Thursday, April 28, 2005
Pah. So much for all that hypocritical crap about making Singapore a cultured place, yada blah blah. How do you cultivate a Singaporean culture when you're making it so difficult for it to grow? Build some horrendously ugly building, give it a poseur french name, and install it with a library that after so long still has books so new their spines haven't even been cracked yet. And while they're at it, make the lighting so dim and the capacity so small that it just looks all artsy but isn't much use. Whatever. I'm afraid it still isn't equivalent to "culture".
And of course they encourage the paintings, dance, photographs, music, musicals and some theatre. Afterall how political can these mediums get? Or rather, how political can Singaporean artists who use these mediums get? Some issues need language to reach the masses - politics is one of them.
This ranks right up there with the "discussions" about building that wonderful euphemism for casinos, now called "integrated resorts" by all major news channels/newspapers. (The same people who call the "inadvertent" casualties and destruction inflicted on civilians in the course of military operations 'collateral damage'. How nice.)
Squash the poets/writers on one hand, and on the other hand, let appalling things like "Phua Chu Kang: The Musical" cast its beastly pall over the land. Hey I like Gurmit Singh, he's a great guy. But there are better things than a pathetic caricature of an Ah-Beng in yellow boots when it comes to showing an international audience a symbol of our nation. Or perhaps Singaporean culture is about commercialised crassness afterall, and if so I'm joining Dreamcatcher in the search for our definition of a dream house - an ivory tower.
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Saturday, April 23, 2005
Only one paper left - Brit Lit! And that doesn't count because I will be very happy studying for it... haha.
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Thursday, April 21, 2005
As a media student, I feel somewhat responsible to point out that the internet is full of rubbish.
I know, some of you are gonna call me a pompous self-important bitch because media students aren't the only ones discerning about information they find online. But the fact remains that after blog-surfing (and general surfing, and other non-studying related activities) I find a disturbing amount of people who get exposed to information, then swallow it hook, line and sinker. And yes, this includes all those stupid cutesy chain messages that go "iF U tReAt mE aS A fReN, pLs foRwARd tiS tO mE n eVeRyboDy eLSe oN uR fRenLiSt!!!11!!" or "if you don't send this to x number of people, you're gonna have bad luck / your wishes won't come true" etc. (This also includes spreading that email about the female ghost with yellowed teeth and acidic drool... if you're reading this you know who you are!)
Some of you may find little touching messages cute and inspirational. You may come across stories that are amazing, funny, sweet, whatever. Fair enough, I do too, and I have come across some nice stuff from forwarded emails. I mean if you absolutely HAVE to forward because its so heart-wrenching, fine. What I'm urging everyone to do is to not compulsively forward everything that comes along, not just through emails but through bulletin boards, forums, etc.
It does nothing more than clutter up the information superhighway - yes, it's a superhighway and theoretically the potential capacity approaches infinity but unfortunately in reality it does not, yet.
This also goes for hoax virus warnings, health warnings, news, etc. Frankly, people who originate these prankster emails should be shot. Like I finally received the article from "The Onion" about Michael Jackson's death, and since it was an edited screen capture (without The Onion's masthead), it was pretty misleading for the uninitiated. Then there are those credit-card scams (help the poor starving children of wherever), or the classic Teddy-Bear-virus hoax that actually tricks people into deleting a valid windows file (jdbgmgr.exe). Some are just innocent pranks but imagine if they convinced everyone to delete an important windows file? It'd be as good as a DIY virus.
So please, everyone who reads this blog - be more sceptical about information you find online. Always double check with reliable sources such as anti-virus software official websites, and some pretty good websites dedicated to stamping out hoax emails (I personally recommend Hoax-Slayer).
Ok I think I've ranted enough... next time when I'm feeling all indignant I'll rant about something else. Maybe biased news reports. Haha...
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Monday, April 18, 2005
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Sunday, April 17, 2005
Hugh Jackman is... *swoons* - I do believe I have the vapors! (Nah, it's like what Emma Thompson said, it's just us girls being ridiculous for the fun of it... haha.) And can you believe that incredibly cliched scene where he was on a white horse? *rolls eyes* But he does do a tolerable English accent for an Australian. Probably because both his parents are English.
Unfortunately, the characterisation of Leopold is somewhat inconsistent and hence, for me, incredibly distracting. For a guy out of 1876, he seems awfully open minded about spending the night wrapped up in the arms of a girl he isn't married to when before he insisted that she might require a chaperone when she had dinner with her boss. And worse, sitting out there on the balcony with his arms around her! And kissing like that in front of everyone! Has he no sense of propriety? *is scandalised! LOL*
Well, to be fair I missed the the first half-an-hour of the show so I might possibly have missed some explanation for all the costume mistakes, but argh! Since when did they wear singlets/singlet-looking-things? Guys from the late 19th Century don't wear singlets, they wear undershirts and his undershirt looks nothing like an undershirt. And as any gentleman should know, they have to wear hats. And why is he wearing that thing that looks like a military coat? Frock coat, people, or a dress coat. And not a white silk tie, a white silk bow tie. Somebody shoot the art director!
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Saturday, April 16, 2005
Now I not only want to buy "Farenheit 9/11" and "Bowling For Columbine", I also want to buy "The Control Room" and "Outfoxed!". And this is coming from the person who avoided watching the news for eons after September 11, because everything was so depressing. Since when did my VCD/DVD-wishlist get so politically-charged? Hm. I guess that's the "problem" with wonderful charismatic teachers who get you all rah-rah about the stuff they teach.
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Friday, April 15, 2005
And so, according to him, we should also reverse globalisation (why bother reaching so far when you should be able to find everything near you?), go back to traditional patriarchal society (because having women working instead of looking after kids is unproductive and takes away jobs from men), and conserve our non-renewable resources.
Maybe in an alternate universe that might work. Unfortunately, since the world does not seem to have a restart button, and most of the world is already inevitably shaped a certain way, this radical restructuring he advocates is probably always going to be just words written in an academic journal. And actually I'm in two minds whether I even want something like that to work... I guess the whole world is just afraid of change.
| Choir outing to watch The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy anyone? Brit film based on the book, release date is probably some time at the end of April (if we follow the UK/US release time), but I think for Singapore the release might be much later... like during the school holidays for the kids or something.
You can also access the official website here. Loading time's not too good, but Marvin the Paranoid Android is too cute ^___^
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Thursday, April 14, 2005
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Wednesday, April 13, 2005
One paper down, three more to go.
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Sunday, April 10, 2005
tHu5 2 tHo53 wHo t1nK t4t t3chn1c4L 4rTif4cT5 h4v3 PoL1t1c5, I s4y 2 u: n00bs!!!!!111!! Wh4t m4tt3R5 15 nOt t3cHnOLoGy itS3Lf bUt teh Soc14L oR 3coNoMic 5y5t3M in wh1ch iT's 3M83dd3d. TiS is teh Soc14L D3t3RMin4t1oN oF t3cHnOLoGy N is teh kewlest 4eVa cuz iT s3Rv35 4s N33d3d coRR3ctiV3 2 n00bs wHo F4iL 2 LOok bhinD t3chn1c4L tH1nGs 2 nOtiC3 teh Soc14L c1RcuM5t4nc3s oF tH31R Dv3lopm3nt, DploYm3nT N uS3.
Good lord. Somebody tell me I did not just translate one paragraph of my readings into pseudo-|33t... ARGH. Stupid discussion about whether artifacts have politics is driving me crazy.
...*scary maniacal laughter*
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Friday, April 08, 2005
Episodes of Inuyasha watched: 14
Rounds of Spider Solitaire played: 68
...
Number of chapters revised: 2
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| Attention: The followng is a message to Miss Ng Tse Wei.
Most new DVD players should be able to read all the codes... or at least the Singapore ones can, and I bought mine more than 2 years ago. All of the DVDs I own are region code 1 or 2 anyway. Heh.
And by the way, your comments function is evil and insists that I'm a spam spider. Maybe your settings are a bit too high?
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Monday, April 04, 2005
Also discovered that Cineleisure has a nice cozy little theatre tucked away out of sight, that's used exclusively for premiers and movies with limited release. If anyone has gone to Theatre 6, that's the one.
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Sunday, April 03, 2005
Exams? Homework? What are those?
Books I'm going to be on the look-out for: the last 2 installments of Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series, Lemony Snicket, Alfian's "Corridors" which I still haven't been able to get from Bedok Lib because according to the OPAC it's gone bloody missing, Terry Pratchett, perhaps a stack of good non-fiction. And of course, Harry Potter & The Half-Blood Prince (103 days to 16th July!). Anything else you'd recommend, dear readers?
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