoner, “which denounces the meaning of human life. No,” he said, seeing the look of worry which slipped across the major’s expression, “I don’t mean that life is not valuable. I’m not a murderer. Existentialism says that there is no intrinsic meaning in life. Life has only as much meaning as what we put into it. We chart our own course, we choose our own destiny, we make our own lives meaningful.

“So the central idea of existentialism is choice. We can choose to do anything. For instance, I can choose to get up, take this chair and bludgeon you to death. I won’t do it; the thought of murder disgusts me. But I could do it, you see? There is no one stopping me from doing it but myself.

“That’s what I realized yesterday, after doing about a million push-ups in the scorching sun on the blazing gravel, being shouted at and verbally abused, being physically and mentally tortured. I realized that it was not the officers, or the sergeants or anyone more senior than me who was abusing, torturing me. I was torturing me. I was the one following them. I was the one listening to them. I was the one who was carrying out their every command. I realized I didn’t have to. I realized I could choose to stop at any time. So I did.

“They had us on the ground again, in the middle of the night. To hell with the ‘seven hours of uninterrupted rest’, right? So I told myself, enough is enough. I chose to recover prematurely. I left my squad and went back to my bunk. Of course they shouted at me. But what can they do?

“So here I am. Because I realized that I didn’t have to listen to your commands or follow your orders. You can arrest me, imprison me, throw me behind bars, execute me. That is your choice. But you can’t make me go back to the physical and mental torture. You can’t make me do anything.

“That is my choice.”

-----
It might be a little contrived. But it's a story. The Major's full name is Percy Lee Sun Tzu, Percy being a reference to General Arthur Percival, General Commanding Officer of Malaya during World War II, and of course Sun Tzu and his Art of War. John Paul is a reference to Jean-Paul Sartre and Shuo Ren is a reference to Søren Kierkegaard, both major figures in existentialism. The song lyrics is from 21 Guns by Green Day. Most of this is pieced together from army stories from people I know.

Well, it's just an idea I had. I realize I can't really make my characters sound non-western, probably because I read too much.

I'm only fear that I lose control of myself.
The Edna Man

A Whole Life So Lonely

2010-02-21T19:21:00.003+08:00

It's a week after Chinese New Year. The most exciting thing that happened this year is that it became a Tiger year. My little nieces are really cute. I tried to spread the love of Bartok, but to no avail. Maybe next week. No prawn crackers this year, sigh.

The more physical and obvious aftereffects of Love Hina has worn off, I think. But there's still a lot of undercurrent, I feel. Like a friend told me, something about the story echoed with my soul. Maybe I'll carry it from now on, wherever I go. I just have to make sure I don't set any standards.

I watched The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzimiya, which I was led to through the ending theme, which is really nice. Unfortunately, I fail to get what is so awesome about it. Must be taste I guess. But I love the cinematography and I loved the epic space simulation game. That was hilarious. I fear that I might be slowly turning otaku. I am interested in learning Japanese now.

I also finished reading the first Maximum Ride trilogy, the one that Daniel bought in the US and I borrowed to read on the train rides. I read the fourth book and find out that there's a second trilogy, with the sixth book not released yet. Graah. Now I have to wait again.

Speaking about fictional characters blogging in real life, Hui Jun has started a blog by his new character. I am interested in seeing how it turns out. I am also interested in seeing if I can fit TNN into it somehow. Isn't it strange that it's been four years since Naphtali but we still all remember it as TNN?

OM has started again. I feel so rusty, even though it's my third time doing it. Some people change, and some people don't. And some things don't either. I'm always meeting new people I can never keep track of. Oh well. There's a new coach called Tess, who was in RGS's Players, and I guess her acting is pretty good, but I don't think she's done much spontaneous. Will have to wait two weeks to see. It feels good acting up again.

Life is really boring when everyone is at camp. I got my letter on Chinese New Year, going in April 12th.

Then you come and ease the pain,
The Edna Man

Love and Hope

2010-02-09T19:05:00.005+08:00

Today, I just finished reading a manga.

It's kinda weird... I never read much manga before. I'm not as otaku as a lot of people I know. Bryan first got me with The Legend of Koizumi last month. It's in that kinda of weird-awesome-completely-"badass"-kind of comedy genre, but I guess it's good for a laugh.

Today, I just finished reading Love Hina.

Have you ever liked a story enough to throw yourself into it? To devote your entire soul to the characters, the plot... what will happen, what happens in the end? That you come to care so much about people... who aren't actually real?

