TAXI! HEY TAXI!

There’s something always interesting which I have noted about taxi rides, that’s on the days I am not too intoxicated to strike up a conversation. (Even then, I do try to have a little chat with the drivers.) After all, taxi drivers pick up a variety of people from all walks of life and we expect them to have plenty of stories to share and advice to dish out. Well, another reason I do it is out of pity, generally. The poor guys drive around the whole day AND/OR night, and we expect them to welcome any form of interaction that might make their jobs more enjoyable, whilst chipping off a chunk of their working hours. Besides, I noticed if you plug in your iPod while you are in the cab, they will in turn try to strike up a conversation. Plugging the earbuds in and out isn’t my idea of ‘Dummy Guide to Fun Activities in a Cab”.

Anyway, a conversation generally starts off with “Pretty hot/cold nowadays ain’t it?” depending on the weather. Cab Drivers always tend to have this stunned expression on their faces and elude a certain awkward gulp immediately at this point of time. I would get stared in the rearview mirror, be accessed if I am hitting on them, which they do by checking if I have a hostile, sinister smirk on my face, and they usually would retort with a “errr… again?”.

After ensuring my (non) preferences for men, the conversation would go into how the weather is affecting their businesses upon which I, of course, would say, “yeah… the recession is hitting on us pretty hard” or “haha… but people still can’t get cabs even though the taxi companies are putting out more and more cabs on the roads”.

The focus of the matter on hand would then drift for the next few minutes, but fret not, as it will end up at the same finale.

Pay attention now!!

Here’s an activity to try out for yourself. Observe how it goes for : “yeah… the recession is hitting on us pretty hard”

The driver would then confide in you how he was an “IT Professional”, “Entrepreneur”, “CEO” just a couple of years ago BUT he will maintain his modesty by admitting it was just a small time operation nevertheless.

This driver would had left his job because he got retrenched or his business folded due to the bad times. This result can be expected for about 7/10 cases.

Try out the other “haha… but people still can’t get cabs even though the taxi companies are putting out more and more cabs on the roads” alternative on another cabbie.

In this instance, you would get an answer as “What to do? Competition is tough. I barely take home $1600 monthly. Just a couple of years ago, I could earn more. They release so many cabs but rental is high, there are no passengers and I have to drive around for hours to pick up a passenger. THEY DONT CARE ABOUT US! But… I am doing this.. cos I am old.. I don’t want to retire, stay home and get bored. That’s why I am out here driving”.

However, because of boredom, they would have to drive 14-16 hours a day, 7 days a week without a single day off throughout the year. I wonder why they toil so hard then? In addition, very strangely, after your trip, they would tell you they are exhausted and are heading back home for an early night. Somehow, that particular day ends after 4 hours. Figure this out…

Take note that this group would always have the same family background too :

1) Wife is not working

2) Son is an officer in the Air Force/Army

3) Daughter is an undergraduate in the local university and made her way there by using his CPF.

Naturally, it would then lead to questions on our lives, after we hear about their miseries. The topics would range as below :

• If you had observed, a single guy who are in a cab on his way back home after his reservist training would face a taxi driver who was a commando back in his heyday. For guys in a group, the taxi driver would start advertising our red-light districts and how the industry is the primary economy growth factor currently due to his well versed knowledge and promotion of it’s services.
• If you are heading home after work, it would be on how insane it is to survive in Singapore, and how we all lead difficult lives (bearing in mind that you are going home in the comfort of a cab). Usually I just revert I am barely surviving myself.
• If you happen to be heading home alone after clubbing, they would retort how easy it is to pick up girls nowadays and reflect on their personal rendezvous while out driving on previous nights, casting envious looks on our faces. Do make believe the envy though, as they definitely will check out the rearview mirror to make sure we are savouring their glory. You do not want to be caught rolling your eyes.
• If you are sending a female friend home or meeting her for supper etc, they give a suspicious  glare that both parties were up to or are planning on some naughty fun.

To avoid any conflict of interest, just play along and bask in their wisdom and insight.

Anyway, the conversation would tend to die after this stage somehow. I guess this is where they get murdered depending on where the conversation leads and if they managed to offend anyone by then (depending on the country).

On a short sidetrack, I noticed cabbies nowadays are staying out of politics, which makes me guess if the names of our politicians aren’t that easy to recall and if they are waning on popularity rankings. I don’t even know who my Minister would be, knowing I have not voted for about a decade.

Those lucky cabbies (who are yet to be murdered) would then pick up speed and race down to your neighbourhood at 120km/hr only to slow down for Traffic Police spot checks. They might narrowly miss 2-3 accidents or just hit and run over someone. It all depends on your luck for the day and how destiny has timed your home coming.

