Autumn, Chingay, and Halloween... all here in Singapore!

I think if you are a first-time visitor to Singapore, you'll be very confused if you arrive at certain times of the year.

I am sure your travel advisers will have told you ad nauseam that Singapore's tropical climate is humid practically year-round with little temperature variations. Just be aware that certain months of inter-monsoonal change bring heavier afternoon showers.

But then you arrive and you see all these ads and other material:

You step out of your hotel and you feel the heat. Yet you find yourself confused by all these messages that there are seasons here and that it is autumn/fall now! I am a Singaporean and I am confused too.

You will of course also have learnt ahead of your trip here that while Singapore is multiracial, the Chinese are the majority race -- about 77% of the population. So if you come here during the earlier part of the year, during Chinese New Year, you will see all the trappings of Chinese-themed celebrations. But be prepared for one strange event... the Chingay street parade cum procession of gaily-decorated "floats":

Let me teach you a local word: rojak. It describes a mixed salad dish that is a favourite with all the racial groups here. It can also mean "mixed up with no identity, theme, etc". So here's a forum discussion of a Chingay parade some years back:

http://sgforums.com/forums/8/topics/117851?page=2

I wonder if the 2014 "edition" will still have the Brazilian samba dancers? The girls have been a perennial favourite with the ogling "Ah Peks" (older men).

Finally, if you have just arrived and plan to stay a while, get ready for our local version of Halloween, never mind that until maybe a decade ago, this Western practice was so alien to us that any mother's son garbed in a ghoulish Halloween costume would have been chased out of the house by her with the aid of a broomstick. Later, in penance, the miscreant lad would have had to kneel before the Goddess of Mercy.

It's a different matter today. I was at a shopping mall and its atrium had this very apt large banner: "Halloween... Let the madness begin!". So, if you are a Westerner here, sit back and enjoy the bizarre show.

Haha, raising kampung spirit! Er... kampung spirits, no?

Meanwhile, the Goddess of Mercy must be weeping. ST even provided an infobox on how Halloween started in the West:

So, don't leave home (your hotel) without putting on your autumn/winter togs, sweat like crazy in our humid weather, and walk around like a zombie. You won't be alone. The Halloween kampung spirits will make sure of that. The madness has begun.

Hail the Sonata! And the power of social media.

Hail the Sonata!

I had -- in an earlier blog entry -- disapproved of the choice of the Hyundai Sonata as a taxi type because it has a turbocharged engine in a compact saloon car body. This is what a Sonata looks like:

These taxis are quick, acceleration-wise. As a result, when I am driving on the roads, I often find their drivers doing things like revving to pull ahead in merging lanes or darting about in traffic -- just because they could!

Taxis need not be stodgy and slow but I do not think it's a good idea to let them have the edge when it comes to acceleration capability. Ironically, however, I'm prepared to champion the Sonata now because of this story in today's ST (Oct 22):

                 

The ubiquitous Sonatas (and the few remaining Toyota Crowns) are now the only taxi types with the lowest flag-down of $3.20. Even then, the story above says they are being replaced over the next few years.

But what is galling -- from the story above -- are the excuses given for hiking the flag-down rates for the other taxi types. ComfortDelgro chose not to comment, but another cab company had the cheek to say its taxi models are "more comfortable, safer and bought with higher COEs"! I have not found the Sonata uncomfortable when I had to ride in one, and what exactly does "safer" mean? Should not all taxis be safe, period? If not, they should be removed from the roads. So it comes down to "higher COEs". And it is the commuter who has to bear the cost?     

It gets more bizarre. SMRT said its Toyota Prius model was "greener and quieter". Again, tell that to a commuter who only wants to get from Point A to Point B.

As commuter Lau Sau Kuen said, people will generally not begrudge the higher flag-down for the limos and the maxi-cabs. But she got it spot-on when she said: "I don't know what justifies the higher fares for the other cabs." Indeed, they should all serve one purpose, whatever the model type: to carry up to four passengers in reasonable (non-limo) comfort with, if needed, luggage space in the boot.  

So maybe we should all vote with our hands and just "Hail the Sonatas"! They are still plentiful and easy to spot (see picture above).   

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The power of social media

This ST story below (Oct 22) is satisfying because a call for help online led to the hit-and-run driver being investigated by the police. For better or for worse, it also shows the powerful reach of social media:

No one's looking up my back door for the next 5 years!

Still somewhat knocked out by the gas they pumped in for my colonoscopy op today (late afternoon), so will keep this short. They also pumped in air which gave me post-op nausea and backdoor "release".

