one night in beijing

Monday, October 30, 2006

was followed by one night in glorious shanghai and two nights in chengdu and now i'm finally back - having landed an hour ago and picked up two very promising bottles of red from duty free - after four flights in five days, five hours of sleep a night, and way too much food and alcohol.

despite the hectic pace - we literally ran through the airport to make our flight from beijing to shanghai - it was a surprisingly fun trip. i know this entry sucks (i'll write a better one later, i have so many things to say about china) but i'm completely exhausted and just wanted to mark my homecoming because, well, it isn't official until you've blogged about it.

can't believe i have to work tomorrow.

 posted by zyn :: 12:33 AM :: 0 Comments :: permalink


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when i'm drunk

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

all communicating devices need to be taken away from me.

also, I need to stop drinking. I don't remember much of last night but what snippets of it are left in my memory are just a teeny bit horrifying.

healthy lifestyle!

 posted by zyn :: 11:35 AM :: 0 Comments :: permalink


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heroes of earth and kindlygotohello

Sunday, October 22, 2006

So last night turned out to be pretty interesting, thanks in large part to SingTel and Wang Li Hong. It's a good thing he's so cute, because he can't really sing for nuts. I'm glad I didn't pay for the concert tix, haha.

But man, is he cute. And he quite multitalented too: can play guitar, violin, piano, drums, etc. Too bad he can't speak Chinese. Excerpts of last night's stage talk:


Lee Hom: Hello xinjiapo!

Audience: *vague but very loud screaming*

Lee Hom: Ni men hao ma?

Audience: HAO!!!!!

Lee Hom: How the hell are you guys doing?

Audience: *confused murmur*


But I love him, because he always reminds me of this guy I had a huge crush on in college. Also, from certain angles he really really looks like Nicky Wu! And I have the photos to prove it:



Crazy crowd - the whole indoor stadium was completely packed. And we're talking >$100 tix.


Yup, that's Lee Hom in the front with the gold sparkly pants. Haha.



Kiss Goodbye. Made me miss Douglas.



Lee Hom showing off with guitar. Doesn't he totally look like Nicky Wu in this??



Also had drinks last night with John K, who flew halfway across the world from LA to maybe try and set up a life in Singapore. I know, why the hell, right? Anyway he's a great guy and not out of his mind at all. We had an interesting conversation about the two friends he tried to hook me up with here (on separate occasions, there were no orgiastic events):


John K: So what happened after you met up with Chris? And Dave?

Me: Haha why are you asking?

John K: And what's with all the secrecy? I asked Chris about it and he said, "I'll tell you later." And then when you went out with Dave I asked Dave about it and he said, "I'll tell you later." What's going on??

Me: Uh... I'll tell you later.


Btw I'm off to China next week so if anyone wants DVDs or whatever let me know now.

 posted by zyn :: 12:13 PM :: 1 Comments :: permalink


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thursday blues

Thursday, October 19, 2006

Got a bit of good news yesterday, although it didn't really give me as much of a kick as I expected.

Which then leads me into second-guessing ground with landmarks such as "It's About Time, You Slacker" Hill, "I'm Sure I Can Do Better" Park, and (my favourite) Mount "Damn It, I May Actually Enjoy This For Its Own Sake, Crap".

(Does this whole landmark imagery work? Not really hor.)

I think I was more amused by the concept of who I was competing against than anything else.

But even this bit of buzz isn't enough to boot me out of the general malaise in which I've found myself recently. Restlessness, it turns out, isn't actually the root of all evil. Not in the mood to WoW, don't want to go out, there's too much haze to... breathe, and even alcohol is rapidly losing its appeal.

I can't believe I just said that.

What did help, though, was getting kicked out of a building today, which of course set me on the trail of a vendetta and was kinda fun. Maybe I just need more of these little adrenaline shots.

Oh also Citibank called this afternoon to remind me that the money from my joint savings account was still sitting in the bank untouched after more than a year. I explained, with no small amount of entertainment at the Citibank guy's growing discomfort, that while the account was still join't the relationship was not.

Concert on Saturday, maybe that will be fun.

Bleargh.

 posted by zyn :: 10:36 PM :: 0 Comments :: permalink


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tales of horror and hell

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

I was just told a truly terrifying story about someone's friend who got into her car in her office carpark in KL. Before she could start it, some drugged-out guy with a knife forced his way in, sat on her lap, and proceeded to start cutting her on her arms and chest. She stayed cool and talked to him slowly and managed to escape back to her office - dripping blood along the way, the story goes.

And it strikes me that some conversations are like that. People get high on their own brand of alternative-universe logic and slash at you indiscriminately, often without being fully conscious of the wounds they cause. And the only way to survive is to keep calm and speak carefully to the crazy dude or the crazy lady and hope you make it through with enough of yourself still intact.

Like so many bizarro dysfunctional situations in my life right now, I don't think anyone will really understand this. The most I can hope is that a future incarnation of myself will one day reread and sympathise.

On a happier note, I am now a proud member of both the Wine Network and the Whisky Store, thus cementing my alkie status.

 posted by zyn :: 12:45 AM :: 6 Comments :: permalink


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conversations with my boss

Monday, October 16, 2006

It's a slow night and it looks like I'm going to be here for some time (have you ever wondered exactly what all these "it"s refer to?), so I shall indulge in my favourite blog posting activity: repeating conversations. With my boss, who was waxing lyrical the other day about some nerdy word game. And so just now:

Boss: I found that game balderdash. And bought it! Im such a nerd

Me: You are indeed. fortunately you have equally nerdy friends like... zinne.

Boss: Only zinne?

Me: Well, maybe bery. i am distancing myself from this nerds anonymous club

Boss: You read books and know difficult words. U r a nerd dont fight it

Me: No... that just means i'm smart. don't sully my good name

Boss: Ok ok ure a smart nerd

Me: Haha ok lah count me in

Boss: On another note ikea is ridiculously crowded on a monday nite! And full of irritating pp WALKING VERY SLOWLY. I have already shoved a few pp

Me: Are some of these slow walkers, like, you know, old ladies??

Boss: I dunno. I just shoved them

Ladies and gentlemen, my kind-hearted, nerdy, clearly-too-free boss.

 posted by zyn :: 9:12 PM :: 1 Comments :: permalink


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sunday

It's Sunday morning. That's the first thought that washes warmly over my stirring consciousness, even before my brain has sent signals to my eyes to try that cool trick where the lids rise and the corneas focus. Sunday morning, and no work to get up for, or people to meet, or calls to make. And without any obligations preventing me from further sleep, I am abruptly wide awake.

Morning is, of course, a relative term, and having reached out to pull my laptop from the bedside table down to my lap - still without opening my eyes - I start it up to find that the computer clock is reading 12:05pm. Without even brushing my teeth, I run through what must surely by now be in the virtual world a common morning toilette - checking gmail, bloglines, and statcounter - before indulging in my special Sunday treat of the New York Times Style section. I dutifully browse the trend articles but linger over my secret shames: the Modern Love column, the streetstyles slideshow, and (most ignominious of all) the Weddings stories.

For all my promiscuity with weekday nights and even - more often so now - Saturdays, my Sundays are jealously guarded. I take my time over blogs, aggregators, and online news, so by the time I make it downstairs for brunch almost an hour has passed since my first half-conscious stretch in bed. On the dining table is spaghetti, and I reach for the grated cheese with one hand while the other flips open the Sunday Times. I know most people curl their lip at the Sunday paper - I'm guilty by association, if not also by deed - but I covertly enjoy the longer, lighter-hearted, more featurish articles, and as usual I skim the paper cover to cover. Today's articles are lacklustre but one is of particular interest; I skipped out on work early Friday night to make it to an event, and didn't manage to check on the final version of a story that was to run today. Fortunately the copy was clean, or so I assume because I can't find any major changes. I really should start leaving the office earlier, I think to myself, while my mouth carries on a protracted conversation with my parents about the virtues of cheddar over parmesan (it's less smelly, is the conclusion).

Nutritional duties performed, I head back upstairs intending to spend a half hour with Pinker's Language Instinct before hitting the gym, but my attention wanders and I pick up Hercule Poirot instead. What the hell, I rationalise - it's Sunday. I keep one eye on the clock because I need to make it to Capital Tower by 2:30 for the body balance class, but either out of laziness or complacency - or, as I've recently begun to suspect, an inferior understanding of the way time works - I only force myself to start getting ready at 1:45. I reach the gym just on time, already slightly out of breath from speeding along the CTE, only to find that the class is already full. So I curse under my breath and go for the treadmill instead.

... I wish I could continue this but even I am getting bored so I imagine everyone else is too. Damn it's hard to write a novel. Before you get to, like, one page of interesting plot you have to churn at least ten pages of build-up and I would die.

Anyway this was a tribute of sorts that I've been meaning to try for some time, although the extent of its ineptitude probably precludes any guesses as to my inspiration. But, well, you know what they say about imitation and flattery, even if the former is but a feeble attempt.

Actually maybe I should have written about the series of text messages that constituted a conversation between me and my bimbo boss earlier today. Now that was interesting. But maybe for another time, after my mission has been accomplished. Haha.

 posted by zyn :: 12:54 AM :: 1 Comments :: permalink


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fuck games

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

I'm tired of dealing with egos. Even - and maybe especially - my own.

Also, I think I'm masochistic. That seems worrying.

Edit: On a quest for comfort food I just gobbled down almost a whole can of lychees. Now I feel sick.

I am gormless. And greedy. And quite grouchy, so I shall go distract myself.

 posted by zyn :: 10:48 PM :: 1 Comments :: permalink


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post 65 doesn't make you cool

Friday, October 06, 2006

So it seems the PAP has decided that if you can't beat them, join them.

Probably unsurprisingly, the P65 blog reminds me strongly of Stomp. Both are misguided and desperate attempts by the establishment to be "cool" - and both fail.

I think the problem lies with the fact that successful blogs and forums are very much a bottom-up phenomenon that you can't just recreate by replicating the structure and expecting the content to automatically follow. Hence SPH's recent purchase of hardwarezone. Now if only they had been smart enough to do that before they set up Stomp, they could've saved themselves a bundle and the embarrassment.

As for the P65 blog, the most interesting part are the comments left by readers (none of which, by the way, have yet been replied to by the MPs - will this turn out to be more ammunition in the war of promises not followed through?). I especially like the one that says: "just testing, please don't track me down".

So for the post-65ers -

(which is another PAP-coined term that we're now throwing around without realising that it doesn't really mean anything. I mean, if you were born in 1964 or 1963, chances are you also wouldn't have remembered the tumultuous pre-independence days that LKY appears to unable to move on from; and if you were born in 1965, you're, like, a 41-year-old civil servant unlikely to be able to communicate any better with the radical English-educated younger generation than your predecessors anyway)

- my advice is, you will never be cool or hip or accepted as such, so stop trying. The hip-hop Chingay thing smacks of children's day back in school when the teachers would put on some kind of ludicrously juvenile performance, except that they probably had the purer intention to create amusement rather than convince their audience of their industrious coolness.

If you want to engage the young, hip hop is so not the way to do it. It's like putting on a clown suit, for heaven's sake. Just be more genuine and more candid - and not by putting up baby photos, because, seriously, you're not that good-looking so no one really cares. Talk more about your job and your responsibilities and your philosophies and your struggles. And if you can't do so on a public forum, then why the hell are we reading this blog, which, frankly, is the biggest waste of 15 online minutes since Stomp?

 posted by zyn :: 11:00 AM :: 7 Comments :: permalink


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the seaweed is always greener

Thursday, October 05, 2006

I was going to blog about something serious, but that can wait another day.

Today the Maniac (haha I know you're reading this) said: "Eh it's 9pm and you're still in the office! You really have no life right!"

To which I indignantly replied: "Nonsense lah! I'm going to go home and play World of Warcraft!"

As usual, that didn't materialise, and instead I ended up eating the best chwee kueh I've ever had, drinking little bottles of Nederburg cab sauv (of which, coincidentally, I had a big bottle just the other day), waxing lyrical on life and death, and the afterlife, and telling tales of my childhood I've never told another living soul. (Nor a dead one, for the pedantic.)

I also took photos, which I've decided to put on a friends-only livejournal. I like my photos, idiot-proof as they are, and I want to put them all in one place. If you'd like to laugh at my camera skills, leave a comment with your livejournal username and I'll add you to my friends list.

Anyway conversation at one point turned to Disney cartoons, and just to prove that I don't have as bad a memory as I've recently been exhibiting, here goes what I remember of Under the Sea, one of the happiest songs I know:

The seaweed is always greener
In somebody else's bed
You dream about going up there
But that is a big mistake
Just look at the world around you
Right here on the ocean floor
Such wonderful things around you
What more is you looking for?

Under the sea, under the sea
Darling it's better down where it's wetter
Take it from me
Up on the shore they work all day
Out in the sun they slave away
While we devoting full time to floating
Under the sea

 posted by zyn :: 2:47 AM :: 4 Comments :: permalink


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sundays are good days

Monday, October 02, 2006

So I was ridiculously productive today:

I went to the gym (and decided that once my membership expires I will join California Fitness, which is half the price);

I bought Jay Chou's latest CD (and have no time to listen to it);

I finished Ian McEwan's Saturday (and kaya toast and eggs and iced tea);

I went to work (and wrote two stories, although it took me six hours);

I ran undead strat (and picked up wall of the dead on the AH for 50g)!

Ahahahaha. Now I sleep (and try to wake up on time tomorrow).

 posted by zyn :: 3:44 AM :: 3 Comments :: permalink


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