Alright, anyway, you would find yourself in your neighbourhood within the next 5 minutes and the driver would then instantly recall his childhood days in the same neighbourhood playing with his friends (only after reaching the destination and when you are about to alight).

Well, you pay your fare at the end of the trip, tip the guy for the good fun and head to your gates while thanking God for the safe and sound journey (provided it happened to be such).

P.S. The reason why I am telling everyone about taxi drivers is because I was wondering today :

Don’t the cops know the cabbies call each other up on road blocks on certain expressways or are they just that plain ignorant? Why don’t our cops just hail a cab and hitch a ride? Wouldn’t it be easier to track down those flouting the speeding limit and instantly summon them? There is no need for a cat and mouse chase after all. ALL Taxi drivers do it! Here’s a better solution to nab them?

Rebirth and the Immortal Soul

Ok this post is not about cloning. Dolly should have gotten chopped up into lamb stew by now and we have moved on. No more talk about wanting to clone anyone cause it’s immoral. Cloning is not the key to immortality too. If I want to make it big one day, I rather it be me, rather than a clone that’s supposed to be me. I am me, a soul that drives the body through nature and nurture. A clone might not be what I wanted to be, he may be selfish, stubborn or grow up to be less attractive than how I am now, or he might not even make it past the age of 20. I guess the gist is there…

What interests me is this article :

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4357829/Immortal-jellyfish-swarming-across-the-world.html

A jellyfish that restores itself to it’s pubescent form after mating. The possibility of not having to be Connor MacLeod and putting oneself through acts of decapitation while being struck by lightning sure is tempting. We just need to get the DNA into our systems which is basically what Life Science is all about…

Well, I would have to put myself through centuries of getting nagged by mum to make my bed, have to live through the fashion fads and trends (I probably be emo now?) and live with pimples forever but the knowledge and experience gained would be endless given that I will be sure that my life will never cease to a definite lifetime.

Well, parents might be teenagers again too (flashback to the Back To The Future  series) provided they are still doing “IT” paving way for awkward moments but then again, they do have a right for themselves.

Then again, we do multiply, we will overpopulate earth, wipe out the food chains while facing our enemies now and then etc… but we would not die as long as we mate! The biggest fear in our lives, death, would all be eliminated.

So if this becomes a reality, does that mean whoever grows old would signify evolution? Meaning, he/she isn’t a prime mating candidate which is good as saying “damn the poor fella… he’s growing old and is dying cos he aint getting any action!”

Hooray for Holidays

A well deserved break for many… Allowance claims galore for the rest (who spent the day in office). Chinese New Year holidays have passed and set us into the year of the Ox.

In turn, those new to this island faced themselves with a sudden lockdown of food supplies during those 2 days. In turn, we all flocked to fast food restaurants (though some food places celebrate it for much longer to cater to the extended torture of hunger pangs).

The irony of course being the fact that the Prosperity Burgers sold at McDonald outlets consist of beef patties. I beg to differ since they do it seemingly every year though I wish the year of the Ox would bring in chicken patties. Why kill and eat the cow that’s bringing in the good luck?

It was pretty nice to see families gather at our favourite fast food joint on the eve of Chinese New Year. Might have been the recession causing such a downscaled family reunion but it sure triggered my thoughts and the scene felt and looked like a more wholesome family bonding session. No pressure on getting new clothes or having the hassle of cooking for little cousins whom you see once a year.

Alas, reality kicks in. The Bull Run is pretty obvious with businesses shutting down and people losing jobs. So it’s alright to be a matador, take down the bulls on parade and engulf the patty.

With that in mind, I am looking forward to the next holiday which happens to be Good Friday. It may be the day Jesus got crucified, but not sounding blasphemous, most do take it as a long weekday to travel down to Thailand for a short break (provided there’s not another coup. They have a habit of changing Prime Ministers every 6 months lately).

Well, we do and should celebrate the date of his birth, Dec 25th as indicative on the Roman Calendar but we should also not forget the day he left Earth for the sake of mankind. Many forget this and take it as a holiday instead.

Which brings me to question… if we are so sure he was born on Dec 25th (based on the yearly date we celebrate Christmas which is based on the Roman Calendar), why aren’t we aware which exact date he got crucified? Oh well, it was on a Friday and we stick to that? So we are observing Good Friday just because it gives us a long weekend? Any idea on this?

Another question is his birth was witnessed by a handful but his death was sure to be made aware to thousands, if not millions, given the popularity of his teachings by the time he got crucified yet no one is aware which date it was and chose it to be a Friday?

