thank reason it's friday

Friday, September 29, 2006

doesn't have quite the same ring to it, but at least it's less insincere.

Anyway I'm still in the office and it looks like I'll be here for a while, so no real thanking is taking place yet.

Today's blog post will combine two of my favourite topics - property and bad English. Specifically, it will be about awful names of condominium projects in Singapore. I believe I've touched on this before in an old blog but I think it bears repeating, especially in light of what happened earlier today.

So I picked up the phone and called the sales office of The Merlot, a freehold 42-unit condo in the Novena area. I got one of their flyers in the mail the other day, and it was a very pretty burgundy-coloured flyer worthy of the development's lofty moniker. Except that this aforementioned moniker was apparently not, as I had mistakenly assumed, derived from the wine that Paul Giamatti so scathingly dismissed in Sideways. It is, in fact, according to the condo's salespeople, pronounced "mer-lott", as in: "allo, dis is der mer-lott". I was suitably humbled.

But at least The Merlot is not a misnomer, unlike newly-soft-launched Centris, which turns out to be located in Jurong. It's a $14 taxi ride from my office (or my home) to Jurong, which proves my theory that Jurong, for all intents and purposes, is in fact part of Malaysia. (Don't even get me started on Chua Chu Kang. I navigate in CCK by doing a U-turn every time I encounter a sign pointing to Johor.)

Also, The Merlot actually has vowels, which is more than can be said about 2 RVG, BLVD, DLV, SCK Ville, and to a lesser extent The Nclave.

Then there are the condos that you know are Singaporean because they have names that wouldn't make sense anywhere else in the world. Not that they do here, but no one seems to realise that.

A check of caveats lodged with the Urban Redevelopment Authority over the last 12 months (haha) shows that there are at least 14 residential developments in Singapore that have names beginning with "D'". Working on the assumption that these names are a clumsy way of demonstrating francophilic respect, 12 of these 14 condo names are in fact ungrammatical. They are: D'Dalvey, D'Palma, D'Banyan, D'Cambridge, D'Gallery, D'Lotus, D'Manor, D'Marine, D'Saville, D'Wilkinson, D'Grove Villas, and - my personal favourite - D'Hillside Loft.

(There are also d'istant cousins like De Angelo, De Casalle, De Lente, De Paradiso, and De Royale. And D-Mansions, but I think that one just got confused.)

I like to imagine that one day, probably not too long ago, there was a name-brainstorming session in which someone said, hey, we're in Hillside, all the units in the condo are lofts, and why don't we just throw in a "D'" to keep up with those highfalutin D'Manor dudes?

Except that D'Hillside Loft is actually on Pasir Panjang Hill, there are no more lofts in this particular project than others, and - I have nothing to say about the "D'".

Perhaps to demystify the geographical bewilderment that must necessarily result from projects such as D'Hillside Loft, there has been in recent years the rise of what I like to call the idi@t trend. (On a slight diversion, if you look for "moron" synonyms on thesaurus.com, you learn the very useful information that "an idiot is a stupid person with a mental age below three years, while a moron is a stupid person with a mental age of between seven to twelve years". Who knew?)

Victims of the idi@t trend include: 3@Phillips, 8@Mount Sophia, The Sail@Marina Bay, The Light@Cairnhill, The Oceanfront@Sentosa Cove, The Villas@Sentosa Cove, Le Royce@Leith Park, Spring@Katong, Suites@Surrey, Ten@Suffolk, The Elegance@Changi, The Pearl@Mount Faber, The Serenade@Holland, Urban Edge@Holland V, Viz@Holland, Oasis@Mulberry, Residences@Evelyn, Residences@Limau, and Residences@Novena.

I'm getting a headache.

In keeping with the Frenchy theme is also Chez Bright Apartments, which makes so little sense that I shouldn't even have to end this sentence.

