Blog Blog Blogging away

Have you ever watched Floyd, Keith Floyd on the Travel and Living Channel?

I’ve watched Floyd’s culinary shows since…well, since cable was around and I must say, there was never a time when the man did not have any alcohol around him. Be it in Egypt, India, Hong Kong, Africa or where ever else he has been to. Somehow, he manages to slip in a pint or two into his receipes. He usually carry a wine bottle ( those metal flask type) around, I’ve noticed.

So on this slow and boring Wednesday morning I was watching Floyd in Africa. There he goes again….invading some poor peasant’s home and presenting his splendid gastronomical spread, with beer of course.

I watched with concentrated interest as Floyd explained his simple dish of Chicken stew to the lady of the house he had invaded.In his standard starched white and crisp shirt and tailored pants, he said something like this….

Floyd: We add the chicken, which has been grilled into the pot here…then a little bit of beer…

(Floyd takes a great swig of the beer before he pours the remaining into the pot)

Floyd: okay…maybe we add a little bit more beer….

(Floyd proceeds to empty out another bottle…till the fire caught and he nearly had a flambe’ stew)

It was classic Floyd. He makes cooking so easy and fun that even a drunk could do it.

The Great Guzzler Cook Extraordinare

The man is serious about his alcohol….I remembered an episode where he was learning the fine art of cooking black pepper crabs. He actually relished the part where he needed to pour rice wine into the wok….and he actually took a swig from the bottle too! It was rice wine! Damn….watching him I could almost smell the food and the strong wine aromas….

Despite his hearty and enthusiastic approach to wine drinking though, Floyd does not forget the real star of his show-FOOD.

Every single dish he cooked, looked real good and tantalising. Hm…I wonder if wine does make a difference? Maybe I can ditch receipes and just cook something up, as long as I add wine……the food should taste good. If you think about it, after the first bite of alcohol laden food, your mind’s probably too muddled to let you know if it was the worst or best dish in the world.

Hm….wine, alcohol….an ingredient worth considering.

Just watched Mr & Mrs Smith on Monday.

A pretty hot and funny movie starring two of the hottest persons in Hollywood right now. Mr Smith is Mr Pitt while Mrs Smith is Ms Jolie. It’s like dipping mashmellows into a cup of hot cocoa. Hot, chewy, exciting and very compatible. Incidentally, the directors supposedly cut a scene wherein the couple had a kid. They were planning to create a nice ending to lead on into a sequel. Ah well, it’ll be on the DVD though.

The only thing I remembered most about the movie was Angelina Jolie’s lips. The seemed a little parched and dry, and all too pouty to be real-I thought.

So I brought the subject up to the D-man and the Panster over some dimsum at Wan Dou Sek (cantonese pronunciation) somewhere along Geylang. Immediately, both of them defended Ms Jolie and said that the lips were real, natural. What about in Hackers? I thought they did not look too pouty then….

"…she used to cover it with the make up…" D-man proceeds to emphasize his point by mimicking the lipstick application thingy. I was still sceptical. How much can make up hide?
So I scoured the net for before & now pictures and turned up two:

<< scene from Hackers

<< current picture

I kept trying to figure out what it was about THE LIPS and I figured that I might have remembered wrongly cos, like the D-man and the Panster claimed, they looked real and in no way different from then and now. So why did I think there was anything done??

Well, I figured out why:

    << scene from Hackers

    << mugshot from a current picture

It’s the fringe. Oh man, she had yucky fringe then! Alright, I am wrong. Angelina Jolie is all real. She’s the women’s woman. The epitome of feminity and voluptousness.

Here’s a little tidbit from the D-man and the Panster:

1)You may be sleeping with your eyes closed but, really you’re not asleep because you’re conscious of your surroundings. BUT you’re actually sleeping.

2)Yes, there’s water in watermelons. That’s why they are called, WATER-melons.

3)There’s a reason why no one’s driving on that other lane.

I love being jobless with access to the internet and my own spending money.

For the past few days, I have been catching up on my first love, baseball. Partly because of the movie ‘Eight Men Out" which reignited my love for the game. So I spent the whole of Sunday night all through the morning just checking out about Joe Jackson.