Why not Monday then?

A Little Bitter

My brother, lead me into this land
guided me as I held onto his hands
as we sailed into the future
to lives we never could comprehend (then)

Got my life, I’d live
Missed a step, o~ wary, so bleak
a mouth, hath speak
a sound of silence so deep crept in, i alone wept

Now it was me, not free
a soul that’s not to be
a voice shut, eyes drooped
I chose to stay cold, be what they want to see

My brother, let free and he did not what she command
He tore down the fences that she built and fled
to a life that he chose to let go and forget
he came back to a life that made her glad

She loves him, had to be
he came back, cloaked in fleece
now here’s the wealth
of deceit and what shall be

what shall become of me
A lazy glee, forced to miss
and then i am not
the child she wished to conceive

Now what have i done to make her so mad
What she wanted, is something i always gave
now i want to live my life, but it’s not the story in mind she had
I shall be outcast, for her to spit and never regret

Now  pry the life I lived
A step gone stale
a mouth, hath speak
silence runs so deep, in ruins we alone weep

what shall become of me
A lazy glee, is it I missed
and then i am not
the child she wished to conceive

And I never felt so hollow
driven by the widow, to a family I never had
I should loath my own life to pacify her pride
while he takes her riches and hides

My brother, thanks for the memories you shed
you took away my love and hatred I had
Now I’m free to be with the ones I still have
I shall lead them to the glory I should have had

The Quest for the Holy Grail

While the whole world is eagerly looking to finding a resolution for the conflict on the Gaza strip, Singaporeans seem to have other worries on their mind.

http://motoring.asiaone.com/Motoring/News/Story/A1Story20090112-114034.html

Long queue for new ez-link cards

MORE than 40,000 ez-link cards were replaced yesterday, on the first day commuters could exchange their public transit passes for a new, flashier card.

In some of the more popular spots like Ang Mo Kio, Bedok and Chinatown, about 50 people were waiting in line to turn in their cards. Most of the commuters lining up were retirees, housewives or people on their day off who said they were “quite happy” to wait in line for 20 minutes or more.

The new ez-link pass allows commuters to pay not only their bus and train fares, but also, eventually, Electronic Road Pricing tolls and parking charges.

Commuters have until Sept 30 to replace their old cards. After that, the cards will no longer work.

Adult ez-link cards can be exchanged at TransitLink offices, post offices and selected bus interchanges.

Those with concession cards will receive their new passes from their respective institutions or in the mail if they are senior citizens.

For God’s sake, there’s another 9 damn months! It looked like there was a big conflict here and everyone was fleeing Singapore, the moment I caught a glimpse of the queue, on the very first day. Then I threw up and collapsed in shock and disgust for the next few days…

Thought I died and gone to heaven, but I’m back to tell the tale. Sorry for the long delay…

Sing a song of sixpence

A little nursery rhyme goes like this :

Sing a song of sixpence,
a pocket full of rye.
Four and twenty blackbirds,
baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened,
the birds began to sing.
Wasn’t that a dainty dish
to set before the king?

The king was in his counting house,
counting out his money.
The queen was in the parlour,
eating bread and honey.

The maid was in the garden,
hanging out the clothes,
When down came a blackbird
and pecked off her nose!

There was such a commotion
that little Jenny wren
Flew down into the garden
and put it back again

Gypsies, better identified as travelling musicians have parted many tales through song and dance. Lives they lived have been immortalized , save leaving them with a dime and a penny for the memories they left behind.

Fast forward and blackbirds have become The Yardbirds, The Byrds to The Beatles who wrote about blackbirds.

Then we had bands like KISS (Keep It Simple Sam!) with their elaborate theatrics, pyrotechnics and makeup, Led Zeppelin (Light Emitting Display of Airships on Fire?) really explode into the limelight drawing tonnes of fans.

Music was not about song and dance anymore. It was a Business, a source of Entertainment as it was now labelled, that drew in revenue.

The King was overthrown, the ones counting their money (and holding onto the new title) were the Industry players that rule music, run by record labels, music executives and band managers who carve a livelihood by exploiting the gypsies of today.

Out came vinyl, the cassette tape, CDs and the like subsequently. Media that catered to the money-making schemers of the days that went past.

Finally out came a media, MP3s that could be free. Out sprung Napster, AudioGalaxy and Kazaa which were determined to spread the word of freedom of music just like how love should be. However, Love can be sold, like prostitution that comes with a price. The record companies have done what it takes to dissolve the uprising.

We have retired and lost sites like TorrentReactor, TorrentSpy etc to battles with the law. Currently PirateBay is in the legal soup to have their servers shut down.

