The 2008 Beijing Olympics drew to a close last night, and while I didn’t watch much of it, I did manage to catch glimpses of some sports which I ordinarily wouldn’t even watch.

I managed to watch some taekwondo (I still can’t believe how unexciting it is, despite being a form of deadly martial art) and greco roman wrestling (I REALLY enjoy watching this for it’s sheer intensity and grit). I even managed to see Michael Phelps win 1 of his 8 gold medals in the pool.

So, speaking of pools, and sports I normally wouldn’t watch, iBon passed me the link to this Asian Kungfu Generation video which nicely combines both of the above. It’s about synchronized swimming. Go figure.

Do try to watch it all the way to the end… you won’t regret it… 😉

I must say, I’ve watched plenty of music videos in my time. And not very many stay in my memory for long.

But this recent effort by my favourite art rockers Radiohead really sticks in my mind.

Least of all because…

“No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR. Geometric Informatics scanning systems produce structured light to capture 3D images at close proximity, while a Velodyne Lidar system that uses multiple lasers is used to capture large environments such as landscapes. In this video, 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute produced all the exterior scenes.”

Just watch the vid if you got a headache reading the techie stuff… 😉

Took a photo of this little rant that someone has scrawled on the back of the bus seat while I was travelling on Sunday.

It reads “Some speaking people are so dumb and mute that they don’t know how to say excuse me.”

Hardly poetic, but at least it’s effective. I’m “fortunate” to run a business where I interact with people from all walks of life and I can say that I find that there are generally many more people without a basic sense of courtesy, than there are who do.

Not to belabour the point, but much has been made of the lacklusture standard of service in our restaurants and shops. I would like to look at it as “To get good service, one must also be a good customer”.

Big day for me today as I took leave from work to pop down to HDB to collect the keys to my new flat. 🙂

The whole process of signing my lease agreement and CPF deduction forms was surprisingly fast. The wait for my turn took barely 10 minutes. Getting to the HDB Hub lobby from the carpark took twice as long as that as I got LOST. 👿

After signing what must have been 10 sets of forms (IN DUPLICATE), I must have signed my name almost 100 times. Although I remember my hand being a little sore after that, nothing beats the hand-breaking agony of my scrambling to scrawl out 5 essays during my O Levels History exam. Hahahahaha!

So anyways, after completing all the paperwork, and collecting the keys, it was off to the flat to make an inspection of defects. I’ll have to report any defects which I find to HDB. And I DID find 2 defects in the quick inspection I made. I have a crack in my living room window, and a magnetic door stop missing from one of the room doors.

The Crack

Here are the rest of the pics I took today.

The Hall

The Hall (from the main door)

The Living Room

The Study

The view from my bedroom

It’s looking like it’s going to be a very busy few months to get my place done up. Definitely looking forward to it. 😉

After having a torrid 4 days (Saturday to Tuesday, with 2 days MC) of gastric flu, I finally made it back to office today and boy was my email box bursting. So after slogging through what must have been enough email crap to fill the most optimistic of holes, I decided to reward myself today after work.

A quick trip to one of my haunts yielded this homely little package.

Yes, it’s $21. (reduced from $24 I might add – must be the Great Singapore Sale)

Ripping it open yields more mystery.

Well, to dispense with the dramatics, they’re Gintama toys. Gintama is one of my all time favourite animes, and sadly, not enough of my friends watch it with me. (Thanks Kai and iBon for being my ONLY SUPPORTERS! You guys ROCK! 8) ) Essentially, the story is of Sakata Gintoki, a Yorozyua, which is a jack of all trades. Someone willing to do any task for a price. While rather mercernary sounding, what ensues is utter hilarity and there is really no way to describe it other than to watch it for yourself. Trust me, I’ve tried explaining it to many people and all I get is a quizzical look and the obligatory “twirling of the index finger around the temple” to tell me I’m an absolute nutter.

Anyways, if anyone changes their mind and wants to check Gintama out, drop me a message.

In the meantime, I spent the last 20 minutes posing my new toys around my desk.

Sakata Gintoki

Zura ja nai, Katsura da

Sogou konoyarou!!

Hijikata Mayonnaise Special!

(That IS a bottle of Japanese mayo in his hand… it’s a long story…)

Takasugi Shinsuke

I’ve loved watching wrestling since I was a wee lad. Some of my most vivid memories are of standing outside the indian video store (Sanjay Video in West Coast) with a rag tag bunch of old chinese and malay men, and a few other young kids, watching the wrestling videos being played on a crummy old TV.

The picture was poor, the sound worse, sometimes non existent, but the memories still stay with me.

When recently asked why I like watching wrestling, I simply answered, “we all know it’s fake, but sometimes, it’s good to escape into fantasy”. And truly, that’s what it is. I like to look at wrestling as much more than just sweaty men throwing themselves onto a mat and pretending to punch each other. It has evolved into what would seem to be the world’s longest running soap opera. With bad guys (“heels” in the industry speak) feuding with good guys (“faces”) over the most anything from tarnished honour, to girls, to money.

And the video above is a prime example of why the enjoyment of wrestling is not about the action in the ring, but about the fantasy it brings to us all. 🙂

One of the things I love about watching anime is that I don’t speak nor understand a word of Japanese, save for those very common phrases. So I am completely reliant on subtitled episodes and bugging iBon to find out what this word means and what that phrase means.

What makes things more interesting is actually watching 2 identical anime episodes which are subbed by 2 different subbers. The result can be quite hilarious as evidenced from the screen caps below.

For the record, i’m a big fan of Shinsen Subs. They go great work.

Rumbel Subs

Shinsen Subs

No one ever said us Mac users didn’t have a sense of humour…. we just choose to laugh at something only if it tickles us just right.

And I must say this MacBook Air ad parody by some Lenovo fan did just that.

I had a good chuckle.

Ok, so it’s not literally TOTO. But it’s pretty darn close. (for those of you who struggle to make it out, my queue number is 22)

After god knows how many attempts at the HDB ballot, each time with horrendous results, I have been blessed with a supreme stroke of luck! 🙂

Next stop, new flat!

April 1st: This is the day upon which we are reminded of what we are on the other three-hundred and sixty-four. – Mark Twain –

I’m 2 days late but I have an excuse.

I’ve never been one for April Fool’s Day pranks and the like, but I found this door chain designed as an April Fool’s gift on ThinkGeek. I guess you could say leaving home for work every day would be a bit of a daunting task.