Who’s Joe Jackson-you say? His full name is Joseph Jefferson Jackson. One of the best baseball player in Major League Baseball except for the fact that he is banned from being mentioned in the National Baseball Hall of Fame, because of the 1919 White Sox scandal in the world series then. To me, it does not matter whether ’shoeless’ Joe was guilty or not, he was THE MAN. He had an average .356 throughout the worldseries then. I have seen old footages of his batting abilities (thanks to the internet) and I thought he had a good style and stance, which apparently, Babe Ruth-yes THAT Babe Ruth, too agreed and copied.  This was a man who was a natural at the game. He could bat, catch and run. He loved the game, that much was clear enough. After his ban in 1920, he went on to play in minor unprofessional leagues during the summers.
                                                                                                                               
I believe in talent and skills and this guy, Joe, has it. He has paid his price for the scandal and never played professional baseball again. He died in December 1951 and, was still denied a place in the National Baseball Hall of Fame. To be included in the hall, he must be removed from the list of in-eligibles of the MLB.

SO, what did I do besides joining his ‘Shoeless’Joe Jackson society?  I decided to write my own petition letter to the current Commissioner of Major League Baseball in New York. Here is an excerpt of my letter:

" Dear Sir

RE: JOSEPH JEFFERSON JACKSON
(DECEASED)

With regards to the above, I am
writing to express my support for the clearing of Mr Joseph Jefferson Jackson’s
name from Major League Baseball’s ineligible list.

I am aware that you have probably
received many of such letters and petitions. Many of which proclaiming that an
injustice had been done.

I am twenty-six years old and
come from a country that does not play baseball but football. In my opinion,
baseball is the real sporting game that showcases talent without the need for
brute force and violence. It is truly a game I respect and wished it was
actively played in my own country.

To me, baseball is a part of the
American culture and it saddens me to learn that Mr Joseph Jefferson Jackson is
not given the chance to be considered for a place in the National Baseball Hall
of Fame.

With your help, Mr Joseph
Jefferson Jackson will finally be recognized for his talents and his part in
America’s baseball history no matter the scandal. In fact, the White Sox
scandal was a very big part of baseball history and it has led to the
appointment of former Commissioner Landis. As I understand it, the National
Baseball Hall of Fame’s tag is ‘Preserving History. Honouring Excellence.
Connecting Generations’ .

As I have learned, Mr Jackson had
never gone against former Comissioner Landis’ ruling during his lifetime and,
he has passed on for 50 years already. I do believe, as does the Shoeless Joe
Jackson Society, that Mr Jackson has already carried out his sentence in full
and that it should have ended in December 1951 with his death. As you probably
know, Mr Jospeh Jefferson Jackson was an excellent ball player. He had talent
and he made the game exciting for his fans during the World Series. He was
their idol and he is still remembered to this day by faithful followers of the
game and even by a new fan like myself.

I really hope and wish that a
truly talented ball player like Mr Joseph Jefferson Jackson will finally be a
part of the eligible list, even if it is posthumous. And this cannot be
realised without your help, Mr Commissioner.

Please let the Major League
Baseball truly bury the past and forgive Mr Jackson.

Thank You."

Well, I sent the letter out to the Honourable Alan H.Selig yesterday. Hope it’ll help in the cause of righting a wrong.

If you are interested to know more about Joe Jackson, check out www.blackbetsy.com (blackbetsy is the name of his fave bat, if you must know)

As you’ve realised, there’re 2 entries in my blog today.

It could mean that I had, a good day or, a superbly boring day with nothing much to do but blog away…. take your pick.

I started my day simply enough since the weather naturally narrowed down my options from bathing my dog and cat(ok-so my cat has this water phobia but I do try to clean him as often as time permits) to a nice jog (haha not likely BUT the thought was there) to meeting Alan.

Took a nice stroll out to the MRT station,boarded a train to Tampies Mall. Enroute, watched as a couple made googly googly eyes at a poor hapless baby in a pram who was probably wondering what those idiots were up to.

Met Alan, had free lunch at Pasta Mania (complementary of ALan) gossiped abit about people we know and occasionally reminisce about our better days. Talked cock (speaking of which, I came upon that same Cock again just now) and listened to words of wisdom by the man ‘who’s going to make it big’ (Alan).

