Singapore National Education Part 24
I have also learned lately:
1. That it took this long to see a supermarket put dustbins in their store. Carrefour now has them. I can finally blow my nose when I go grocery shopping.
2. That in a recent episode of "Three Rooms", one of them says "I've got a parking ticket again!" and that is supposed to be funny (how we knew: the "live" laugh track kicked in). We Singaporeans must live hilarious lives if that is anything to go by.
3. That for the recent Winona Ryder Special on TCS Five, we got to see pre-historic Winona. Like Great Balls of Fire (1989), Mermaids (1990), The House of Spirits (1993) and The Age of Innocence (1993).
Thank you TCS, but I'd much rather be watching Winona in movies like Reality Bites (1994), Little Women (1994), How to Make an American Quilt (1995), Looking for Richard (1996) and The Crucible (1996). Or are you saving those for the next millennium?
On an unrelated note, if you show Cobra one more time in a Stallone Special or an Action Special, I will nuke your satellite broadcast dish.
4. That I need to learn how to spell "millennium" and "satellite" without looking it up in a dictionary everytime.
5. That in discussing Singapore's possible purchase of AH-64 Apaches, George Sorority suggested in Usenet that Singapore Technologies might make their own indigenous attack helicopters and maybe name them "Merlions". Gazooks! That's an attack helicopter, not a neighbourhood soccer team.
For these Flying Machines of Certain Death, may I suggest the testosterone-dripping name of "Studmuffin".
"Today, at the war front, the enemy ground troops were mauled by some Singapore AH-B3NG Studmuffins."
See how good that sounds?
Paint them yellow, change the exhausts to large bore, stick some DOHC and Zigen stickers on these babies and we've got us a real killer.
6. That TCS's trailers continue to astound. Here's another marvelous example, about the last episode of The Simpsons:
"...Bart and Lisa _joins_ a military school..."
I is still waitings for TCS to _goes_ to school.
7. That it is not safe to put the tube of Ben-Gay together with the K-Y Jelly in the same drawer.
8. That it is not safe to put the tube of Preparation H together with the Colgate toothpaste in the toilet cabinet.
9. That a practical joker friend of a Usenet reader pulled out a piece of paper, folded it into a triangular sign, wrote TAXI on it with a black marker, used mild glue on it and stuck it on a white Mercedes E200. Ouch.
Personally, I think the owner of that Merc should feel flattered, since Limo Taxis use E250s and E300s. Instant upgrade. Maybe someone could sell this as a new quickie upgrade kit.
10. That Asia Pacific Breweries punished Carrefour hypermarket for having the audacity to sell their beer at below the recommended retail price. I say give that hypermarket a Tiger (parallel import)!
11. That we got free or discounted talk time from Singtel "as a gesture of goodwill" for the last telecommunications disruption. They made it very clear that it is NOT, I repeat, NOT, an act of compensation. So I guess it is an act of charity for a misguided nation.
Still I think it mighty generous of them to be giving us this "gesture of goodwill" on a quiet Sunday, for a disruption that happened on a busy business weekday.
12. That for those complaining about the lack of compensation for the recent Singtel disruption, just be thankful we all did not get sued for using our handphones too much and causing the interconnect switch to fail.
13. That I am really really happy to be able to get free local land-based calls and 50% off Singtel handphone calls (60% from M1, talk about one-upmanship) ON A SUNDAY when I make next to no calls, to make up for that awful Friday disruption, when I had to call everyone on Planet Earth.
My grand total of calls on that Sunday:
Mobile phone Calls= 1
Home phone Calls= 2
I really saved lots.
14. That Singtel does it again this month, this time bringing M1 down for 4 hours. And merely 4 days after giving away freebies on Sunday to make up for the Friday fiasco. Is there a global telecommunications contest going on that I am not aware of?
"If you are the first to screw up your country's telecommunications three times in one month, you win the grand prize -- a chance to buy and run a Mass Rapid Transit system!"
15. That in the recent screening of "My Stepmother is an Alien", the subtitles disappeared midway and they apologised for the loss of subtitles -- in English. "Xie xie ni". "Terima Kasih". "Tank Kyut". (Hey, did anyone spot Willow of Buffy fame in there? And Kim Basinger -- yum!)
16. That the trailer for The Fame Awards shows a whole lot of TCS stars but only one of them (Lisa Ang) is from The Fame Awards alumni.
17. That The Straits Times recently celebrated The Ah Bengs and The Ah Lians in a huge way, devoting almost the entire Sunday Plus section to the topic. While amusing to read, I hardly think that the true Beng and Lian are anywhere near the sanitised models portrayed in those pages.
18. That in the recent Straits Times Beng/Lian Special, we are supposed to believe Sumiko Tan with her Mercedes and all, qualifies as an Ah Lian. Then that would make me a Triad Gang Leader.
19. That we have finally gotten round to glamourising good-for-nothing louts with neon-orange hair and poor social skills in our newspapers. Now we know where all the world's rainforests went.
20. That I have true-blue blue-collar Hokkien friends who would take offense at being called a Beng or a Lian, even though their names really are along the lines of Lim Ah Beng and Tan Ah Lian, because they _know_ the kind of people these terms refer to. Does The Straits Times know?
21. That the Straits Times Beng Tribute was obviously written by folks who have not dealt with real Bengs and Lians before.
"But some of my best friends are Bengs!"
22. That following the success of The Beng/Lian Tribute, November the 31st may be officially declared National Beng/Lian Day. Heaven conformed yet.
23. That Mah Bow Tan is really going out of his way to tell everyone that the $50 COE was a fluke. I agree. Next round of bidding, let's all prove him right and let's all bid $1.
We Can Beat the System.
24. That the newlyweds in that wedding night Anchor (Beer, not Butter) Ad (and we are assuming the two lovers featured are newlyweds unless Anchor Beer ads are more subversive than we thought) are willing to forgo their first night pleasures to let some silly friends barge into their hotel room with Anchor Beer, get piss drunk and possibly barf all over their bed.
Then again, I have heard of some newlyweds who let room-crashing friends come in (without even Anchor Beer in hand), turn off the lights in their hotel room and agree to take off their wedding clothes in the dark (the newlyweds, not the friends). And the groom agrees to wear a glow-in-the-dark G-string and dance in the darkened room. (Hi, Thomas!)
Reality is indeed stranger than fiction.
25. That Vanessa-Mae in a recent "In Conversation" interview with Sonny "Larry King" Lim, is upset that people are ogling her nubile teenage body despite her attempts to prevent this by wearing as little clothes as possible.
I'm sorry, I did not know I was supposed to look at the _violin_ next to your flimsily clad bosom.
Copyright 2004 by Lee Kin Mun
