Monthly Archive
Browsing entries posted on February 2007
The Battle of the 300s
I was witness to a massacre today.
The victims didn’t stand a chance. Their conquerors swept in with their massive biological weapons, spewing death everywhere. Those who didn’t die instantly scurried away to the supposed safety of the houses, where they were set upon by clumsy giants who stomped on them, whether intentionally or otherwise.
Guts and bodily fluids littered the battlefields, the grisly aftermath of a successful ambush. I had never seen so many corpses in one place. Upon spying a few survivors, I mercilessly (or mercifully, depending on your point of view) dispatched them with a quick execution.
The above took place at Clementi Ave 6, Blocks 303 and 304. It’s very strange that the fogging that was supposed to get rid of mosquitoes ended up killing cockroaches instead. I didn’t know such a thing could happen, because I’ve never seen such an exodus of roaches after a fogging session.
The path of our morning walk was strewn with dry brown carapaces, and I stomped on a few more, adding to the body count tally I had started in the MINDS centre. It’s not that I find it satisfying, I just think that pests should be eradicated if you see them. I really wish they wouldn’t spill their guts so.
Seriously, there were enough cockroaches there for an episode of Fear Factor.
This Paid Gig Is Serious.
*Paid Post*
Right, you all know by now that I’m unashamedly blogging for money. Well, guess what? I just got paid today! Real money in my Paypal! I’m so thrilled, because I worked for that money, and I haven’t done any paid work since July. Again, I’m signed up with PayPerPost, and it’s been a good ride so far on this blog ad network.
For small fry like me with a low-traffic, low-pagerank blog, I get the opportunities that pay at least 5 dollars. I’m not complaining, I’m perfectly happy with the money I make. But if you have a high-traffic blog, and especially if it has a good ranking on Google PageRank, you could be making huge money. How huge? Well, there are posts that pay 50, 75 or 125 dollars each. They’re not any harder to write than the posts I do. The advertisers are offering large amounts because of the traffic they get from popular blogs. There’s even an opportunity that pays 1000 dollars, I’m not kidding. PayPerPost actually has a column on the dashboard labeled “Big Green”, where they feature the high-paying opportunities.
Apart from PayPerPost, another blog-for-money network is ReviewMe. The difference between these two - at least, a difference that matters to me - is that ReviewMe marks up their price by 100% to the advertiser, so basically half the money that the advertiser offers for the post goes to the company. PayPerPost, on the other hand, charges a 35% service fee, so more money goes into your wallet - or Paypal, as the case may be.
And the final testimony for PayPerPost probably comes from its own Wall of Fame, where the highest-earning bloggers are featured. These are the ones at the top of their game, and they’re earning serious money. So PayPerPost has enough high-paying opportunities to make it worth the time if you’re a popular blogger, while still being a profitable sideline for the little fishies like me.
Emo is not a big flightless bird
Aiyo I’m very sad la.
And no, it’s not because I’m emo, okay? But yes, I have been on an emo run lately, thanks to the impending Fall Out Boy concert. I’m not an emo scene girl. I won’t be writing sad, bleak poems about the abyss that is my heart. No la, I’m sad because the domain name I was thinking of buying has apparently been bought.
See, there’s a line in “Dance, Dance” that goes “misery loves me”. What does misery love? Company, of course. So wouldn’t it be cute to have miseryco.(insert top-level domain) as a url? Too bad it’s taken. It’s vaguely pop-culture referential as well, the Hollister website is hollisterco.com.
I’ve been making fun of emo kids for so long that it’s a bit unnerving to find myself among them. Well, musically speaking, anyway. Although I did wear rather a lot of black today, and my toenails are a grungy dark colour, and… I’m surfing Hot Topic, online retailer of choice emo clothing and accessories. Oh no.
Nah, I’m just having you on. It’s pretty difficult to be emo once you’re above a certain age, which is why I’m so sneery of Good Charlotte. Sure, they have tattoos and wear eyeliner, but they’re not really emo. They’re older than I am, for crying out loud. Anyone that age who’s still emo is really just being a big ol’ whiny crybaby.
Although I will make an exception for Pete Wentz, because he was emo before it was even a scene, and he’s attempted suicide, so he has real mental issues. Again, I’m not advocating self-harm, but there’s emo posturing (making mountains of bad poetry out of the molehill tribulations of adolescence) and there’s serious I-really-hurt-bad-inside. And also because his lyrics are occasionally brilliant, and I salute a master wordsmith when I see him.
The Lows Of Getting High
*Paid Post*
When you’re in your teens, getting high looks like a lot of fun. High school students sneak beer, cigarettes and the occasional pot. But as they used to say, it’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt.
You could point your finger at so many things - the media, lousy parenting, disaffected youth. Cocaine may be illegal, but it’s not unknown - even I know how to snort cocaine, and frequently make a joke out of snorting other less illegal substances. In high school, there was an urban legend about combining painkillers and soda. The only effect I foresee from that would be stomach ulcers. And when Hollywood stars are photographed smoking doobies, well, that just sort of makes drugs okay. It can’t be illegal if they’re not getting busted, right?