People laugh when they say I want to become a writer. They say that being a novelist is not a survival ambition in this country I live in. Either that, or they go the technical way and think "speechwriting" or "journalist". Nobody appreciates the value of a good, powerful story.

Right now, my arms and hands are numb. My feet are numb. There's a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach. I'm kinda sweaty, and there's a feeling like there's something constricting my diaphragm.

Is this love? Or loneliness?

Love Hina is a manga of the harem genre. Simply put, harem mangas usually have one male lead character surrounded by a supporting case of female characters (or vice versa, as in with the genders reversed). It's also notorious for showing lots of ecchi fan-service, but I'll let you google that for yourself. It's also a comedy, and sometimes, the exaggeration gets kinda funny.

But that's not the reason I feel like this now.

Sure, it may be a harem manga. Sure, it may be an ecchi comedy. Sure, many people don't like it because it's unrealistic. It's just a story after all.

But it's a story about life. A story about people, and the things they do. It's a story about relationships. Friends and family. About courage, romance, and improvement. About the weird things people do when they like someone else. Most of all, at its core, it's a story. A story about love.

And that Gives Me Hope.
The Edna Man

Stop: Storage Time!

2010-02-07T12:21:00.002+08:00

Melbourne, Australia -- Don't you just hate it when you're late for a meeting but the multistorey carpark is full, then vowing to be early next time so you can get a parking space, but never do?

Drivers would be delighted to find out that Seah Industries has solved the problem of limited parking space. Utilizing their groundbreaking time-travelling technology which they unveiled just last year in August 2012, Seah Industries has managed to commercialize the time-travel phenomenon.

Dubbed ChronoParking, the new system takes advantage of time, instead of space, in modern parking lots. "Carparks are always full during peak periods and usually empty after hours," said a spokesperson for Seah Industries at a press conference yesterday. "ChronoParking merely sends cars into empty parking lots in the past or future, allowing carparks to hold 'more than their capacity', allowing patrons to spend less time driving around looking for parking space."

Time travel has been a subject of controversy since its discovery in July 2012, when Seah Industries co-founder Dr. Jarrel Seah, then only 21, invented the first time machine and proved the existence of parallel universes. Since then, many advocate groups and government organizations have suggested that time travel should not be commercialized, lest it "falls into the wrong hands and history changes forever", according to the mission statement of Singularity, a non-profit organization which advocates against the proliferation of time travel.

Nevertheless, Seah Industries is confident with its new system. "A lot of safety measures are in place to ensure that history does not get rewritten," said Dr. Levin Tan, Seah Industries' leading scientist in the area of time travel. "For instance, the system preferably sends vehicles into a future timeline, when the interactions of cause and effect should be minimal on our present." Other measures include bomb-detection scanners and a ChronoShield plating around each parking space, to minimize the radiation of time particles called "minuteons", which can play havoc with the timestream.

"Imagine the future," said Dr. Tan, "where cars can be diverted to the same road at a different time to ease rush hour congestion." He adds, "This technology is the future, and also the past, and present."

----------

Inspired by rush hour carparking at Anchorpoint and Ikea yesterday. Set in the TNN 2012 universe.

The Edna Man

When The Saints Go Marching In

2010-02-02T14:49:00.003+08:00

It's been a while, hasn't it? It seems so long ago that we got our IB scores, and finishing exams seems even further back in time. So many things have happened in these two months: playing mahjong, Christmas parties, happy outings, games, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, getting sick, getting downgraded.

And so now here we are. Bordering on the edge next scheduled life event which will bring people closer while also tearing them apart. After this, there's no more holidays. No specific time set aside for the so-called "less important" things in life. Everyone on their own path in life, not knowing when they will converge again with the paths of the people who they have walked with for the earliest parts of their lives.

By Thursday, so many people will have gone in. And after Friday, my MSN list will drop to less than half. What will I do then? When everybody's gone, what will you do? I am suddenly reminded of the Left Behind series, which is about the events immediately following the biblical Rapture, and I get the feeling that it won't be so different in three day's time.

Have you ever wondered if you were not designed for this world? That you like doing things that the world deems unimportant; and those that the world wants you to do, you don't like doing? Haven't you seen people who seem to just fit in to the expectations of society, who love being doctors and lawyers and engineers, who love making money and creating businesses and organizations and making more money?

