meaninglessness
I am blogging from a cab that is bringing me home. How awesome am I?? Or, more accurately, how awesome is my E71??
I feel the need to blog now because I am disillusioned with mankind. Rudeness, it seems, is the new black to a population that doesn't appreciate the elegance of black. Everywhere I turn these days I am assaulted by bad service, queue cutters, insolent taxi drivers and lazy PR people. I told off people from all four categories today, and while I feel a bit better, my despair at the state of the world has also grown.
Today, I see only bleakness in life. Perhaps bryan has drawn the longer straw after all.
posted by zyn ::
11:52 PM ::
4 Comments ::
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reader feedback
Lately I've been getting a lot of hate mail. Hate mail is amusing, but stupid mail is more amusing. Below is one of B's:
"Hi, in regards to your great article dated aug. 19, please enlighten me on "exports heading south...", which country in the south you refering to? Thanks."
B's clear-eyed self-restrained reply:
"Hi,
Thanks for your interest in the story.
What I meant by "exports heading south" is that they are shrinking. I did not mean to suggest that Singapore is sending more goods to Australia or South Africa. That said, you can check out IE Singapore's website and from their report, you can get more information on trends about Singapore's top export markets.
Cheers
B."
posted by zyn ::
8:24 PM ::
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the original
“LOVE don’t cost a thing,” Jennifer Lopez once famously sang.
What she neglected to mention, however, is that weddings certainly do.
Over the last few years, I’ve watched friends my age get married and marvelled at how they pulled out all the stops, from custom-made animated videos to sunset yacht parties.
Now that it’s my turn next year, I’m marvelling instead at how they managed to pull all that off on a combined income that still qualified them to buy a new HDB flat.
My own wedding will be as fuss-free as it gets: just the traditional hotel dinner and a simple solemnisation on the same day. Still, it will probably cost as much as my entire salary last year.
It’s not difficult to see why youths these days are taking longer to walk down the aisle. Many unmarried friends say they just don’t have enough saved up.
Part of the reason is that with today’s inflation, even a small wedding can be a costly event. Every time a bride-to-be hears wedding bells, the bridal industry hears the ka-ching of their cash registers.
According to my unscientific but extensive research, the average cost of a weekend hotel banquet has gone up 5 to 10 per cent between this year and next, crossing the $1,000 per table mark just in time for my wedding dinner.
This usually doesn’t include wine, now a wedding staple, which will set you back another $1,000 or so. Expect to fork out at least $3,000 for photographers and videographers to document the special day.
Then there’s the dress. Bridal gown packages from the one-stop shops in the heartlands now cost upwards of $2,500; I haven’t even dared to ask about the designer creations I drool over in the bridal magazines.
Wedding rings – wedding rings! those little bands on your fingers! – don’t come under $1,200 a pair. My fiance and I have taken to walking into jewellery shops and demanding to see their cheapest choices. Needless to say, we don’t get very good service.
But the main reason why people pay so much for their weddings is simply because they want it all.
Yes, parents are often blamed for the “mandatory” wedding banquets, but today’s young couples are the ones who order the personalised videos, devise unique themes, and plan three dramatic entrances with three different outfits.
Problem is, most of their friends are also new entrants into the workforce, which means their well-meant dinner hongbaos probably cover only the cost of the appetisers.
Despite the exorbitant mark-ups on wedding purchases, most couples shrug off the cost, saying the once-in-a-lifetime event is worth every cent to celebrate their love.
One friend even toyed with the idea of having her bridal photos shot overseas for a extra-special touch. The cost: $15,000.
But my question is: if you have true love, do you really need the big wedding?
After all, you could get married for as little as $26 – the fee that the Registry of Marriages charges for a marriage license.
Ironically, young starry-eyed couples just starting their careers are those who want the splashiest weddings. I know of a couple in their late 30s who did away with the pomp and had a simple church service and dinner, happy enough to have found love when they least expected it.
Ms Lopez’s own wedding, to singer Marc Anthony in 2004, was a low-key affair that cost US$50,000 – probably an amount the famous couple, both well-acquainted with failed marriages, considered modest.
As for myself, I’m lucky enough to have a partner who constantly reminds me that it’s the marriage, not the wedding, that really matters. And I’m happy to say that the cost of love – while not exactly nothing – is much less than I would have thought possible.
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It's 3pm on Monday. At last count this column has earned me seven positive emails, and my property story on Saturday has garnered two negative ones (one reader thinks I'm too bullish, another thinks I'm too bearish). Maybe I should switch beats. Hey! Maybe I have.
posted by zyn ::
3:06 PM ::
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sunshine
It never fails to astound me how much you can love another person.
posted by zyn ::
10:52 PM ::
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stupidos
Doing what I do - and, especially doing what I do, which is aiming to be startling and contrarian and revelatory as often as possible - you get a lot of hate mail. I believe I've said before that I like hate mail. And I do, whether it's flaming on forums or straightforward emails with LOTS OF CAPITL LETTRS N BAD SPELING. At least people are really reacting viscerally, and they always respond nicely when I reply.
What I don't like is when people send me threatening emails based on their interpretation of something I've written. These people tend to think they're worth something. They could be lawyers, or government stooges, or company spokespeople (although the last is quite rare, private sector businesspeople tend to be a bit more savvy). They send "official" emails, and expect you to cower in fear and apologise. Not only do I refuse to apologise - seeing that I've done nothing wrong - I always draft a biting email response that ultimately I am discouraged from sending. That's fine. But I want everyone out there who's ever written a threatening email disguised as a "concerned" or "official" missive to know this: You are not scary. You are not even correct, most of the time. If you believe you derive some sort of associative power from the big important firm or agency under whose auspices you write - you are wrong. Above all, you are worthless.
That's all I wanted to say.
posted by zyn ::
3:47 PM ::
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