And somewhat further east of the D'evelopments are the Casas. There are at least 17 "Casa Somethings" in Singapore, including the unexpectedly Mediterranean Casa Esperanza and Casa Sarina. But even the Casas are not spared the indignity of cross-breeding, which gives rise to the inspired Casa Pasir Ris - a marriage of Italian and Malay that will probably produce puzzling progeny.

I could go on but my work week is finally over and so off I go to have some fun.

D'fun, I mean. Casa Ciao!

posted by zyn :: 9:55 PM :: 6 Comments :: permalink


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in line with my resolution to blog more

Thursday, September 28, 2006

I've updated the links and added my recent discovery of a seemingly suicidal ST journalist-scholar who has started a blog. Cliff thinks he/she is fake; I don't really know what to think.

I set aside my McEwan tonight to finally log on to WoW after what must be more than a month, only to be thwarted by a ridiculous lag (5,000 ms latency = can't even see your body after you rez). So I spent the night buying gear and training up my axe skills - and rereading old blogs.

I currently have three other, old blogs still online, no longer active but still readable; each chronicles a very short, intense period in my life. The nauseatingly pink livejournal breakup one is the only one of the three - come to think of it, all three are on different blog hosts - that I made public, and rereading it again makes me cringe at the writing, which is far and away the worst of the lot. It suffers a conspicuous lack of the profligate poetry that can only be inspired by infatuation and that permeates the other two blogs (not always to good effect). I worry, sometimes, that doing what I do will eventually and permanently limit my vocabulary to words with fewer than four syllables. That would be an awful tragedy. You know, like, really bad. See! It's already happening!

Anyway I guess all I want to say tonight is that time really heals all wounds. Often, however, you still have to live with the scars. Sometimes I wish I could be as candid as c7676 or rambotan about hidden feelings and baffled hope, but the truth is, whenever I look back on the biggest breakup I ever had, I can't muster up any genuine emotion anymore. I'm not sure if that's the product of months of grim conditioning, or the happy result of recent distractions, or proof that the relationship really didn't mean that much after all. But now that the scab has become a scar that I'm not even tempted to pick at, I find my thoughts occasionally wandering in the direction of philosophical hindsight. Did I really feel that strongly, back then, for this stranger whose name, even, is now an unfamiliar weight in my memory? Surely I must have, or did I imagine, too, the pain and anguish of the betrayal that followed?

Perhaps time doesn't heal as much as confuse us with its arbitrary lengths. Ah well, if you can't figure it out, ignore it, I say. In any case there are always more shiny sparkly things that urgently demand one's attention, such as lunch at Lawry's tomorrow. Yummy yummy yummy in my (rapidly expanding) tummy.

posted by zyn :: 2:03 AM :: 6 Comments :: permalink


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this is why i don't like arty guys

Tuesday, September 26, 2006

People can be so drama. No pun intended. It doesn't even really qualify as a pun anyway. I'm tired.

In defence of Xinyi, I thought the JBJ play was really as crap as she made it out to be. Since then I have realised that many people actually liked it. I'm still not very clear on why exactly they did, but it's enough to argue that Xinyi's review may not reflect popular opinion. Then again, what such responsibility does it have? It's rather difficult to define the role of a critic. On one hand you're there to influence public opinion, but if you do your job too well people sure scold you one, especially if you have any taste and/or backbone whatsoever and have no qualms about writing scathing things.

And in the end, if it's true that Xinyi's reviews of TheatreWorks or whatever are all negative, maybe it's simply because those productions suck? Wonder if that's crossed Ong Keng Sen's mind.

posted by zyn :: 9:48 PM :: 8 Comments :: permalink


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beach bar, robertson quay

Nothing beats the Monday blues like a night out with the alcoholics not-so-anonymous gang - the German chapter, no less. Minus one, ahem, nosebleeder. Freaking lamest excuse I've ever heard, babe. :) Hope you feel better.