Oh Lord I want to be among the number,
The Edna Man

Less Than 45

2010-01-12T15:00:00.001+08:00

Less Than 45 parody of 1985 by Bowling for Soup

Woohoohoo
Woohoohoo

Debbie just hit the wall
She thought she had it all
Great World Lit essay
Excellent TOK
Her dreams went out the door
When she received her score
Only got forty-two
What is she gonna do?

She was gonna be an doctor
She was gonna go real far
She was gonna be a judge
Or maybe a superstar
Prestigous scholarships
Now look like comic strips
Looks at her average points
And wonders how she'll apply for

John Hopkins, and Princeton,
Imperial College London
There was Cambridge, Trinity
And places still at MIT
Her parents share her stress
No point trying NUS
'Cause you can't, can't just apply
With less than, less than, less than 45

Woohoohoo
(Less than 45)
Woohoohoo

She’s done all the IAs
Footnotes every line
CAS, Mathematics
Every sine and cosine
She had interviews
Student Council through and through
Thought she’d get a shot
At something in a high paid slot

Where’s the scholarships and the invites?
Maybe she'd do better jumping from a great height
When did 'below forty' mean 'no degree'?
Whatever happened to offers, career fairs,
(All the millionaires from)

John Hopkins, and Princeton,
Imperial College London
There was Cambridge, Trinity
And places still at MIT
Her parents share her stress
No point trying NUS
'Cause you can't, can't just apply
With less than, less than, less than 45

Woohoohoo

She's crying in the dark
Thinking of the cash she needs to re-mark (Re-mark)
And now lowering becomes a factor
I guess it's time, time
Time!
To give up

Hopkins, and Princeton,
Imperial College London
There was Cambridge, Trinity
And places still at MIT
Her parents share her stress
No point trying NUS
'Cause you can't, can't just apply
With less than, less than, less than 45

Woohoohoo

John Hopkins, and Princeton,
Imperial College London
There was Cambridge, Trinity
And places still at MIT
Her parents share her stress
No point trying NUS
'Cause you can't, can't just apply
With less than, less than, less than 45

----------
Just in case, you know, for disclaimer's sake, this is supposed to be a satire, so preemptive thanks for all the comments about how this is unrealistic, but yeah, I know. And the name 'Debbie' I kept from the real song, so any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental, etc etc.

On the Brink of Success or Failure

2010-01-05T17:52:00.002+08:00

This is it. Tomorrow is the day. Judgment day. Hours of planning, days of meticulous hard work, it all comes down to tomorrow. One way or the other, the result will be success, or failure. Either way, it was fun while it lasted, and I guess I have no regrets.

Sometimes I wonder why I chose to do this. It was a big decision, full of possible repercussions, least of all was tomorrow's. But it is done, and as I sit here writing this, full of anticipation of the events to come, I realize that there is no turning back. I can't just give it all up and fail to appear tomorrow. So many people have stakes in this, and I think they'd want to see how it turns out in the end.

Maybe it would be best if there were instructions on how to deal with this kind of thing. Like a handbook, which would guide you through the process a step at a time, helping you along your path. That would be nice. But it wouldn't fit into the bag.

For those in the know, you probably would have gotten it by now.
The Edna Man

Beep beep boop bap beep beep

2010-01-04T22:00:00.001+08:00

And so, with a simple sound, I realize that I am now a man.

From a boop-boop to a bip. How far I have traveled, eighteen years and I now pay adult fare.

It brings it all on to you. It's a quarter-life crisis. You're now one of them. You're now supposed to be one of them.

What if I don't want to? What if I go kicking and screaming?

Because I can never grow up. Not into this world. I'm not like other people.

Don't kill a child. You can't kill a child.

This world can.
The Edna Man

Different

2010-01-03T22:46:00.002+08:00

From here.

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them, disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They invent. They imagine. They heal. They explore. They create. They inspire. They push the human race forward. Maybe they have to be crazy. How else can you stare at an empty canvas and see a work of art? Or sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written? Or gaze at a red planet and see a laboratory on wheels? We make tools for these kinds of people. While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

Some of you may recognise that as the famous Apple ‘Think Different’ text, others may not, but I guess whether you’ve read it before or have read it for the first time there, we can pretty much all agree that it’s an inspiring piece of text. The thing that surprised me was that when reading through it I realised that all you need to do is change one tiny piece of the text to change the whole context of it.

“We ~~make tools for~~ educate these kinds of people”

In my mind, that’s now one hell of a motto for a better education system.

Let’s face it; the current education system just doesn’t know how to handle these kinds of people. “The round pegs in the square holes,” as Apple refers to them. The system doesn’t understand creativity. It robs all students of their creative consciousness and replaces it with structure, structure, and more structure, only to prepare them for a 9-to-5 job, Monday to Friday, every week of every year for the rest of their lives. Art, Music, Drama… you name it, the current system has a course for it. But that course doesn’t do any form of justice to the many greats that have over hundreds of years created amazing works and done incredible things, demonstrating how beautiful these arts can be. Students aren’t told to let passion drive them forward, or let their inspiration flow and their imagination stop at nothing. They are told to follow the rules, and do whatever it takes to get a ‘pass.’ Where would we be if Bach was told his Brandenburg concertos ‘didn’t quite meet the required standard’? What would have happened if Van Gogh was told his paintings just ‘didn’t make sense’?

It doesn’t stop at the arts. The suppression of creativity is seen in all fields of learning within the current system, giving no room for our real geniuses to shine. And why? Because the system has an obsession with testing, and at the end of the day you can’t test real genius, because you just can’t grade it. Who really has the right to say that a piece of music is an A or B or whatever else? Why should someone sitting in a fancy government office be able to sit there and write the rules that decide whether this piece of writing would make the grade or not? Why can’t the people deciding our futures for us be content with having some classes that have no exams? Classes that are solely there to help stimulate the different skills we all possess, without having to put us under the constant pressure of being bombarded with test after test and grade after grade. Do they see this as ‘non-educational’?

Think of the wealth of talent that is being and has been squandered due to this system. How many people would have become the next great composer if they had been given just that little bit more leeway? How many people would have had the courage to write their own novel, because they wouldn’t have been told they ‘weren’t good enough’? How many people failed to ever recognise their own potential because they were too busy striving for the best grades possible? Only so they could get a ‘good’ job in an office, with a ‘good’ salary.

Don’t get me wrong, we need the people in offices to do the things that keep our public services running and our economy going, but we also need the people who create, invent, and change things. We need the people who “sit in silence and hear a song that’s never been written,” because Apple is right; they push the human race forward, and have done for as long as the human race has been around. But they can’t continue to do so if we don’t help them realise they are capable of doing so. They can’t invent the cure for cancer, or compose a great symphony, or write a magnificent piece of literature if our education system tells them exactly how everything should be, and what they should learn, and what they are aiming to do with their lives. Give them the opportunity. Let them decide.

We make the mistake of thinking that the people that do well in school are the ‘smart’ ones, but that isn’t always the case. These people may just be good at retaining information and reciting it back under pressure, or may just be good at problem solving. Our schools teach these kinds of people well, because they know how to deal with them. All you need to do with these people is throw facts and figures at them and tell them they need to know them to pass, and get become qualified to get a good job... which is not even proper learning. There is no regard there for our creative ones, or even the ‘smart’ ones who can probably do so much more given the opportunity. There is no other option, no fork in the road, not even a way to have the best of both worlds. Just one path for everyone to follow, with the same goal in mind—to fit in, and become another round peg in a round hole.

Let me make myself clear right now that this is not a dig at teachers, who do a superb job. What it is, however, is a cry out to the people in suits who decide what we learn and how we learn it to change their philosophy. To realise that some people can achieve more, and that the people who will eventually find the cure for cancer, or create the next breakthrough piece of technology, or discover new planets and galaxies are in our schools. These children/students or whatever you want to call them are waiting on these people to realise and do something to help them on their way to greatness. To give them the opportunity to shine, and achieve things that both us and them can’t even imagine yet.

It really is time for our education system to start ‘Thinking Differently.’

-----

What do you wanna be when you blow up?
The Edna Man

Top Ten of 2009

2009-12-31T00:00:00.000+08:00

Hey! 2009's almost over, and instead of griping over the past and wishing for a better future, I'm going to start this annual thing which recaps my best moments of each year, with the hope that they will be just as scintillating in the years to come! It's written in bits and pieces over the year, starting in June, but next year I'll start from the very beginning (Do, re, mi!).

1. Odyssey of the Mind Coaching: 2009 (Written: 16 Jun 09)
Ahahaha... no surprises that this would be on the list! Possibly one of the best experiences of this life or any other lives I had, have, or will ever have. I really had fun meeting all these new friends, and acting is a real blast, no matter what anybody says or calls me. I think possibly the best is the actual day of the national competition, and especially the prize ceremony, because I was on tenterhooks (wow, I actually used an obscure word) the whole time and it is AWESOME to jump up on your seat while cheering your voice out when one of the teams wins. Sad that World Finals was cancelled though. Meh. AH WELL STILL A HAPPY MEMORY!

2. The "Brack Obama" Joke (Written: 21 June 2009)
Oh yeah this one was a classic. Well, I was sitting on that joke for days, but with no opportunity to use it (is this how all comedians feel?). So there I was, sitting in an English class about Hedda Gabler, and wouldn't you know it, Ms Rachel Cheung asks me to read the stage directions about the first appearance of Brack. Talk about timing! Without skipping a beat, I instantly said, "Who, Obama?" and while it didn't get hilarious laughs, it triggered the standard eye-rolling response, so I guess it was good. And hey, I didn't get to waste a good joke.

3. Biking for the Second Time (Written: 21 June 2009)
Last week I went biking for the second time in my life. As I mentioned in that post, I think it was great that remembered how to do it the second time. Nothing like biking on speed! Now all I need to do is train more then we (most probably just I) will be able to rocket all the way up to Russia and back! Woohoo!

4. Finishing v3.0 of Don't Forget the Lyrics! Powerpoint version (Written: 21st June 2009)
This was thrilling enough, considering I finished everything happily at 3am in the morning. The high was absolutely fantastic, and I couldn't sleep for an hour after that. It's really satisfying once everything falls into place, and all the code that you spent hours searching for FINALLY WORKS. Then I made the Interactive Tutorial, which was quite fun as well, and right now I think the whole thing is just brilliant!

5. Animusic! (Written: 31st December 2009)
Oh man, if you still don't know what Animusic is, man you are missing out. Search it on Youtube. It's an awesome visual and aural treat that will leave you breathless. When I first found out about it, I couldn't stop spreading it around, because it was so awesome. Acoustic Curves and the Pipe Dreams are my favourites, and Future Retro is nice too.

6. The Giant Porcupine Sighting (Written: 31st December 2009)
OH MAN THIS IS A GREAT STORY. So I was on the bus with Hui Jun going home after school when the 74 stops at the Sunset Way bus stop. We were sitting on the upper deck and so the roof of the bus shelter blocks most of the view of the pavement. Anyway behind the roof someone was carrying one of those spiky brooms over his shoulder, so only the brush was visible. So Hui Jun gets distracted in the middle of our conversation, stares out the window and goes, "Oh my god it's a giant porcupine." So obviously, I crack up. And after I've composed myself, and able to breathe again, I ask him, "Why did you think that was a giant porcupine?" And he goes, "I dunno! I mean, at first I thought 'lion' but I knew lions don't live in Singapore!" And then I just crack up again.

7. GEP Chalet (Written: 31st December 2009)
Ahh, chalet. I missed last year's for WoW, so I came back this year with a vengeance. (Well, no, not really.) Between barbecuing with David and watching Fatal Frame for the first time in my life (FREAKING SCARY AND DISTURBING), it was loads of fun. I also got to try a bit of Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, which was quite interesting.

8. Movies: Avatar and Up (Written: 31st December 2009)
Avatar was my movie event of the year. Transformers was action-packed and had interesting graphics, but this one had a whole WORLD. I really love the imagination and detail the creators put into it. It was a spellbinding totally-worth-it of 161 minutes. And Up was nice too, a nice little family movie which was heartwarming and generally awesome Pixar. Kevin's a girl?

9. Prom Night (Written: 31st December 2009)
Technically, prom itself wasn't that fun. It's for famous people to rub elbows with other famous people and not much for an inconspicuous guy like myself to do. I liked my costume though. It's the first (full) costume I ever had, if you discount those I had in OM which didn't really look like the real thing. No, the real fun was before and after prom, where we crashed in a sweet suite Ernest('s mom) booked at Raffles Town Club. I rarely get to play platform games, so it was lots of fun.

10. Youtube (Written: 31st December 2009)
It's not Youtube exactly, but all the awesome things that are there. Instrumentals for karaoke, for example, and also the Onion News Network, which is freaking hilarious. Other memorable Youtube moments this year include Improv Everywhere's many musicals, which are always awesome whenever they appear, and The Spectacular Spiderman which is the best Spiderman TV series ever made so far.

It's gonna be a happy new year!
The Edna Man

Judgment

2009-12-30T11:54:00.004+08:00

Can you feel it? Can you feel the judgment?

