Constructive Deconstruction

Picture of the day: Alice The Ninja

I spent the remnants of Christmas having coffee with 3 really wonderful people - Alice, Jean and Edmund(who drove us all home after that)…and i’d like to share a piece of the evening with you…I present to you…

Alice The Ninja

…and if you’re wondering why she was in that, she was defending herself against a lone mosquito. Ho ho ho!

How I Spent Christmas 2008

For some reason, today, I woke up early. In fact, I woke up many times. There was a problem though…I had nothing to do. Ok, I have work to do but I refused to do work today - at least not while everyone else is celebrating one of the most popular holidays ever.

Even if you weren’t christian, it’s become such a huge day that it’s a day you can’t escape.

So how did I spend my day?

I slept. And I slept a lot. I woke up just in time to have breakfast with parents afterwhich I turned on the TV and caught some show about 2 kids who had their bodies switched. After 10 minutes, it started to get cliche(although the girls were quite cute) so I switched it off and lay down on my bed. I promptly fell asleep.

When I woke up again, I decided to spend some time trying to ask if anyone would wanna grab a cup of coffee. For a brief moment, I was determined not to sleep my day away. Alas, I’m here blogging at 6.20pm so you can guess how that went.

But I had an interesting dream after I slept once again after that try-to-get-coffeemates session.

I dreamt I rushed to some hotel where Fenghong was having some huge gathering and catered the FishNCo people. I got there just in time after they’ve all packed so I just shook his hand and said, “Thanks for organising.” Then immediately after that, I fell asleep(yes I was even falling asleep in the dream!). There, some other JC Council friend of mine woke me up and was cautioning me against driving home…so guess what I did?

I checked into some kickass hotel. The valet took my car and I was ushered up to some room with a heavenly huge bed! And they served me food too! I was…the biggest, most tasty, crispiest fried chicken ever! It was so big and so nice I just had to share it with someone. But there was no one to share it with. The streets were empty and everyone seemed busy(i think i had this impression in my dream because of the coffee thing) So there I was eating this divine piece of fried chicken when it struck me…”Shit. How much is this one night stay in my own country - just so I could sleep in - cost me?”

I decided to sleep first and in the morning I gave the reception a call on the pretence of wanting to know how much cash to prepare…and she said so matter-of-factly, “$6600″. omfg!

after what seemed like 10 secs of emotional rush, I woke up.

What a dream.

Amongst some interesting sights in my dream:-

1. Orchard was devoid of people. Not a single soul except me.
2. The hotel I stayed in had like 8 elevators servicing my level. And when you pressed the button, it only calls for the ones to its immediate left and right. So I had to walk down the corridor and press 7 buttons…although pressing 4 would have sufficed.
3. There some old angmoh guy in my dream. He smiled when I came for Fenghong’s party. I have no idea who he is
4. The bellhop at my hotel was this Indian fellow…superbly nice guy. If anything in the dream was worth that $6600 fee, it would have been him.
5. There was no Internet anywhere in my dream. Haha
6. There was a genuine fear of not having enough money to pay.

So there, That was how I spent my xmas day….Dreaming.

Veron sells water?

Heh, Uzyn and I were settling some admin matters a few days ago and guess what we saw?

Is Veron moonlighting and selling water in Malaysia? Why you never tell us?!

Pong your way to infamy on Ping.sg

I’m connected to the local blog aggregator over at ping.sg and it’s interesting(although sometimes irritating) to see how posts gets ponged all the way to infamy.

For the uninitiated, blogs ‘ping’ the site and have their entries listed in the main page. Then as users click to view the entry, the site regards each click as a vote to indicate the user’s interest in the entry…that vote is called a ‘pong’. While there flaws in that logic, it was initially designed to be a system that’s favourable in such a passive state like ours. No one gives a shit about clicking a thumbs up or down…a digg-like system would almost certainly fail.

Anyhow, it’s a friday afternoon and I’m finding all sorts of reasons to not do work so I’ve decided to post a short piece on the factors affecting how you climb the cor-pong-arate ladder.

1. What time do you post your entry?
Now this has a tremendous effect. Imagine if you post at 3.30am with almost no one online but with a steady stream of other pings coming in every half hour or so. By the time the crowd and the lurker community comes in full force, you’ll find you ping on the next page. Who’s going to see it?

Contrast this with if you ping around lunch time, or just before knockoff time, you’ll get a sizeable number of pings to get you going. If other conditions are right, you’ll get a 10th placing and you’ll be well on your way to infamy.