So many factors can lead an adolescent down the road to drug addiction. But once they’re on that road, the question isn’t how they got there, but how to get them off it. An effective teen drug treatment regimen would seem like an answer to a parent’s prayer. Just like how juvenile delinquents shouldn’t be imprisoned with adult criminals, teenage drug users need a specially tailored program, run by staff who understand the adolescent addiction problem.
The Echo Malibu treatment center offers drug and alcohol rehabilitation for teenagers with substance addiction. Their treatments and programs are administered by qualified staff who are experienced in treating drug and alcohol problems in youths.
Their focus on treating root causes rather than symptomatic behavior, and holistic development of the self, sets them apart from other rehab centers. As part of the treatment program, drama, art, music and poetry therapy are offered as opportunities for the teens to discover themselves. The specter of teenage addiction can be made less frightening if we know where to go for help.
New Year Luck
For a lot of Chinese kids, the Lunar New Year celebrations represent their initiation into the world of gambling. We start out small, with wagers of 10 sen at games of blackjack played with our special ‘house rules’ that involve double payments for ‘5-card dragon’ and ‘1-up’ (not the Mario kind).
I started out this way, at age 10. My cousins have started even younger, our games now involve 5-year-olds who ask the older kids for help. And in case you think the dealer is fleecing little kids, most times the dealer (usually an aunt or uncle) gives up after a dozen rounds because the kids have cleaned up.
I’m not huge on gambling myself, the sums are too small to interest me in anything beyond playing to pass the time. My sister, with a larger appetite for risk, plays all the games and bets large amounts. But for us, this is as far as the gambling goes.
Other Chinese kids take it further and learn mahjong and ‘dai dee’ or Big 2, which are adult games with adult sums to be won. For impromptu ‘gian’ sessions among friends, these are the top choices. They’re more interesting than the kiddie games because they rely more on skill than luck. Plus then, one can boast about the time ‘I cleaned out so-and-so at the table’.
There are still other avenues to strike it rich, one of which my uncle illustrated richly when he switched on the infotext channel on the telly to check the Magnum and Big Sweep numbers. The Malaysian equivalent of Singapore Pools, the numbers game is the one that engenders the most superstition among an already superstitious people. And this is the game that holds zero appeal for me, since it’s totally random and is out of anyone’s control (unless you can hack the computer that chooses the numbers).
When I go to the supermarket and see a long queue of people at the lottery counter, I feel a great sense of sadness. I’m not judging these people - I know that most of them are just hoping for that one chance to change their lives, and that hope keeps going week after week. Nothing wrong with hoping.
No, what makes me sad is that we’ve managed to put a price on hope, and sell it to people at a dollar per slip. Profiting from people’s hopes - is this as close as it gets to sucking out their souls? If you survey the people in the queue, you’ll see that most of them come from the working class. They don’t have the opportunities that the white-collar workers and elite have, to advance themselves. It’s not that they’re too lazy to work for it. Hard work can only take you so far.
That’s the real business of casinos and other gambling avenues. They sell hope. And when hope turns to desperation, life savings and loan sharks’ money will be wagered on one last roll of the dice. And when desperation turns to despair… all we can do is shake our heads and say ‘tsk’. Which is really easy to do, if you’re not so low on hope that you have to buy it from the corner store.
Call With Cisco
*Paid Post*
Cisco Systems is a leading networks systems management company. I know they provide systems for secure networking, the NUS VPN network is managed by Cisco. Apart from that, however, they’re also expanding into other Internet-related businesses.
One such area of expansion is VoIP, or Voice over IP, a way of using the Internet to make phone calls. The advantage of VoIP is that international calls are significantly cheaper than they would be, if you used a normal phone line. After all, if it costs the same to access an overseas-hosted website as it does to access a local one, why shouldn’t overseas calls cost the same?
Cisco is now offering IP communications solutions to corporations seeking to streamline their operations. Besides software applications and communications clients, Cisco also provides hardware such as telephones and devices such as routers, so customers are assured of an integrated system.
Go, Yo-Yo!
I just finished Joseph Heller’s Catch-22, that classic of, er, I don’t even know what genre it comes under. It’s about a squadron of fighter pilots stuck in the Mediterranean during World War II, but there’s very little fighting involved. Tons of bureaucracy though, which is the main focus of the plot.
The book is ridiculously absurd. Everyone has his own agenda, none of which involves actually fighting the war. Yossarian, the hero, is desperate to go home before he’s killed. He’s already lost a couple of colleagues, and more die throughout the book. He has to fulfil a certain number of missions, but every time he comes close to hitting the quota, his commanding officer raises the quota.
Meanwhile, the higher-ups are less concerned with who dies and how the war goes, and more concerned with how their military resume works, and who’s going to get promoted over whom. That’s why Yossarian can’t leave - his commanding officer raises the quota so that he’ll look good commanding the squadron with the highest number of missions flown.