They should be done by now. All over the world, they should be done by now. There's only one week left. It's all over. You have been judged. Can you feel your whole life, the rest of your future, hinging on a simple, single, two-digit number?

This is as close to Fate as it gets. From now till then, there's no changing anything. The score is fixed, the die is cast. One might say that it has already been since you wrote that final answer. But people are fickle and unpredictable, and only when the ticks and crosses are all tallied, then your fate is cast in stone.

Can you imagine knowing it now? Seven days before the day of reckoning. All you need to do is find those that belong to you, and add them up yourself. You don't need a ceremony to reveal the verdict. You have already been judged. It all exists. You just don't know it yet.

It's all there. One way or the other, you've already been acquitted or condemned. Right now, your life has swung into one of the two paths, one of the two categories, one of the two compartmentalized boxes. Right here, right now. It has already been decided. There is no turning back.

Can you feel it? Can you feel the weight of the future crushing your soul and rending your consciousness, strangling your hopes and dreams and ambitions by festering in your anticipation and feeding on your worries before it threatens to burst out and consume your every nightmare...

And then you wonder, why?
The Edna Man

Avatar Runemarks

2009-12-22T01:22:00.004+08:00

It's past 1 a.m. and I just got home and my parents aren't killing me. I feel old.

I just got home watching Avatar and it was awesome. I love the world, and I loved how the visual effects really brought out the world of Pandora. Missed the opening minutes though, so I'm not sure if Pandora is on another planet or an alternate dimension or what. I'm guessing planet. I thought the helicopter-lizards were quite cool. Oh, and I don't really understand the biological or evolutionary advantages of moss luminescing with applied pressure. Wouldn't that just attract predators (or herbivores)? But the effects were awesome, really loved the glowing mushrooms and the Tree of Souls. Interesting ecosystem there, interesting world. I wouldn't mind watching it again. Oh and since the movie ended past midnight, it was a race against time to the MRT station to see if we could catch the last train, and another race to the bus stops to catch the last bus, frantically scanning the large maps along the way. I felt rather Bourne-ish as I was doing that. Quite an exciting little adventure.

A couple days ago I finished reading Runemarks by Joanne Harris, and before that, Here Lies Arthur by Philip Reeve. Awesome books, awesome storytelling. A peculiar connection between these two books is that they are (possibly) meta-commentaries about stories in general. Actually, Reeve's book probably had more of it. Here Lies Arthur is a tale about King Arthur, Lord of the Britons. Except this wasn't the honourable Arthur from legends; he was nothing more than a gang boss, offering protection from the Saxons to the settlements scattered across Britain and demanding protection money in return. And the stories of Arthur's good name was spread by his trickster and bard, Myrrdin (sound familiar?). I knew enough about the legend of King Arthur to know that this was an excellent story. You have a well-known tale and you subvert it using easily-recognizable characters in a whole new setting (much like Marvel: 1602).
There was an undercurrent of tricksters in Runemarks as well, with Loki. Another book with the same vein, and another brilliant world with excellent storytelling. The only thing I found annoying was that the author didn't really focus on the "main" character throughout the whole thing, but it was possibly due to the type of story the author intended to write. Still good though.

The other medium I have recently discovered is The Onion News Network. It is HILARIOUS. I love the subversion, and I absolutely love the way they do it so professionally and so deadpan. It is brilliant. What it must be to work there.

"That's what we need. Another bloody oracle."
The Edna Man.

Dream Sequence #004

2009-12-10T10:36:00.002+08:00

Okay, I just woke up, and I need to write down this dream.

I don't remember much now that I'm awake, and there was a whole blockbuster's worth of material in this dream. Basically, there is this land with two races, I think, a more human-ish one and a more elvish one. At least, I assume elvish because they wear more green and leaves than the other race. They use bows and arrows, but the main character (first person point of view) is learning a form of exaggerated martial arts where you have colourful bolts of energy flying around whenever you perform a movement. He learns it from a master, who he develops a powerful relationship with. If I remember correctly, both are elvish, because it makes whatever comes next have a lot of sense. Then something happens, something about an enemy inviding, and I think they have to flee to the shelter of the nearby fort. I remember clearly that the fort had a postern gate, carved out of rock in the side of a mountain.