All hope is yet not lost, when free Software like Ubuntu can make a difference. Free Music can be yours too. Nine Inch Nails has released Ghosts 1 – IV freely on torrent sites which is incidentally the top moving album in Amazon.

Get our artistes back on the streets. Get them to earn their pay by touring while keeping their music free. There’s no reason they earn millions by releasing an album after more than a decade when their forefathers earned their keep (away from solitude).

Of course, there’s a new industry that has sprung up to feast on our desire for free music. Hmmm…. *chews on an apple*

That explains the whole sense of the rhyme?

Here without you baby~

The crowning glory amplifies beauty. We fiddle with nature’s gift in the name of vanity to enhance the imagery we present to humanity.

From Mohawks to Afro, to Dreadlocks and Pigtails, we have gone through radical hairstyles during our times.

Straight hair have curled up, frizzy hair have settled down, fringes have grown longer while backs have been cropped. From black, we have gone to red, to blonde to green and blue.

Most just refuse to acknowledge their real hair and go about making changes to themselves. In the end if you would realize, you all look the same to me.

From all the bleaching and chemicals on scalps, to gels, waxes and sprays, it’s pretty apparent that the current generation would be going bald in a couple of years.

Listen up gals, you wouldn’t want to look like like the poor guys who seem to have earned the wrath early on. Look around and you will see 2 out of 10 guys in their 20s losing their hair. Be it natural or fashionable, a reflecting plate seems to be the trend that’s catching up. So pay heed! Hair today, gone tomorrow…

So instead, think of something else to exploit. We sure cant afford to do what HE’s doing, but at least he’s leaving his hair alone.

Web 2.0 : What is it all about? The tricks to get into the game!

IRC is so passé. Don’t even mention last.fm, Friendster or Multiply now too. All those belonged to Web 0.4 – 1.3. Prehistoric internet activities and sites that are actually too shameful  to be even mentioned.

While we are formatting our computers to install Ubuntu and Hackintosh to escape being cast in Microsoft’s holdups and hangups, leadway has to be made to get in tune with the latest Web Development too.

Don’t be left out! Here will be a few pointers to join the trendy clan :

1) Use Firefox; no matter how many security improvements are made to Internet Explorer, nothing beats Firefox at the moment. What better browser than Firefox (with it’s massive extensions and add-ons) to bring us into the other dimension.

2) Get Songbird, you need music while you are at it… and this is going to be THE iTunes killer (Just like how Firefox is killing IE). Finally, we shall get down to the real deal.

3) Sign up for Facebook and get some applications up and running. Sure the notifications are annoying, but you need to get in and PARTICIPATE! If you ain’t got this account, you are basically still stuck in the 90s. Not Glam! Of course, please do note in your Friendster accounts that you have moved to Facebook (and provide links for others to find you). You would not want others to still think you are using Friendster, do you?

4) Get a blog; a proper blog. Sure, blogs have been around for some time, but you need to move on to have more timely updates. Getting your own hostname is also a de factor key. Move on to something other than BlogSpot (Google is taking over the world just like Microsoft, so they are now considered evil). If you are tech-savvy, download the code and host your own blog. All these are minor elements that play a key role.

I would recommend Windows Live Writer. A great application for blog control BUT as mentioned by so many other tech users, anything that’s Microsoft isn’t something you would be to be answerable for so just stop at Live Writer and Messenger. Do not meddle around and waste time on Windows Live Spaces etc etc. Although more innovative, you wouldn’t want to be associated and be labelled a nerd while wanting to be the ultimate  fashionably sociable person.

5) Sad to say, my address book only revealed 1 other Twitter user. What are you waiting for?!

We DO NOT SMS each other nowadays! We TWEET!! Even if you aren’t in front of your laptop, hook up your phone to get tweets!

Why not use Instant Messengers? Cos you want to reach out to the masses. Why not email? Cos you are too busily hooked up in this fast paced world. There’s no time for email!

At least it would prevent a company which still has not found an objective of what to do with their service from going bankrupt.

There are a handful of applications that are lying around waiting to be installed just for Twitter so get your ass moving…

5) Get StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious and Reddit accounts. Browse through the articles they bring you to and write just about any review in sites you would be visiting.  It can be simply stuff like ‘Oh God this is Happening’, ‘So groovy baby!’ etc. Just anything to get you noticed in the Web sphere. The more you surf and review, the more popular you will be.

Ditch Wikipedia, they want your money now and it has been finally revealed that Wikipedia is run by 1400 self-centred folks. Digging and Stumbling is the new knowledge finder. Of course, tell everyone that you stumble more than you dig cos of some stigma attached to Digg users. You will find out about this sooner than you think.