2. Do you market your ping.sg URL?
Now this is somewhat debatable. The founder of ping.sg had mentioned before that the system wasn’t about tracking approval ratings of the entry. So what some users have done is to put their ping.sg post url onto the MSN nicks, forums, emails and all sorts of mediums. It’s crazy if when you see a post thats only a few hours old and they’ve got hundreds of pongs.

I don’t like people who do this…especially when they do it all the way to no….though I admit, i’ve done it to get to #10.

3. Don’t cheat our feelings
I know of internet marketers who use ping.sg. Unfortunately, I think the novelty of their suggestive titles have begun working against them. From my interaction with other users, a lot of people stop clicking the entry by virtue of who’s posting it. So if you want long-term pongs…don’t cheat people of their feelings.

4. Content: Is it controversial?
This plays on people’s ego. Giving an alternative perspective about why you think Singaporeans are lazy sheep would definitely make you want to know if you fit into that writer’s argument right? How about taking it closer to home and write about why ping.sg are actually loners who can’t get a life outside of the geek-zone?

5. Sleazy Titles please
This beats all the rest hands down. I even want to go so far as to say nothing else matters except this. Put up an entry with sexual connotations and you only need to worry about other sex-crazed pings. Be careful not to just put sexy titles just to get clicks though lest you break rule #3. Ensure that it’s coupled with sexy, raunchy pictures..or better still. Videos.

That’s it!
Do add your own analysis of what makes it possible to pong your way to infamy.

Warning.

I don’t know you. But it seems you know quite a bit about me, and my family. And it seems you’re making serious threats to my family.

Now, i’ll be honest with you. I don’t who you are. I don’t know how exactly much you know. But if you get here, and you’re reading this. Then yes, this is for you.

I am warning you to stay away from my entire family. Settle. If you want, we meet, we settle it one time…If you harm anyone, i’ll tell you what’s going to happen. I’ll drop all my plans - school & work - and I will find you. And I will find everyone who’s working for you. And I will find your family. And I will taste their blood.

From what I know, you sound like an educated person. But if you cannot understand me, i’ll make it simple for you.

You don’t disturb my family, I don’t disturb yours. If you do, i’ll kill your mother, your father, your brother, your sister, your wife, your girlfriends, your children.
…I can find you.

The Male Perspective

I got this of misussingapore.blogspot.com …I think it’s an interesting read…heh

We always hear the rules from the female side. Now here are the rules from the male side. These are our rules Please note these are all numbered “1 ON PURPOSE!

1. Breasts are for looking at and that is why we do it Don’t try to change that

1.2 Learn to work the toilet seat. You’re a big girl If its up, put it down We need it up, you need it down. You don’t hear us complaining about you leaving it down.

1.3 Saturday = sports. It’s like the full moon or the changing of the tides. Let it be

1.4 Shopping is NOT a sport. And no, we are never going to think of it that way.

1.5 Crying is blackmail.

1.6 Ask for what you want. Let us be clear on this one: Subtle hints do not work! Strong hints do not work! Obvious hints do not work! JUST SAY IT!

1.7 ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ are perfectly acceptable answers to almost every question. Come to us with a problem only if you want help solving it. That’s what we do - sympathy is what your girlfriends are for.

1.8 A headache that lasts for 17 months is a problem See a doctor

1.9 Anything we said 6 months ago is inadmissible in an argument In fact all comments become null and void after 7 days

1.10 If you think you’re fat, you probably are. Don’t ask us

1.11 If something we said can be interpreted two ways, and one of the ways makes you sad or angry, we meant the other one

1.12 You can either ask us to do something or tell us how you want it done Not both If you already know best how to do it, just do it yourself

1.13 Whenever possible please say whatever you have to say during commercials

1.14 Christopher Columbus did not need directions and neither do we

1.15 ALL men see in only 16 colours, like Windows default settings. Peach, for example, is a fruit, not a colour Pumpkin is also a fruit. We have no idea what mauve is.

1.16 If it itches, it will be scratched We do that.

1.17 If we ask what is wrong and you say nothing,’ we will act like nothing’s wrong We know you are lying but it is just not worth the hassle

1.18 If you ask a question you don’t want an answer to, expect an answer you don’t want to hear

1.19 When we have to go some where, absolutely anything you wear is fine, Really

1.20 Don t ask us what we’re thinking about unless you are prepared to discuss such topics as Sex, Sport, or Cars

1.21 You have enough clothes

1.23 You have too many shoes

1.24 I am in shape. Round is a shape

Stressed? Chill out!

If you see a picture of pig smiling at you, you are stressed.

So, are you stressed?

If you are, chill out! Here are the top 10 videos you can watch:-

They must be insane…

Video: Mac Ad