People have been unhappy recently and this upsets me. Some, I think, have good reason, and in a bid to cheer them up I have done the only thing I know how to do. Others - just make me want to shake them and say stop being so damn fucking self-centered. But the thing about real, deep-seated debts is that they take more than a lifetime to be repaid and there is nothing in this world I can do or say about it that won't render me beneath well-deserved condemnation. Or maybe that's just good ol' Catholic guilt.

In the meantime: new stories to chase, lots of time to chase them in, and two whole days of leave next week. Life, just the way I like it - plenty of work and a happy little reward at the end.

Maybe the big picture is showing edges of decay, but my magnifying glass still lingers at a spot of vivid consummation.

September's almost over; my 4Q resolution is to blog more.

posted by zyn :: 2:39 AM :: 0 Comments :: permalink


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heritage vale cab sauv 2004, the whisky store

Thursday, September 21, 2006

IMF is over, life resumes normality, and soon I shall find time to do my grossly-piled-up laundry again.

Over the last few days I've had a bit of time - in between never-ending press briefings and chilled red wine (what is up with that?? why does everyone serve red wine cold??) - to think about things, to re-read my indulgently detailed blog entries from 2003, and to decide that heck cares who reads this blog - it should serve its original function (circa 1997! how many bloggers can say that?) of chronicling my life rather than recording fleeting cryptic moments that I'm not sure even my future self will be capable of recalling, given the alarmingly narrow capacity of my short-term memory.

So here goes, in the limited amount of time I have between coherence and exhaustion.

1. The three characteristics that all good journalists have: short attention spans and quickness to boredom, very high intense short-term productivity, and immense stamina and resilience in the face of suppression or obstruction. I look at my colleagues, and respect only those who refuse to flinch at fighting for each word and nuance, who relish working on weekends because it gives them an edge, and who stay in the office until past midnight to make sure that their finished products are worthy of their bylines.

2. The main drawback of studying overseas is finding that most of your friends end up halfway around the world. (Unless, of course, you're one of those Singaporeans who only set up camp with other Singaporeans, in which case you might as well have gone to NUS or NTU or, even better, SMU, for all the good your overseas experience did you.) And on the rare occasions that your foreign friends stop by the little red dot - something else I learned this week - that is Singapore, you get to blend nostalgia with rediscovery in a genuinely rejuvenating way.

3. You can be searching and dissatisfied and reluctant to settle into complacent content - and still be happy.

So, ultimately, here's to restlessness - because it is only when life is incomplete, sometimes deliberately, that we are driven to continue our quest for the very best of the missing pieces.

(So there, c7676.)

posted by zyn :: 2:11 AM :: 4 Comments :: permalink


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conversations

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Three days ago:

E: three. more. days.

Me: yeah... i'm so tired i don't even have the energy to be tired

E: hahah ... ya lets go and drink ourselves silly after it all ends

Me: yah lor... someone asked me to go drinking tonight but i'm just too tired... don't think this has ever happened before!

E: pent up alcoholism is unhealthy


Today:

JL: it's late

Me: no shit

JL: prune juice helps


I know they're unrelated but it's conversations like these that have kept me going the last seven days. This Friday I will have been working 19 days straight with only one day break. This is worse than GE. And it's not even like I'm doing any major work. It's like running a marathon in space - takes a lot of effort and achieves almost nothing.

On the bright side, I've been discovering some pretty cool watering holes over the last few days. Who would've thought you could get vodka shots for $5 at Rail Mall?(Where the hell is that, I hear you ask? Exactly.) Not really as cool is barbaablackchic, which is very loud. And Suba, which is very expensive.

But hey, all alcohol is good alcohol.

posted by zyn :: 8:27 PM :: 0 Comments :: permalink


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making noise and making pleas

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

I don't know why I never learn not to post blog entries when I'm drunk. Or, for that matter, not to send text messages. Somehow everything seems like an epiphany when you're in a happy haze, but on a cold and sober morning (okay that imagery doesn't really work since it's not very cold here) you realise that things aren't radical as much as just a simple fact of life. Which in many ways is even better.