Now home, I logged on to check out Sarong Party Girl’s blog (which is excellent by the way). Listen to Foo Fighter’s latest song and mentally adding it to my checklist of songs to download.

So, what about Sarong Party Girl’s blog? I thought it was smart, witty and a definite chick blog to read. She writes so much better than Xiaxue(whatever her real name is) and her blogs show someone who actually has class instead of crass(Xiaxue). Despite the reports in ST and TNP, SPG is worth your while to check out, you learn something new about our society. She deserves more than those narrowly reported articles in the papers who concentrated more on the fact that she posed nude, she writes really well. Her take/views on certain aspects of her life is refreshing and honest, it is not filled with vulgalarities or threats to ‘bitch-slap’ people who does not agree with her on anything. It has now become one of my daily blog reads alongside the D-man’s.

‘I tear my heart open, I sew myself shut. My weaknesses- that I can’t do much and my scars remind me that my past is real…’ Papa Roach~Scars

On a hot and lazy afternoon on a Sunday in June, short and frumpy-looking Anna sat down at her desk in her newly re-arranged bedroom. Avril Lavign sings to her about falling to pieces and not wanting a conversation, through the radio. Anna leans back in her chair, staring at her PC screen, her mind a complete blank.

Not that her mind is devoid of any thought or mental capabilities but, she needed to clear her mind and allow herself for some serious reflection.

You see, she spent 5 years of her adulthood working in a legal firm doing everything from being an ‘Ah-Soh’ to a legal secretary to a IT ‘expert’ to a receptionist. In the meantime, she formed a close bond with the only other colleague(besides the boss), was there when one of the lawyers finally became a proud papa to a pair of twins, shared the joys of festivities,occasional office lunches with the boss and her colleague and, was part of the new era of Singapore’s legal system. All in, she had a good 5 years. But, it was 5 years spent not achieving something more meaningful in her life. You could say that she had reached a point in her life where she had begun to experience QLC (Quarter Life Crisis).

So, on this hot Sunday afternoon despite an overcast sky, Anna allowed herself some time to reflect on her experiences and lessons learnt in the last 5 years.

For one thing, Anna realises that the legal sector in Singapore is not as glamourous as it is made out to be by young and ambitious lawyers who had just passed the bar. Give them 3 years and they’ll start bitching about the constraints and limitations in the legal system.

For another, nothing shocking phases her out anymore. She has learnt that Singaporeans are capable of doing incredibly stupid things and land themselves in trouble. She has also realised the value of life, money, insurance and familial ties.

What goes around, always comes around. Call it karma if you like.

Anna finally looks at her Doraimon clock and realises that she had spent at least forty mins on reflection and another twenty mins to blog them.

With her foot tapping along to Led Zeppelin’s ‘Lonely Time’, she proceeds to end off her blog…..

Five years and no longer counting.

I am officially out of a job (for a week at least). If you thought I had lots of time to reflect and go into deep restrospect of my last five years, you’re wrong.

The first day of my life as an unemployed was spent……..re-thrashing my room. Yup. The night before I bought a shelve and 2 racks, and now my room has to be re-arranged to fit them in. My father was appalled when he looked into my room,"…for these 3 things you are tearing everything apart? You just bought these 3 only?" eyes wide and visible creases cutting across his forehead,possibly mentally bracing himself for the hours of vacumm noise drowning out his karaoke system. ‘Country road….take me home…..to a place….where I belongggg……..’  <cut in> VOOOOOOMM…..VOOooooom……bang BANG BANG bang……Vooom..VOOOooom  <faintly> ‘…west virginia….take me home…’

Speaking solely for myself, I believe that furnitures in a room does not become a person. It is the constant touch and attention of the person who gives the furnitures in a room, meaning and memories. Thus, re-arranging the furnitures in my room happens as long as I feel that a phase has passed or, I’m just sick and tired of tripping over loose cables running around the room or that misplaced magazine…..

I told myself that I would only devote 8 hrs to the re-construction of normal room living conditions but everything came to a standstill when I flipped through an old file containing some memorabilia.

