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Also, don't bother to ask her for Hokkien Mee. I asked her "Siri, where to get Hokkien Mee?" recently.
She replied, "Did you mean, "Where to get hot gimme?""
I don't want to know what answer she would give to "hot gimme".
In other news, read this touching tribute to Steve Jobs, by his sister. Oh wow, indeed.
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[Photo via my friend Zid]
This Malaysian taxi certainly has exacting taste in music.
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This launch flyer (from my friend J) for a condo project in Bedok Reservoir couldn't look more ominous. Nor is the timing that great either. I mean, fifth body found there since June… *shudder*
"Serene" is not what I'd call Bedok Reservoir right now. The place is currently a little… dead.
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Joy made the gown for her Jane doll (from Disney's Tarzan) with some tissue and scotch tape. I am impressed by her fashion sense and ability to use the materials around her.
If this continues, she may become a world-famous fashion designer, then I can retire.
I also had this conversation with her while I was brushing her hair…
Joy: "Papa, how will I find a husband like Mommy found you, someone who makes good rules?"
Me: "You are too young to be thinking about a husband lah. But thank you for thinking I am a good catch for Mommy."
One of my friends on Facebook said, "Wow, for a kid to call 'em 'good rules'… Must be really good… Please give examples :)"
So I decided to share a few of "Papa's Rules for His Kids", compiled in one place for the first time:
Rule 1: Thou shalt not read during dinner.
Rule 2: Thou shalt not watch TV during dinner.
Rule 3: Thou shalt greet thy parents in the morning. Preferably in Cantonese.
Rule 4: Thou shalt not take toys with thee when you go out.
Rule 5: Thou shalt not draw on Papa's walls.
Rule 6: Thou shalt stick thy stickers only on the assigned cupboard.
Rule 7: Thou shalt NEVER EVER hit Faith, your 姐姐, who has autism, and must always love her. Cheh Cheh does not know what she is doing sometimes.
Rule 8. Thou shalt do the morning rituals of BBB (Breakfast, Bath, Brush teeth) as quickly as possible every day and not dilly dally.
Rule 9. Thou shalt ask permission before taking Papa or Mommy's toys from the display cabinet.
Rule 10. Thou shalt not ask for toys whenever we walk into a toy store just to browse, nor shalt thou ask for Happy Meals every time we walk into a McDonald's.
Rule 11. Thou shalt not run buck naked to the living room after a bath. Wrap thyself with a towel and change in your bedroom, by yourself, and close the door. Do not dance in the living room in your towel either.
Rule 12. Do not attempt to replenish orange-coloured paper by photocopying your last orange-coloured paper on Papa's inkjet printer.
Rule 13. Thou shalt keep thy toys after playing with them. Papa is tired of getting jabbed to death by random Lego bricks or Power Rangers every time he sits on the sofa.
Rule 14. Thou shalt refrain from asking Papa to buy yet another Ben 10 or Barbie sticker magazine from the Cheers store every time we visit 婆婆 and 公公. They cost $5 and you finish the activities in the magazines within 5 minutes and lose interest.
Rule 15. Thou shalt not whine or cry when it is time to leave someone's house after a fun day there. Say thank you and goodbye.
Rule 16. Pray daily. Especially for 姐姐.
Rule 17. Thou shalt obey before Papa counts to three. Or else.
Rule 18. Thou shalt answer the home telephone politely with a "Hello" at all times. "Yes?" is not an acceptable telephone greeting.
Rule 19. Thou shalt only operate Papa's and Monmy's computers/iPhones with permission/supervision. Thou shalt not buy apps without asking Papa and Monmy first.
Rule 20. Thou shalt go to bed by 9.30pm, 10pm latest. And thou shalt not talk and giggle in the room but go to sleep as soon as possible.
Rule 21. Thou shalt not speak to strangers or take sweets or toys from them. Toys acquired this way will be confiscated by Papa. Forever.
Rule 22. Thou shalt dine at the dining table. Not ON the dining table.
Rule 23. Thou must never scream, slam doors or lose your temper at Papa, Mommy or Grandma. Or any elder, for that matter. The consequences will be dire if this happens.
Rule 24. Thou shalt not ask for soft drinks, especially with ice, at meals outside. We have your water bottles, you may drink from that. In the event that Papa and Mommy allow you to have the occasional soft drink, thou wilt share said can of soda between you. Nobody gets a full can.
Rule 25. Thou shalt love thy siblings with all your heart. Even if you fight sometimes because one of you thinks it's funny to repeat the words of the other. Even if you argue over who is the winner at mealtimes. Even if sometimes, Faith breaks one of your toys.
P.S. Papa's cane is not to be used as a sword in a pirate reenactment.
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Our SIMI podcast makes it to Taiwan news, with Chinese subtitles! More than 200,000 views for this Chinese-subtitled version alone! And there is two other fan-made videos of the podcast, with more than 100,000 views each!
That's more than 400,000 views!!! If we include the 120,000 downloads of the mp3 at our server (as of 26 October 2011), the podcast has crossed the half-million mark! More than 500,000 have listened to the show!
Wow, thanks for the support!
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Photo: ST
The papers announced the opening of the "Venice of Punggol" today.
I am surprised they started with Punggol. I thought it'd be easier to open the "Venice of Bukit Timah" or the "Venice of Orchard Road" first.
That boat PM is riding looks like the perfect way to travel down Bukit Timah when we get one of our Once-in-Fifty-Years floods.
In other public transport news, the Public Transport Council (PTC) recently fined SBS and SMRT for their service lapses.
The bus companies were fined a princely sum of $700 and $300 respectively.
That's showing them who is boss, PTC. I am sure the bus companies are quivering in their boots now.
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The SBS iris bus iPhone app has an update in iTunes.
What's added?
"Enable advertisement feature".
Why, SBS? Fare hikes not enough for you ah? Even an app that helps your customers use your buses more, you also want to make money from.
No wonder SBS blocked the third-party apps the last time.
Well, at least they were honest about the reason in their app update page. Go to their app and give them a star to tell them how you feel about this new "feature" maybe?
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In response to WP's Sylvia Lim's reference to Bhutan and its gross national happiness index, National Development Minister Khaw Boon Wan gave his take on Bhutan and explained why Bhutan is not Shangri-La.
My friend Gwee decided to find out for himself, and asked the Shangri-La directly.
There you go. Bhutan is no Shangri-La. But their Queen Jetsun Pema still very chio.
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Photo by shellfish
The Circle Line is finally fully open! We speak to the excited new commuters at mrbrownshow.com!
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The (unintentionally) funniest Singapore-related Facebook page right now is Occupy Singapore. This bunch, with much fanfare, announced that they too, will join the Occupy movement that started with Occupy Wall Street in New York City.
On Saturday, Occupy Raffles Place was to take place under the leadership of these mysterious rebels without a clue. At zero hour, well, zero turned up. There were more journos there than protesters. I suppose the image above predicted the event well: "0 were here".
Photo by The Online Citizen: I love the "What are you looking for" ad in the background.
Later on, it was revealed that the organizers did show up. But they did not identify themselves to anybody, much less the media. Some who showed up for the event blamed the organizers for not coordinating things better. Comments ridiculing the organizers showed up on their Facebook page soon after.
Even the parody Facebook page, Occupy Bishan MRT proclaimed that they had more people in their "occupation" of Bishan station. Their comment on Occupy Singapore's FB page was promptly deleted.
The Occupy Singapore lot has since resorted to posting links to grave injustice and Occupy movements elsewhere, to show they mean business. And maybe to draw attention away from their aborted protest.
There were even self-delusional posts celebrating the courage of those who, er, showed up (whoever they were). Which prompted one guy who showed up to call them a joke.
I think my friend Gwee summed it up best with his take on their slogan:
"We will not remain silent. But we will remain absent."
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It is rare to see such honesty in mainstream media. Unless it was a Freudian slip, and "bring" was typed instead of "bridge".
I wonder how the PA plans to bridge their gap with the people. Will we need to lease a "non-partisan" bridge from them?
Frankly, I think the gap is so wide, a bridge isn't going to help. Even a new MRT line also not enough.
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I have no idea how a hand dryer can get this nasty. It's like no one has cleaned it for years. When the air blows, that black little snotty bit on the bottom right flaps in the wind.