Okay I'm not making sense so I shall talk about something else. Like what an embarrassment it is to live in a country that has no qualms about blithely barring civil society groups from attending the biggest event that's ever been held here. And we're not talking about crazed radicals who break windows or throw stones, as someone complained to me, but 28 peaceable and highly intellectual activists that regularly attend the annual IMF/WB meetings and have been accredited by the two institutions since July. Now they will have to go to Batam instead for the civil society forum thing. We're getting good at offloading the things we don't want tainting our shores to Batam - first activists, next probably old people.

Why on earth is your government like that, several people asked me yesterday. I had no reply.

I foresee the IMF/WB meetings turning out to be a huge PR nightmare for the Singapore government. Rather than take this chance to show the world that:

(1) we are opening up as much as we said we were going to; look at us, we're transparent and accountable, we can renew ourselves to keep up with the times, we want to take our place among the grown-up nations of the world, we have come of age;

(2) or, well, we're actually going to live up to our awful reputation of clamping down on fundamental human rights and not even having the basic courtesy to explain why, short of a tersely unspecific statement about "security and law and order" issues that makes all these NGOs seem like terrorist groups - but hey, at least we have the facilities and infrastructure to hold such a huge-ass event!

we are instead going to be exposed as

(1) Myanmar

(2) Somalia

Quite aside from the whole issue of how we're hosting a meeting made possible by and advocating globalisation and yet once again asserting our parochial mentality, I don't see how Suntec City can hold an event of such scale. The road closure situation looks like it will be truly nightmarish and the convention centre can't possibly hold 16,000 delegates - not to mention security, media, kaypoh people, etc - comfortably. Why are we attempting to show off capacity that we don't possess?

Anyway I've been complaining too much over the last 24 hours so I will stop now. Especially seeing that I will probably have much more reason, if much less energy, to complain over the next seven days.

posted by zyn :: 11:19 AM :: 3 Comments :: permalink


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leave good, work bad

Saturday, September 02, 2006

If I ever become Christian, I suspect I will ascribe a large part of the conversion to TK. There's something about his sincerity and honesty that makes me want to be a better person, an urge I manage to successfully repress most of the time. It was refreshing to hang out with him - he's so different from all my other friends and being able to hold a conversation without any facade of cynicism leaves you surprisingly insouciant. Also it's a lot more effortless to talk to someone when he can read your mind. Our food arrived last night and I asked him, a propos of nothing, which church he went to in Singapore. To which he replied: "Did you ask me that because you were thinking of having to say grace?" Which was so exactly what went through my mind that I must have gaped, very unattractively, like a goldfish.

TK is also known for his riddles, the punchlines to which he relays with ecstatic glee. He's the creator of the only riddle I've managed to remember for the last five years, which requires some physical illustration and thus cannot be replicated online. But these can:

Q: Which country is home to a lot of refugees?
A: Iran. *cue crazy TK laugh*

Q: Which country makes you feel stressed and short of time?
A: Russia.

Q: Why do gorillas have big nostrils?
A: Because they have big fingers. (hahahaha)

Q: Where do you get virgin wool from?
A: Ugly sheep.


I've actually had a lot of good company and food the last few days, mainly because I've been blissfully on leave (not that I'm saying my colleagues are bad company, of course. Haha). Had $3 pints and my favourite chicken teriyaki soba salad with A (whom I hadn't seen since, what, May?) on Thursday, followed by a xiaolongbao dinner with Ian and Terence and Philip (who's gone, boohoohoo), an extravagantly delicious lunch at Sebastien's at Greenwood (think that's the most expensive lunch I've ever had; thanks, Y :p), and finally Crystal Jaded with TK. And in between all that, a bottle of excellent pinot noir, another of passable cabernet merlot, and several pints of hoegaarden managed to be consumed.

No wonder I get a new shock every time I step on the scale.

Okay time for lunch.

posted by zyn :: 11:58 AM :: 0 Comments :: permalink


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