Damn! I forgot how much I used to love musicals and theatre productions like Chicago…Sound of Music…A Chorus Line….Guys & Dolls…..The American Spirit Ballads….Riverdance……A Forbidden Muscial and etc. Flipping through the programme book for Chang & Eng, I can’t believe that I still have RJ Rosales’ autograph. Damn, my mom’s favourite performer/singer. Memories of all those wasted time spent waiting for my mom in the lobby as she yakked away with RJ after each and every performance he did for Chang & Eng (my mom went for 3 shows in that production alone) and as well as for all the other productions that had him in it. Geez.

Flipping through some more stuff brought back memories of concerts I’d been to and loved. Garbage…Sentosa Music Festival…Sheryl Crowe….Pearl Jam……Suede…..sigh….I’m still waiting for U2, the ultimate band in concert experience! Then there’re all those mini showcases which Arnold performed at…..UWC Arts Festival, Talkshop, Ngee Ann….. Damn….I forgot the Nitro Punk Bunnies. You know, I actually liked the Nitro Punk BUnnies when they were performing at UWC(United World College). Pure…raw….and ernest rock energy. THen Greenslide, slid down with ‘Drowing in a cesspool of…’ I forgot the title but I must still have that cassette somewhere…I’ll probably find it when I reach the music section of my room…hahah

The longer I linger over each and every item, the more reluctant I am to part with them. My room is like a mini junkyard. I have so many books of various disciplines( I guess, a reflection of my academia life) programming books…electronic books….graphic designing books…marketing books..advertising books…public relation books….insurance books (yeah, I am a certified agent too)…japanese books….german books….french books….and my treasured collection of The Belgariade series and Mallorean series. Ah! I even found the one and only copy of ‘Shen Diao Xia Nu’ which belongs to KKK(Garet, I swear I will return the book to KKK). Hahah I remember the nights spent deciphering character by character with the help of the Zi Dian(chinese-english dictionary) and when I finally got to Chapter 2, TCS was already showing their version of the series starring Fann Wong. So, the book remained on the shelve ever since. Then there are all the CDs..VCDs..DVDs… wires…magazines….knick knacks…softball bat…stuff toys…

So after 2 whole days of hard labour as a banglah by choice, my room is finally fit for me to live in. I am proud to say that in the course of the re-construction, I’ve earned a few brusies,scrapes and cuts on my hands and legs. Like battle scars…each one with a story. That blardy big round bruise on the knee is when I struggled and fought with that blardy Aneboda wardrobe from Ikea.

Tomorrow, I’ll start reflecting on the last five years of my working life .

By the way, I threw out 5 thrash bags.

So after a whole week of intensive blogging, I disappeared over the weekend.

Haha I was just plain lazy and the fact that I was sick did nothing to motivate me to log in.

So what’d I do over the weekend-besides nursing a flu(am still nursing the flu)?

I had the opportunity to watch…..DEVDAS. Yes, that indian movie starring Aishwarya Rai and Shah Rukh Khan. Oooh man, it was the most lovely indian period movie ever. A true classic that actually had me tearing at the end when the beautiful Paro was running through the huge and majestic palace-like house of hers to reach the gate to catch a final glimspe of Devdas before he died.

Mush moments were aplenty and this is all thanks to the fantastic chemistry between Shah Rukh Khan and Aishwarya Rai which prevented those mushy scenes from becoming absolutely slush. I especially loved the scene when he snuck up on Paro as she slept and prevented the flame on the lamp from being put out. Short, sweet tender moments…..sigh…..Shah Rukh Khan is THE MAN of Bollywood movies. Aishwarya Rai is THE VENUS. ALLlll right gotta stop re-living the movie, I’ll just buy the vcd and relive it again *grin*

Monday night, had a wedding dinner to attend. The wedding of Chris and Serene ( my project mates during my FYP in poly) Not surprising that they are finally wed BUT that Serene looked resplendent and beautiful( in a soon -to be proud mama) way. Five to Six months pregnant and beautiful. ABSOLUTELY no thanks to Garet for saying "underage mother"…"underage bride"….she is NOT underage, just look it. Actually I thought she looked really ‘tian mi mi’ like most brides do on their big night.