It's as if the aliens from Alien dried their hands in there.
The best part is, when I showed it on Twitter, people actually recognised WHICH toilet it came from, just from the photo. It's the Tanjong Pagar MRT toilet.
SMRT, you may want to clean that mess up.
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Is this the male pop group equivalent of Rebecca Black?
So bad, it's good. It's like watching five Justin Biebers performing. I hope it's a parody.
"Could you confirm to this request
Agree to the terms of service
The message has been sent
And all I wanna do is
Put a heart on your page, heart - heart on your page
Let's make it official
Baby you and me - you and me
Facebook official"
Youtube: http://mrbrwn.co/p11u1z
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Update: Some tried this and failed. Quite spectacularly.
If Singapore had an "Occupy Wall Street" protest in Raffles Place, we'd probably do it with tissue packets and come back later.
Or we'd send our maids to queue for us first.
{via}
@Latinfunke thinks we should call ours "Chope Wall Street".
{via}
Anyway, Singaporeans can't afford to occupy Raffles Place. The rent would be too high. And after office hours, it's a pain to get a cab.
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Stand by for your humble digital helper, coming to a phone near you at mrbrownshow.com!
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Steve Jobs has passed away at age 56. Thank you, Steve, for all your vision and innovation. My careers would not have been possible without your inventions.
I thought it would be good to share this video of his inspiring commencement address to Stanford University in 2005: "How to live before you die."
Youtube link: http://mrbrwn.co/plxRqB
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A most unfortunate name for a cleaning company, methinks.
(Taken by Paul Y on FB)
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I guess there wasn't an iPhone 5 announcement after all. Turns out it was ONLY an iPhone 4S… same casing as the 4 but with a faster dual-core A5 processor, a faster 8MP camera, 1080p HD video recording and iOS5 with the creepy SIRI voice-control AI assistant ("Siri, do you ever feel like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again?").
Gua gua.
Apple announcing an iPhone 4S instead of an iPhone 5 is like you wishing for the "Six Million Dollar Man" Steve Austin action figure and your mom buying you the Oscar Goldman action figure instead.
If you feel you need to lie down like the iPhone 4S above, to take all that disappointment in, go ahead.
No new form factor, no bigger screen, no new number FIVE.
Casing makers who jumped the gun and made tear-drop shaped "iPhone 5" casings must be feeling a little sad now.
I shall stay home a little longer today, for I fear the disappointed mobs of iPhone 5 fans rioting on the streets.
I have to say even I was not immune to the hype. My telco's customer service rep called me recently to tell me I could recontract right away for an iPhone 4, but I told her I was going to "wait for the iPhone 5". I bet she is laughing her ass off now.
For some of you, who bought the 3GS when the iPhone was finally out for the non-SingTel telcos two years ago, this is about the time your contract ends. If you didn't get an iPhone 4 in the interim (probably at full price), this means that the 4S is your logical next upgrade.
Sure you can wait for the iPhone 5, whenever THAT is going to arrive. OR you can go into a hissy fit and buy a Samsung Galaxy S II. I heard the Galaxy S II has been waiting with open arms to welcome the disillusioned iPhone 5 masses. OR you can even get the upcoming Samsung Nexus Prime, rumoured descendent of Optimus Prime.
Speaking of which, why does LG name their smartphones Optimus and Samsung name theirs Prime? Do their phones combine together to form a Transformer?
I will probably get the 4S for the wife, given that her 3GS is already reaching the end of her tech cycle (which is longer than mine, which is 2 minutes instead of 2 years). It will be a big leap for her. Also, I have paid too much for her Cooking Mama app to move her to another OS.
Me, I was more interested in the iPod nano announcement.
I'd love to wear the nano with a TikTok or Lunatik strap… because Apple just released 16 new watch faces and one of them is a MICKEY MOUSE WATCH! ZOMG!!!
So I wouldn't say I was completely let down by the keynote. But for many of you, I fear, the S in iPhone 4S will stand for "Sian" or at least "Sianhalf". For some, it may even stand for "SIMISAI!"
Hey, look on the bright side: your tasteful Hello Kitty iPhone 4 case with the Swarovski crystals will still work on the new iPhone 4S.
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