Did you know that this centre I went to does 50 to 60 such procedures a day! (Memo to someone I know: you could have been rich by now. And you get to order people -- from the high and mighty to the lowly -- to pull down their pants for you.)

The worst part of a colonoscopy (for me anyway) is not so much the procedure itself but having, as part of the bowel "prep",  to take four litres of water from 7am to 11am (for afternoon ops). Each litre had to be mixed with a satchel of this (smart investors would have bought shares of the product's maker):

After two litres of this mixture, I felt really yucky! And it was already 9.30am with two more litres to go. If you don't complete this "water torture" treatment, upon arrival at the medical centre, they stick this into you before they even stick the endoscope in!...

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Butt of Darkness (with apologies to Joseph Conrad):

So, did I get a clean bill of health? Here's the result:

The diverticulum from five years back is there but the good news is that it is not haemorrhageing.

Finally, for anyone who had missed this parody song which I had posted earlier, here it is again:

(Lookin' Up My) Back Door

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmKnf7QhuSo

Keep it simple, stupid?

The person who sent me this titled it "Tiny truths":

1. Notice in a church:
''Do not leave mobile; purse, wallet,
hand-bag, girlfriend unattended... Others may think it is an answer to their prayers.''

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2. Who is a psychiatrist?...
A qualified person who gives you an expensive and critical analysis about yourself, which your spouse gives for free on a daily basis!
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3. Scotch whisky is a brilliant invention...
One double and you start feeling single again!
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4. Global recessions and financial crises have become so serious that...

The majority of men have started
loving their own wives!

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5. No matter how many times the teeth bite the tongue...

They still stay together in one mouth;
now, that's the Spirit of Forgiveness!

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And the last word on the US debt ceiling?...

A done/to-do list...

Done
Got it!... the original NASA joke

ST missed the Hodgson monkey gaffe story which TODAY carried yesterday but made up for it today (Oct 19) with an excellent commentary by Rob Hughes:

Best of all, Hughes recounted the original NASA joke which I failed to find online yesterday:

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To do (by the relevant authorities)
Picture poser: Flags transposed?
(Shouldn't the Chinese flag be set on the right, and vice versa?)

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Yet to be done
So, there were secret talks after all!
I had previously blogged about how important it was for the current Japanese and Chinese leaders to meet, and why Tokyo's bid to set up a summit should not have been rejected outright by Beijing. Now we are told there were secret talks (ST, Oct 17), but it's still no go.

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To do (if you fall into the category below)
Get a doll... and make sure it can cry and laugh!

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Finally...
Being done
My 3-day meal regime:

I have to follow those instructions above prior to my colonoscopy op on Monday. At first I thought, What! No steaks, no lamb chops, no cappuccinos, no red bean desserts, etc etc.

Then I had a careful look at the "what I can eat and drink" section. Ah!...
My daily shot of expresso coffee
Char kway teow
Chicken nasi briyani
Hainanese chicken rice
Yeo's canned curry chicken (with white bread)
Fish porridge
Fish and chips
Roast chicken and chips
Chicken burger and chips
Fish burger and chips.

I can live with that.

Feed the monkey: Space joke that failed to blast off.

Poor Roy Hodgson. He made a joke, only to have it backfire on him (TODAY, Oct 18):

I looked online for the original NASA joke but could only find this one:

I also found these space-joke links which I thought were not bad:

http://memebase.cheezburger.com/puns/tag/space

http://www.funology.com/outer-space-jokes/

I'm reserving what I think is the best for last...

Okay, next stop for me: the movie Gravity!

Memorabilia

Today I'm 63, and a retiree (haha, yet another "ee" word). Yesterday, I switched off my desk computer for the last time...

I had left ST in 1991 and returned in 2007. There was an  "in the beginning", in the 1970s:

This old 1970s picture (courtesy of S. Uthaman; everyone of course called him Superman) showed me at one end of the "subs' horseshoe". Next to me was S. Yogendran; Teo Lye Seng was the "slotman" (chief sub). At the "backbench" were Mr Singam (we always addressed him as that) and Walter Seow. They conceptualised and "drew up" the front page and the local news pages.

I had a good run before I left ST in 1991. I won two Headline of the Year awards (1984 and 1989) and I was told when I returned in 2007 that my record had been equalled by one other person (from BT, not ST). Our record has not been broken.

Too bad I never got to score that hattrick. But that's life. (Many thanks to Alan John, Susan Low and the library team for their help in retrieving the old clippings/transcripts.)