Once in the fort, the protagonist and his master are able to train in the royal swimming pool, which is supposed to have benefits which I can't remember. (The extra spinning ability, perhaps. There was this bit I remember where the protagonish spun around, crossing his hands in front and behind him as he went, launching energy bolts shaped like small blue or yellow birds at his teacher, while he blocked them with a red ring of energy around himself.) The royalty, the king, has this thundercloud floating over his head, with lightning striking occasionally, and the prince has a smaller cloud, shaped like a leafy sea dragon. Again something happens, which I can't remember, and the humans have little trust for the elves, and one of them in particular is extremely bowstring-happy, willing to shoot anyone whom he thinks has turned traitor (and he thinks most elves have). So anyway the master is showing the protagonist a map of the whereabouts of his family, which he needs to go back and protect, when there is this cinematographic zoom-in of the trigger-happy soldier snapping his face backwards upon hearing the name of the village, and then the protagonist goes up to him and demands to know why hie is eavesdropping on the conversation. They almost fight, but are stopped by the image of an elf leaving by the postern, which if I failed to mention before, is carved into the mountain and is about ten metres tall. So the guy promptly draws his bow, and the protagonist tries to stop him, and he promptly gets shot in the side like, four times. And if you recall, it was all in first-person, so technically I got shot in the side like, four times. And it was helluva painful. I think I stumbled backwards into a pit, and that's when I woke up.

I have a feeling that this dream was inspired by Marvel: 1602, Xi Min and JX's new fantasy world, and The Two Towers soundtrack, all combined. Creepy.

The Edna Man

Marvel: 1602

2009-12-09T22:31:00.002+08:00

So I just came back from the National Library today feeling extremely happy since I discovered that my premium membership only expires in four days which meant that I could borrow an unhealthy number of books home. Sad that they discontinued their double-limit policy though.

Anyhoo, the first of my eight-book spree is Marvel: 1602, written by Neil Gaiman of Sandman and Stardust fame, as well as a number of other titles which I am not familiar with. And I have to agree that Gaiman is a kind of storytelling genius. I now am very willing to read Sandman.

The story is interesting, though after a couple of years reading comics, is somewhat typical of the genre. The way Gaiman crafts it, though, weaving fundamental and recognizable Marvel characters into the historical setting, is pure brilliance. I had great fun identifying the people before the plot revealed their names and identities, and it was fun waiting for Peter Parker to get bitten by a spider (screw you, Gaiman, for drawing that out for so long XD). It was good, good, good, and I enjoyed it so much, so thanks Mr Gaiman, for an hour of entertainment and a lifetime of inspiration.

"A universe in which no story can ever truly end; in which there can be only continuances." -- Richard Reed
The Edna Man

Prom Birthday Chalet Musical 3

2009-12-07T01:02:00.003+08:00

You can tell how much I've been playing by the huge delay between posts. So anyway there's been much going on. Going in order:

Prom was a blast on the 23rd of November. The Phantom of the Opera Was Here, inside my mind. Pity there wasn't any chandeliers to crash into the middle of the ballroom, sigh. Oh, and it doesn't matter how awesome you are, if you're not famous, screw it. But still, it was nice playing the Phantom and having a cloak to swish around and draw around you dramatically as you leave the room and stuff. But I guess the Phantom must have been left handed or something, because it's damn hard to eat with that mask on. (Or maybe he takes it off. Oh yeah.) Anyway, was one of the only few people with a mask, unless you count girls' eyeshadow, which was WAY FREAKY and looked so gothic and vampish. But well. Never understood them anyway. Ernest had this awesome British costume thing with a pipe and hat and a suit which looked so close to a tuxedo that it was almost as if Mr Bond himself had entered the room. Hui Jun looked like Willy Wonka with his humongous top hat and cane and paedophilic mannerisms. Levin went as a mad scientist, with a Russian accent but he looked more Einstein-ish than Russian.

Prom itself wasn't very exhilarating. There were a couple of performances but the sound system wasn't good enough to carry it across the ballroom. No dancing. Food just came and went. Took some pictures, and went off to Raffles Town Club where Ernest had booked a suite. We had bowling earlier in the afternoon (I am thinking of learning how to do it properly) and played games through it mostly. It's quite fun playing Rise of Apocalypse with more people, but Lord of the Rings was DAMN HARD and DAMN STRESSFUL. But yeah, had much fun anyway.

And so I've been introduced to a new MMORPG. I tried BrightShadow right after exams ended, but I found it to be getting too monotonous after level 20 (I was a mage and had little late game variety). So after prom the guys got me into NeoSteam which I'm still playing now and am quite happy with it. It's great because it can run on my com, end of story.

