about a weekend
Monday, April 30, 2007
I would love to say that I spent the weekend boozing around in pubs, waking up in bed with a stranger and having a tattoo on my buttcheek that says 'I love Mike'.
But I can't.
The truth is, I spent my weekend walking around at home during the day and whimpering in bed alone at night.
Other than these two hobbies of mine, I also managed to tidy my wardrobe, talk to my neighbour and watch a few chick-lit movies.
Shut up about the chick-lit films already.
The reason why I, an accomplished procrastinator, decided to clean up my wardrobe was simple - I couldn't find my socks. I found all kinds of incomplete socks though: socks without heels; socks without toes; and socks without a partner.
That happened on Tuesday, and I resolved to clear up the mess immediately.
Then, I waited till Saturday to do it.
Anyhow, I managed to tidy up the wardrobe and found that I had three bags of unwanted clothes, shorts and socks.
Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full!
So, I had three bags of old clothes which I wanted to get rid off. They were really old and some of the white shirts have turned yellow. Basically, they were so bad that I don't even think Salvation Army would take them in.
Just as I was pondering about how to get rid of the clothes, the Bangala who sweeps my corridor sweeps by. I had an idea, and beckoned him over.
I offered him the three bags of clothes and he was really grateful. I mean, really, grateful. Really. Grateful.
So now, the Bangala who sweeps my floor dresses the way I used to, and smiles at me all the time.
I also forgot to mention that one of the shirts inside the bag has the words 'Angry, Young and Poor' emblazoned across the front in huge, jagged letters. Pretty nifty.
On another note, I finally got to interact with my neighbour. I moved in to my current place about 5 years ago, and has never talked to them at all. Yesterday, however, the man came over to borrow some lemons.
I happened to have a few lemons left over from a BBQ which took place in early March. Since they've been untouched for over a month, I decided that I would never touch them and gave all of them to the man. I don't think they're expired though, since they've been sour since day one.
Anyway, I don't expect the man to return me anything. Ever had one of those neighbours who borrow things for so long, you have to borrow them back? Ya, he looked like that sort.
Finally, I watched two chick-lit movies over the weekend as well. I caught Chicago and Notting Hill. I know, I know. I've always been a few years slower than anyone else.
I really really respect the crew of Chicago, and agree fully that they deserve the Oscar for Best Picture.
I mean, seriously.
They actually managed to make Renee Zellweger look good!
Just for that fact alone, they deserve an Oscar. I am no make-up specialist, but even I would know that turning Renee 'The Blob' Zellweger into a vaudeville star would be extremely difficult.
Oh wait! There's something else that happened over the weekend, and it was pretty exciting.
MY BED BROKE!
And that's all I'm gonna tell you about that.
Author: Ye » Comments:
I'm a sellout
Friday, April 27, 2007
Hatta, my biggest fan with a staggering record of two posts on my tag board, commented on my previous piece that I ‘should write a book’.
I considered his suggestion, dwelled over it for a few minutes, and decided that it simply wasn’t gonna work.
Apart from the never-ending and aptly titled ‘Russell Lee’s Almost Complete Collection of True Singapore Ghost Stories (Volumes One to Seven Million)’, there are simply no other successes in the local publishing industry.
Plus, I actually had trouble coming up with a name for my would-be book.
First, I thought of competing with Russell Lee for the ‘Longest Book Title’ award. I wanted to call my book ‘Ye HongXiang’s Almost Complete Collection of True Singapore Life Stories’. And then, just to up the ante, I will include the words (paperback edition) and (based on a true story).
The full title would read ‘Ye HongXiang’s Almost Complete Collection of True Singapore Life Stories (paperback edition) (based on a true story)’. Isn’t that awesome?
The book will be choke-full of stories about how life screwed me, just like how Russell Lee’s book was all about how ghosts screwed people. Literally. I once read a story in Russell Lee’s book about a man having sex with a ghost. The man even claimed that the ghost took away a lot of his ‘vital energy’.
I guess the Japanese heard that story and decided to put words into action. Check it out here.
Then I thought of calling my book ‘Memoirs of Ye HongXiang’. It sounded as passé as it looked and I gave it up almost immediately. I mean, come on, how can I expect to compete with ‘Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew’?! He’s the freakin' Overlord of Singapore man!
In addition, there is another famous book called ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of it, but it is basically about how prostitutes in Japan used to put on heavy make-up, play some weird wayang music, and refuse to let their customers touch them. Essentially the same story as ‘Memoirs of Lee Kuan Yew’, with a little bit more make-up.