All this could get unbearably heavy and plotty if it wasn’t for the generous sprinkling of extremely funny pickles the characters get themselves in. The mess hall officer runs some sort of syndicate that everyone has a share in, but he’s the only one who profits - but of course.
It took me 6 weeks to finish reading this book, in short snatches while on the bus, waiting for the LRT, and finally one final sprint at home. Unfortunately it’s overdue now, I’m facing a fine when I finally do return it to the library. But it was oh-so-worth it.
And a final note: For some reason, NUS procured a limited-edition signed copy of the book, which totally amazed me and the people I showed it to. We’re still wondering how come NUS trusts its philistine student population with such a valuable book, instead of putting it in closed stacks. But I’m glad they didn’t.
Stick It With Style
*Paid Post*
I once watched an episode of Dexter’s Laboratory where Dexter and his sister DeeDee went nuts labeling every conceivable object with stickers bearing their names. I can relate to the feeling - I, too, enjoy seeing the symbol of my ownership emblazoned across my possessions.
Customized Stickers, as their name states, makes personalized labels to order. From everyday stickers such as address labels, to bumper stickers with the slogan of your choice on it, no shape, colour or size is too much for them. Their sticker printing experts will even do the artwork for you at no additional charge, which is a lifesaver for people like me who can’t draw a decent sketch worth printing.
For one-off publicity campaigns, customized stickers are a great idea, especially if your target audience are sticker fans. My dorm printed stacks of stickers to distribute to us residents so that we could show our support for the sports teams, and they were snapped up and pasted up in a matter of hours. Another category of people who love stickers are musicians. Guitarists especially enjoy personalizing their instruments, so custom stickers bearing a company’s or a band’s name would be an efficient marketing vehicle.
Stickers are relatively permanent, so the message or product that’s being promoted will remain visible for some time. Customized Stickers uses high-quality paper or weatherproof white vinyl for their stickers, along with photo-quality printing. This way, the longevity and professionalism of the sticker product is assured.
Sugar, We’ll Dance Under The Cork Tree
I have a confession to make.
Once, I was alone at home when Fall Out Boy’s video “Dance, Dance” came up on MTV. So I did what the song said, and jumped around like an electrocuted moron since no one was around to see me make a fool of myself.
Catchy songs and exhortations aside, I fell for the outsider boy played by Pete Wentz. So sweet! So shy! So nerdy! So very unlike the real Pete, who has had his 15 minutes of nude-picture notoriety. But in a post-punk era where Fall Out Boy sounds like Panic! At the Disco sounds like The Killers, they didn’t stick long in my mind.
Then I found out they were doing one single, solitary show in Asia before embarking on their US tour. I’m not big on them, but I am big on concerts. And seeing Pete Wentz play bass, live, is a very tempting proposition. Ok, seeing Pete Wentz live, bass or no bass, is incentive enough to go. But they were about 2 months too late, I’m already wiped out from the MUSE concert back in January.
Boo. No Pete. No bass. Scant consolation comes in the form of their new album Infinity on High, which was selling for RM29.90 when I went looking for it today. A CD usually costs about 40 ringgit, but this one is legit - it’s a “Special Malaysia Edition” which means no CD booklet and no liner notes, and I know this because I have the “Special Singapore Edition” of James Morrison’s Undiscovered. The cheapo penny-pincher in me calculated that at an exchange rate of 2.3, it would be cheaper to buy the Singapore edition. Cheaper by 2 ringgit.
And since I’m so cheap I even take into account 2 ringgit, what more the 75 Singapore dollars I’d have to fork out for the privilege of standing in the same arena as Fall Out Boy? Sigh. I’ll just buy my CD and be content with that.
Bello Radio
*Paid Post*
Google Translate informs me that “bello” is Italian for ‘beautiful’, and not “bellissimo” as I previously thought. But it doesn’t really matter, beauty transcends languages.
This is Peter Belisi, founder and creative director of Belisi, a luxury brand specialising in silk ties, scarves and women’s handbags. As a luxury lifestyle retailer, Belisi emphasises sophistication and classic beauty. The brand is also a responsible corporate citizen as it is affiliated with Unite In Green Campaign, an environmental protection effort.
As part of its lifestyle marketing, Belisi has launched an Internet radio station featuring top 40 artists, progressive lounge music, and jazz favourites, among others. Belisi Radio is a Pandora radio station. As a Pandora user myself, I assure you that no spyware or malware is involved. In fact Pandora includes album artwork and a rating system, so I think it was a smart move on Belisi’s part to use Pandora as their platform.
Peter Belisi explains the rationale for a radio station: He wants to share the qualities he seeks in fashion, namely sophistication and classic beauty, with music, hence the creation of Belisi Music. If his taste in music is anything like his taste in fashion, Belisi Radio will be a real treat to listen to.
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