Oh, midway between this and the next thing was double back-to-back birthdays of Juzzie and XM. Juzzie's was quite fun and I met a couple of new people I'll never see again, and XM's introduced me to Valkriya Chronicles which is an AWESOME Turn-Based Strat with a novel combat system. (As Jonny would agree, the main character is also quite cute.)

Well not long after that it was GEP CHALET which was an awesome blast. I missed the last one because of WoW last year, so this year I came back with a vengeance. I feel a bit guilty because I didn't help out as much, but I guess I helped out where I could. (Better that SOME PEOPLE who didn't help out at all!) But it was mostly a gaming chalet, with Borderlands in the bedrooms and PS3 in the hall and Starcraft matches as after-dinner entertainment. But I think the highlight of the many chalets is Fatal Frame, and this year I forced myself to stay awake to watch it. I can understand why it's such a communal game, as anyone playing it alone in the dead of night must either be insane or blindfolded. The game's creators do make the player freak out most of the times, and SZ was just hilarious to watch playing (Jew film!). But I admit that I wasn't really freaked out by the ghosts, but it was more of when the audience shrieked in terror that made me jump. But still, the plot of the game was quite disturbing, and the ritual was damn freaky. It still freaks me out whenever I think of the Blinding Mask and the Rope Maiden Ritual. Apparently, the next two Fatal Frame titles are even more freakier, because there's something about a twin strangling her sister and a whole village of undead. Yeah.

So that's been most of my activities for the past fortnight or two. Then Saturday I watched High School Musical 3: Senior Year and I LOVED IT. Okay, the plot stinks, quite badly. BUT THE MUSIC IS AWESOME. I can tell they really pulled out all the stops for the feature film, because the cinematography was just brilliant, and some of the sets and scenes were amazing. The Broadway style song, I Want It All, was stupendous, I think my favourite, because of the elaborate set and the costumes and the whole musical-ishness of the piece. Loved it, totally. Oh and then there was the awesome rotating corridor in Scream which I though was quite cool because it made it like a real music video. I think it would be awesome fun to be a cast member on a production like this.

And so that's all for now. I'll see what other awesome stuff I'll be doing these next two months of freedom.

Who says we have to let it go?
The Edna Man

FREEDOM

2009-11-18T14:00:00.002+08:00

FREEDOM

FREEDOM

Fastest Puzzle Solvers
1. Herrick (14)
2. Hui Jun (11)
3. Boey Yang (9)
4. Levin Tan (8)
5. Kuang Kai (8)
6. Darrell Neo (7)
7. Justin Poh (2)

FREEDOMMMM!
The Edna Man

COUNTDOWN DAY FIFTEEN FINAL DAY

2009-11-17T00:00:00.002+08:00

Collapse all your wave functions to become unmarried,
Like Jenga except you shout at the last card,
Of The Jet Li and ultimate rings of power,
And hitting Shift+OMG!!!!!
The Edna Man

COUNTDOWN Day 14

2009-11-16T00:00:00.001+08:00

One less than a crowd is better than one head worth more than those in the bush,
The Edna Man

COUNTDOWN Day 13

2009-11-15T00:00:00.001+08:00

Hendiatris, Rings of Elven Power, nautical red between blue: Hat-trick!
The Edna Man

COUNTDOWN Day 12

2009-11-14T00:00:00.002+08:00

Seasons, the Horsemen of Apocalpyse, the Beatles, Suits, Noble Truths, Elements

COUNTDOWN Day 11

2009-11-13T00:00:00.003+08:00

Click the Maroon and Take a Jackson Famous for Fighting on a Fatal High,
The Edna Man

COUNTDOWN Day 10

2009-11-12T00:00:00.003+08:00

Iron for the birthday, bronze carried long;
Wood from the burning, stone out of song;
Fire in the candle-ring, water from the thaw;
Signs of the circle, and the grail gone before,
The Edna Man

COUNTDOWN Day 09

2009-11-11T00:00:00.002+08:00

pH neutral, Roman hills, Signs of the Apocalypse: Jackpot!
The Edna Man

COUNTDOWN Day 08

2009-11-10T00:00:00.002+08:00

A Beufort gale, a Great Richter, a devastating Torino collision
The Edna Man

COUNTDOWN Day 07

2009-11-09T00:00:00.001+08:00

Pluto's Cloud,
The Edna Man