Well, I actually had the opportunity to meet up with another ex-poly mate, Ms Jeslynn and husband. She’s gonna be a tai-tai (the modern kind) though she probably doesn’t realise it yet. Gonna have a nail spa opened in 2 weeks timel….. wow! Here I am, quitting my job of 5 years (5 years of my LIFE-that will be another post) starting anew in a WHOLE different field, from scratch. I don’t think I’ll ever realise my dreams o opening the first ever ‘Fangtasia-Rent/Buy 2nd Hand Goth bookshop cum Cafe’  I had it all planned out, I was gonna open a bookstore that specialises in goth books, paranormal novels, rare supernatural books (stuff you can’t ever find in BORDERS or Kino) and I was even gonna call it ‘Fangtasia’ (of course with permission from Ms Charlaine Harris 1st). A complete niche market to totally satisfy the bookworm in me and my love of horror stories. Sigh…..it was all so perfect, in my dreams. I even had the shop layout in my dreams……sigh.

I guess, that’s why life is always perfect, in dreams.

Cockadoodledo!
The cock went up the wall
The watch said 6
The Cock flew down
Cockadoodledo!

Cockadoodledo!
The cock stayed put in place
The human said, WTF?
The cock said, ‘Go turn yourself’
Cockadoodledo!

Cockadoodledon’t!
The cock is back again
Nasty and fat
Eyes big and beady
Cockadoodledon’t!

Cockadoodledon’t!
The human is back again
WIth a big black pot and
teriyaki sauce
Cockadoodledon’t no more!

~As you’ve probably guessed, I met THAT creature again.

It was a warm and humid evening as I made my way home after work this Monday evening. Walking under the sparesly green covered trees that lined the streets all the way to my home. With my Ipod plugged in and Poison’s Brett Michaels asking for ‘Something to Believe In’, I was totally relaxed and calm.

Then I saw him.

I could not believe what I was seeing, sure as hell, in broad evening light, tufts of red , black and brown were fluttering over the wall of a corner house-over a 1-metre wide drain and directly into my path with an audible ‘plack’

It was THAT cock! The very cock that gave me the evil eye every morning, last year. The same cock that attacked me when I had accidentally fell into his ’sweetheart’s path(I will not repeat this story, period). Incidentally, I think his sweetheart has progressed beyond his possessiveness into someone’s cooking pot -hahahah

Right now, he stared defiantly at me, his claws dugged into the ground, his wings tensed against his portly feathered body and his feathers absolutely poised for action.

I considered  crossing the road but decided to stand my ground. Damn it! THis was a stupid cock. Why the hell do I let myself be intimidated by it? Why? Just coz it got me on my ankles the last time? Just coz that during that said time it managed to instill such fear in me with its war cries and charge that I practically tripped over my sandals running away from him?? Why?Is it because I no longer thing of him as ‘it’ but some sick psycho dressed as a cock??

Dismissing me as not important, he turned his head to stare at the wall he just flew over. I hope he smash into the wall when he attempt to "fly" back in.

THough I would have loved to stay and watch his ‘flight’ back in, I took that as my chance and scram past it, all the while conscious of his evil eye boring holes into my back.

I snuck a glance back and found THAT cock on the other side of the drain, crouched- probably lying in wait for his next unsuspecting victim.

Seriously, I swear this cock has some mental problems. He forgets its a cock. He crows in the afternoon, attacks people and, I’m not surpprised if he attacked the cats as well since I have not seen any strays along that particular stretch.

Thermadynamics and witchcraft, how the hell do you connect the 2 together?

I have absolutely no clear idea. Despite what I’ve learnt in school during physics, never have I imagined that I would be trawling through my brain to try an connect 2 vastly different topics together. This, is all thanks to my yahoo group "The Hollows".

"The Hollows" have a bunch of really cool people who discusses various topics ALL, related to characters from one of my favourite series of books by the author Kim Harrison.  These topics really have a way of challenging my mental and occasionally moral fibre *grin* . Anything is possible in ths group.

So, its a hot and boring Saturday afternoon. My darling boyfriend is busy (he damn well better be) doing his project at D-man’s place (he had BETTER be there) while I take the opportunity to laze around, nurse a runny nose and itchy throat(shit I might be falling sick?). I’ve got no car….no place to go….no money…..sigh. Lazing around looks really promising right now. Maybe I can start on some sort of story or continue the various incomplete ones that I’ve started for the nanowriter’s competition last year?

‘…don’t want you…you’re almost like a bad hair cut that won’t grow out….you’re almost like a jerk…..’ song from WKRZ91.3 FM

Interesting song.