6) Although we have watched Youtube etc for the past few years, it’s now time to get an account registered…

Registering Youtube, Flickr, Picassa etc accounts are a must. Photos and Videos are not private anymore else they wouldn’t have come out with digital cameras right? So zoom and snap a couple of hundreds of pictures and upload them for the whole world to know that you do go out of the house… on certain days.

Not forgetting a replacement for last.fm. iLike is what you should be using in this era. Sorry last.fm… the time has come.

Yeah… so that should basically sum it up. Remember to be someone revered, you need to socialize, and there’s no better way than getting involved with the pointers above and letting everyone know what you are doing online. It might cost you a job but it’s worth the risk.

Note : Use up to 16 hours a day for this system to function properly, but what the heck, the important thing is to get involved and embrace the Web 2.0 Revolution, as for version 3.0, it’s just looming ahead!

Australia : A Tale of Exploitation

Here’s the review :

I have never seen X-Men before, and it was the first time I laid eyes on Hugh Jackman and boy, was the poor soul badly exploited in the show!… It seemed to slowly evolve into a chick’s porn flick when they got him topless, all muddy and had him splash water on himself! Made me almost walk out of the theatre in disgust!

The exploitation theme moved on just to resurface time and time again…

We had a Chinese cook who seemed almost gay?

We had cows driven miles through the desert just to be slaughtered! They even threw a few off the cliff to add to the insult! I hope India goes to war with Australia to settle on this holy matter.

A horse was branded with a hot iron, which I believe might have been proudly sponsored by Apple with their product placement drive to get OS X into every home.

Then we had King George bare his bum cheeks for the whole world to see, walking around in his Flamingo choker…

Sure there were other matters that are worth mentioning, but the show was all about how humans beings and animals were/are still exploited, how discrimination exists in society and how war brings everyone back together.

Nevertheless, it’s one good show not to be missed although a looping ‘Over The Rainbow’ took the limelight for 1/4 of the show’s duration and I stood up to applause almost 3 times during the show figuring it had ended. Do catch it, bring along some tissue for your partners for the endearing and touching parts, and come back to tell the tale of being driven down-under~

Bamboo grow 3 feet a day.. What happened to ya?! : The tall and short of it…

Another Fact : Bamboo’s environmental benefits arise largely out of its ability to grow quickly — in some cases 3 to 4 feet per day.

Such exponential growth is all but a dream for many a souls out there. Face it… almost everyone would like to be taller. The advantages are clear cut ;

• Pretty good downblouse views
• You get noticed due to a more prominent presence
• Tall folks are known to climb the corporate ladder with ease
• We get to fake sell the “tall, dark and handsome” tag to anyone we meet online
• blah blah blah…. and BLAH!

This is all the stuff that we read everywhere, but what many fail to realise are the misery that we have to put up through :

• Tall People tend to slouch badly
• We bump our heads when we exit out of doors or walk past low ceilings
• Our shirts don’t fit (That is why we roll up our sleeves or fold our cuffs… geddit?)
• Leg space is limited in buses and airplanes
• Sales Staff call National Geographic Society claiming sightings of Yeti when we try to get shoes for ourselves
• Girlfriends tend to be much shorter, and we end up seeing grey hair more than wrinkles as they age gracefully
• Looking like a mob escaping the monsoon floods or a embarrassed Michael Jackson impersonator, wrong length pants just never fail to catch unwanted attention

Girls tend to have it worse :

• No heels!
• Stalkings become socks? *I am just envisioning this… not sure if it’s true*
• No mini skirts… they just get even more shorter *errMHz on this*
• No baby doll dresses.. they just end up as frilly blouses
• The school girl fantasies cannot be played out because 6 feet tall girls are not cute!and that’s an awful sight… period!
• There’s a fear of falling in love in case the guy is shorter
• There’s a constant pressure to conform to the supermodel look (rather than to fail miserably and end up looking like a big blob or frail twig)
• I guess more time is also spent on shaving legs and blades get blunt faster?

Although it might anger the feminists and a lot more others out there, this is the reality in a society obsessed with looks.

Although this cannot be oppressed, we should try to broaden our perspective and outlook beyond what is present before us. There’s more to life than looks. We should be looking for souls with kind hearts, who make better companions and who would not never hesitate to love you more than themselves.

After all, life is not always greener or the air always fresher on the other side, so chill out and enjoy the upskirts no matter how tall you are… after all height is not something that is worth getting worked up on.

Happy 2nd day of New Year!