why wy?

da man is back, the house is sorted, and everything has worked out in a strange, cosmicly trippy way. I'm just happy not to be homeless, will put pictures of new place once we move this weekend.

interesting take on those ads that claim to use "real' people, you know the kind with perfect skin and boobs anyway.

Fortified with teh palegar (cardamon) and chicken masala dosai (remarkably the tea was $2, which is what I once paid in serangoon road), we head for a hip n' happening night of... poetry readings. There's a poetry fest on right now, so instead of waiting around for an indie band to play, we wait for a bunch of suitably boho people to get comfortably sloshed before reading from bits of paper. It starts fashionably late, closer to 1130pm than the billed 1030 in a shabby-chic style pub-lounge.

It wasn't all bad, but it wasn't great either, then again maybe it's just me. If I didn't "get' TS Elliot or Erza Pound, I don't expect to recognise budding underground talent, for instance, the man who read over a background tape of screeching parrots to thunderous applause.

But even among the poets, there is differeniation. For instance:

Lame: black nail polish
Fame (see, I also can rhyme): black nail polish when you are 60

Lame: hoodie (parrot guy put one on just to perform, hood up, rapper style. it's not cool when you have to try too hard.)
Fame: tweed jackets

Lame: reading to the beat of the dance music in the next room
Fame: making gargling noises

Lame: reading from a notebook
Fame: holding the sheets at arm's length because you are far-sighted

Lame: black eye shadow
Fame: black eye (obviously serious poetry can get violent)

Lame: wearing your pyjamas to market at noon (plus hello kitty plush slippers)
Fame: wearing your pyjamas to a club (the type you can buy at pasar malams, a garish silk dragon dressing gown, with a bright singapore tourism orchid shirt under)

Lame: using words like sex, fuck, fucking, cunt to sound controversial
Fame: unusual metaphors (where's neruda when you need him)

The fest ends with a WWF (word wrestling federation, get it) grand slam, and the prize-winning belt is massive, with two bronze pens flanking a medal of sorts. I think they should give parrot guy a prize for breaking the geneva convention, under the category: unusual forms of torture. We left when he came up to do an encore.

This is the equivalent of the urban fairy tale... once upon a time, there was a room for rent - in a penthouse apartment on La Trobe Street (right in the city). All for $90 a week. To get a sense of scale, shoebox student apartments fetch $200 to $300 a week. Of course, the room is taken by time you call and in your mind's eye, you can see it vanishing in the light, like a secret doorway to Faerie or Narnia. Or there might have been a twist in the tale, for instance having to share the room with 5 other unwashed students, or sleeping in the storeroom...

My housemate turned down a room offer because she would have had to share it with the landlady's pet snakes. (note plural.)

It's a jungle out there, I tell you. I'm still looking, btw.

In parliament, they've banned, and now unbanned, the use of mate, as in g'day mate, how's it like being prime minister?

I got quizzed about singapore's NS policy today, is it true that you have to serve in the army, in the same tones of is it true they eat pickled octopus eyes over there?
I said girls didn't have to, and thank goodness for that. Strangely enough, I would have hated the physicality of it at 18, but I welcome it now. The government is debating whether women should serve in the frontlines, and the guy who quizzed me thought they shouldn't, because 1) women are at risk of violation if captured, 2) women and men have different strengths and traits, and 3) they would be a distraction.

I can't always tell if someone is australian from their accent (the newsreaders on sbs sound transaltantic, sorta like our more British than Singapore anchors) but the latest terrorist video is pretty funny. It's thrown defense people in a panic because the masked man sounds australian. I can just imagine a terrorist with a singaporean (or malaysian chinese ha ha) accent, overseas singaporeans everywhere cringing in recognition. Of course, it is a universal law of physics that a singaporean accent is 10 times louder on foreign soil.

In business news, Telstra once again proves a fine shining example of greed. It made over $4 billion in profit last year but looks to retrench 1000 workers due to projected diminishing profits. And calls are still expensive. The bastards.

Greed part two:
A mobile phone company wanted to charge the parents of a teenager for breaking his handphone contract after he died following a long battle with multiple sclerosis. They waived it after the article was published in the papers.

Two weeks ago it seemed like spring came early, 19C warm, sunny days but in the last two days, the merc has dipped to 5C, factoring in wind chill, and it has even SNOWED in places by the sea and the hills. It never snows. Bugger.

Still haven't found any abode that screams Take MEEEE, so keep on wishing and hoping. Combined brain power is better than... erm... one. (I've had a long day, most of it at the wrong end of a very very very grumpy clinic receptionist who needs an emergency fuck. She's so anal retentive that the clinic doesn't need a vacuum cleaner.)

After 545 days in my comfy, quirky little flat, it's time to say goodbye. I'm moving a few suburbs away, hopefully to somewhere warm, cosy and peaceful. So dear readers, take the next 10 seconds or so to think about wei finding the perfect abode. I've always liked the concept of synchronicity.

and ex-philosophy hons webhomes (new and newly found):
gnat weds (I never thought you'll beat me to it babe)
karen takes the mickey out of travelling

forgot to say, I took part in a world record attempt over the weekend at work. Don't laugh, it was a attempt to get the most number of people brushing their teeth for 1 minute. And it wasn't even real brushing, it was an attempt to promote oralB's brushups (tm), which is a mint-scented finger glove which is a) not as sexy as sucking a mint; and b) feels odd and not as clean as gargling. I still remember compulsory dental hygiene sessions in primary one, all in a row, brushing teeth and spitting into the drain along the canteen. And there was that chewy red stuff, apparently it showed the presense of plaque (not plague, as puck points out) so all of us had red mouths for a week.

yyeeeeeehhaaaaaa!

The planet has been tagged unofficially as xena.