With such insurmountable difficulties presenting themselves, I decided to take the easy way out and continue posting on my blog. This effectively makes me an online writer-cum-publisher, and that is way cooler than Russell Lee and his team of ghost writers.
Damn, this is the second consecutive post in which I digressed. I was supposed to talk about how much of a sellout I am, wasn’t I?
If you noticed, I now have Google’s advertisements right at the bottom of my blog. In order to prevent it from obstructing my blog, I decided to place it right at the bottom, even lower than the link for Hatta’s blog. That’s how unimportant it is.
Even though I say this, I would really appreciate it if you people could click on the ads once in a while, just to let me earn a few cents. Those few cents could go a long way into helping me with paying for something. I’m not sure what this something is, but I assure you, I’ll be pretty damn sure when the money comes.
However, if you really hate those ads, just voice it out to me via email. Just drop me an email with a subject that says ‘I HATE ADS’ and I will send you a step-by-step guide on how to block them. I am THAT cool. Take it from me, kids; always keep that indie streak of yours.
Don’t get me wrong, I still hate ads. I get at least a few everyday, screaming titles like ‘SEXUALLY EXPLICIT’, ‘ENLARGE YOUR PENIS’ and “RESURFACE YOUR KITCHEN’. I have this sneaky feeling that all three ads are related because the one about enlarging my penis always comes after the one about sexually explicit stuff. ‘RESURFACE YOUR KITCHEN’ always follows the other two, and never states what I should resurface my kitchen with. Pretty suggestive and gross, I would say.
Now that you understand me, please scroll down (that’s right, even lower than Hatta’s blog link) and click on those ads.
Author: Ye » Comments:
The truth about my admission to Mass Comm
Thursday, April 19, 2007
The polytechnic academic year, 07/08, has recently started. Just like any other years, tonnes of secondary school leavers, especially the females, flock towards media-related Diplomas like the one I happen to have.
Here’s the often-heard line females tend to say:
‘You know, I really wanna go to, like, Mass Comm! I think this course is, um, made for me or something, you know? It’s like I was born for this! I belong to the big time; I’m like, the Next Big Thing!’
And so on.
Guys? Well…
Guy A: ‘Dudes, check out that course! It’s filled with girls!’
Guy B, Guy C and Guy D, in unison: ‘AWESOME!’
So what do we have here? A mixture of females who talk like porn stars and males who slap each other on their backs and go ‘AWESOME’ at every other thing.
In the days of yore… Oh wait, that phrase, ‘days of yore’, just made me sound really sophisticated, didn’t it?
It makes me feel like I am one of those old people who sit in a large armchair by a fireplace, sipping tea and beginning all my sentences with ‘One might say…’
Anyhow, in the days of yore, candidates had to go through a written test and an interview to get a shot at enrolling in this prestigious course. In order to get more than a shot, you will have to actually pass both the test and the interview. This was done to weed out inferior students, and fill up seats at the lecture halls of Ngee Ann Polytechnic’s Business Faculty.
Here’s the clincher: They removed the test and interview.
Henceforth, getting into Mass Comm is like getting into Paris Hilton.
This was generally considered a very bad decision, and it made a lot of people unhappy. Not that it would have mattered, but one of the unhappy people was me.
Oh wait, I digress. This was supposed to be a post about my admission eh?
Legend has it that I aced the interview by being extremely confident and witty. It has also been said that I navigated all the questions the three interviewers threw at me with much style and aplomb. The written test? I didn’t even have to attend it.
However, I am here to squash these rumours once and for all. I did not ace the interview, and I was neither confident nor witty. I even handed up a blank script for my written test. So what really happened?
On the date of the written test, I wrote my name on the script. An invigilator happened to pass by and saw my name. He took my script immediately, bowed, and invited me for a tea-sipping session by a fireplace.
Days later, I found out that I passed the test and will be going for the interview.
I thought nothing about the previous encounter and went for the interview. I was out of the interview room within an exchange of seven sentences.
Here’s how it went:
Interviewer A, extremely surprised: ‘Are you…’
Me: ‘Yes, I’m here for the inter…’
Interviewer B: ‘Are you HongXiang?’
Me: ‘Yes.’
Interviewer C: ‘The HongXiang?’
Me: ‘Actually, it’s Ye HongXiang.’
Interviewers A, B and C: ‘Can we have your autograph?’
I signed on various parts of the interviewers, left the room, and got accepted.
And that, is the true story.
Author: Ye » Comments:
