Paikiapeng’s Homecourt

听了敦鸿的专辑好几遍。起初给我的感觉是起伏不大，跟封面所说的‘疯狂’似乎有点不衬。但身为他的朋友，我明白他所说的‘疯狂’并不在于歌的风格，而是在他的精神所在。带着一颗赤子之心，一份勇于尝试的心态，敦鸿正努力朝他的梦想迈进, 是绝对值得支持的。而且这专辑里的歌，你听多几遍，自然会越来越欣赏。

我对专辑里的第五首歌 ‘一直都在’, 越听越爱不释手。这首歌的词和曲听起来都很舒服。Style也不赖。K-歌如果有，我一定会唱。哈哈！歌的内容基本上是对情人心里想说的话，告诉他你的爱一直都在，不管你有没有说出来。当然，对大多数人来讲，说出来的话总比方在心里的话强。以下是这首歌的歌词：

一直都在 （唱：叶敦鸿 / 曲：叶敦鸿 / 词：洪圣安）

你说我的沉默总让你不知所措
要我用言语画出爱情的轮廓
你说你很脆弱   需要更坚强的寄托
但我的若无其事让你感到疑惑

轻轻 将你双手拉近
趁着夜晚的宁静
要你 用心的聆听

口述：亲爱的，这是我想对你说的。。。

My Love   虽然不曾说出来
我的爱一直都在
再也没有什么能替代
你的存在

My Love  不管命运的安排
我的爱一直都在
毫无保留将你用入怀
任你依赖

口述：我们在一起的时候，我的话虽然说得不多;
我也知道  我不够体贴；
但是，你一定要相信我，
我是真的真的很用心爱着你。
真的。我对你的爱一直都在。
一直都在。。。

This was something that I longed to do, but have never ventured into because of too many commitments and uncertainties. You don’t know whether you can make any money from it, or even survive. I have taken a step forward to go after something I want to do, for basketball and myself. To serve the basketball community and make things better for everyone.

My inspiration came from a friend, Yet (www.iamyet.net) who just produced his own Mandarin pop album, entitled Crazy Yet. In short, the word “crazy” in this context symbolises Yet’s mentality and probably what others would say about him when he made the decision to fork out money from his own pocket, and dug even deeper by borrowing loans to work on the production. When I heard how each CD in his hand cost $55 to produce (while selling for $19.90), I couldn’t help but wonder what gave him the courage to push ahead and chase this dream of his.

Then I recalled the words on a motivational poster I stuck outside my bathroom door entitled Maybe someday. It goes something like this…  “Maybe someday you will find that you have nothing to lose, Maybe someday you realise that blah blah blah (it’s a page long poster) … Maybe that someday is today!”

The summary of that poster is to tell one to stop procrastinating and go ahead to do what you want to do, what you need to do. Instead of waiting for that maybe someday which may never come.

Remember that song “The Young Ones…Darling, we’re the young ones… And the young ones… shouldn’t be afraid…” I particularly like the part where it says,”Tomorrow…why wait until tomorrow? Cos tomorrow sometimes never comes…”

I think dreams and goals are out there just waiting for us to reach out and grab them. It’s just how much you want to take the step to reach towards each one and how much you really want it. Everything is possible, that is within your reach and mine. If it’s a little further, there’s always friends and loved ones to help you reach a little higher, stretch a little further, and you will get there.

Drawing up big plans for the future… It is quite a challenge but I’m certain that I can carry it through. I just need to focus a bit more. Think I’m still too distracted.

I have to get everything down on paper and get things going.

I faced a 2-Headed monster on Monday morning during a meeting (aka complaint session). Indeed, like what the Dilbert comics describe, HR ppl are truly from the abyss. The worst part of it is that they pretend to be nice people and all, when they don’t have any issues with you. Then when it comes down to the crunch, they show their horns.

One of them had disliked me since the time I retorted her email where she tried to sabotage me. Since then, she always bore a grudge against me and had always tried to go against me whenever she could.

The other, I was rather surprised. She was unpopular and all, but I saw her as someone who needed a friend, and where possible, tried to talk to her and show some concern to this lonely soul. Then I found out why that was so. She was trying so freaking hard to make herself look damn smart, and making herself a pest. Maybe she just thought that she knew better than anyone else.

Anyway, point is, both of them are not HR professionals, i.e. no HR degree or whatever related qualification. One’s an accountant, and the other’s a farmer. EQ = 0. Maybe that’s a qualification for people who are working in the HR field here.

After the meeting, I felt quite drained. It kinda sapped away all my energy for work the entire week. This, just a week after they screwed up on my job title issue… HR should be dismissed.

The ERP adjustments have been making headlines everyday in the news for the past week or so. Supposedly it has made many people rethink their routes of travel when they are trying to get to work/get home early. So employers in the CBD should not make too much noise when staff come to work later than usual, because they are trying to find a route which they do not have to pay for entry.

Big Brother talks about work-life balance, and the whole works about spending time with your family. I would say, how to? When one has to spend more time travelling on longer alternative roads to reach home. On their annual "Eat with your family" day, does the government lift the ERP, so that people are more motivated to go home early (hence not waiting for the ERP to end)? That could be a good suggestion. And what’s that about Saturday ERP? Scrape that too!

In a time of inflation, Big Brother just have to find ways to make life a little more unbearable for its people. As costs go up, employers will be more reluctant to give increments and bonuses and are perhaps justified in doing so. The meagre GST offsets and whatever small monies that Big Brother came up with to "help people" manage better, does little really. High inflation, low wages, high cost of living = sounds to me like a perfect recipe for disaster.

The increase in ERP gantries got people thinking about what "intelligent" scheme Big Brother will next come up with. I think maybe this thing called the ELP. Played through my imagination, this is the scenario that one might expect…

In the news:
Big Brother has announced a new ELP scheme to relieve the woes of Singaporeans living in HDB housing. ELP stands for Electronic Lift Pricing.

Singaporeans living in increasingly high (50-storey) HDB flats have experienced congestions getting up and down lifts leading to/from their high(ly)-rise(/priced) homes. Reports have shown that an average journey from one’s home on the 40th floor to the ground floor takes about half an hour to 45 minutes, during the peak hours in the morning and evening, when people are leaving for work or returning home from work. This new ELP scheme will help to relieve the lift congestion and allow people to rethink their lifestyles (i.e. walking up and down the stairs).

Here’s what we gathered from residents at one of these high-rise flats.

Resident A (Executive): I live on the 29th floor. Every morning, when I need to go to work at 8:30am, I leave my house by 7:30am, even though my office is just two blocks away. Otherwise, when I finally manage to get into one of the lifts (after maybe more than 20 filled lifts have gone down), I would be late for work. And my boss would ask me why I am late when I just live two blocks away! How to explain?

Resident B (Jovial-looking Uncle): Hahaha, luckily I live on the 3rd floor man! My friends laughed at me when I told them I got 3rd floor here. They don’t see the problem; I saw it first! I just use the stairs lah. Wait for lift? Siao ah! Now got this what ERP or ELP lah, I can laugh even louder! Don’t need to use the lift what. 50th floor the worst, man! Have to pay like siao just to go home. Everyday I take the stairs, no problem! Hahahahaha~~

Resident C (Lucky/suay guy living on highest floor): I live on the 50th floor. And I can tell you that waiting time is damn terok. And what the *beep*! I have to pay the most and for what, just to get home! I did some calculations and found that it’s not worth it to go to work. Go work, pay ERP, ELP, season parking… after all these costs, I don’t need to eat already. Still have to pay bills, house instalment, car instalment, insurance, road tax, income tax, GST, whatever lah. Or I can do this lah, everyday walk 100 storeys worth of stairs (up & down once), plus cycle to work. That will solve my problem. Take MRT or bus? Forget it lah, so bloody crowded also! I will make sure that I don’t go anywhere lah. Just stay at home and watch TV everyday lah! I hope they don’t have some EHP (electronic Home pricing) next time ah. Scali go your house toilet at peak hour also have to pay!

And that’s all we have for the report.

Within 2 weeks of driving, I almost clocked 500km in distance travelled already. Not sure if that is a lot, but it seems like I will hit the 1000km mark by mid-June. And I don’t even drive to work. So far most of the journeys I’ve made were to ferry my wife to and fro, for her teaching purposes. I’m quite happy actually, to be able to help her in her travelling while she is working hard to get her driving license. Cos I know she can get quite tired from all the journeys to her different students’ homes. Not to mention I can use the opportunity to learn all the different driving routes to different places in Singapore. It’s quite different when you are driving yourself than taking a cab. I’ve often found that out the hard way when I have to make a circle or U-turn to get to the right route. Haha~

Happened a couple of times in Woodlands, trying to get into Causeway Pt and leaving the area. And had to ‘cut queue’ into the PS lane when I didn’t know that the long line in the bus lane was for turning into the place. Haha~! But well, all these come with experience lah!

The GPS came in useful yesterday when I had to make my way to Jurong West. For once, I was able to follow the entire route (without having to reroute due to early turn or missed turn) and make it to the destination to fetch my wife from her student’s place. The software update I did the night before might have helped.

When we came back from Woodlands this time round, I didn’t take the route through Thomson Road (which probably might have routed me through the cemetary again!). Phew!

Caught two shows after the UnHappening and thought I would share my thoughts on them.

1. Get Smart
Steve Carell plays the part of Maxwell Smart, a blundering spy wannabe in this hilarious spy flick, somewhat reminding one of Johnny English (starring ‘Mr Bean’ Rowan Atkinson) some years back. Like JE, Smart was teamed up with an accomplished female spy (Anne Hathaway) who oozed sexiness with her style in the movie. All in all, a really funny show that will probably have you laugh from start till end. Steve Carell really does a heck of a job looking serious, yet appearing funny from head to toe with his articulations. Worth a watch if you got spare cash. If not, can also wait for the DVD.

2. Sex & the City
Now this was a show that I would not have otherwise watched if I did not have free tickets on my hands. I got these 2 complimentary passes from GV after I gave them feedback about the cutting off of the Iron Man trailer at the end of the show. When we checked at the counter, Sex and UnHappening were the only two shows our free passes could get us into. Anyway, we wanted to catch a show with my friend and his gf who had earlier bought tix to the same show (and we were having dinner with them).

So then. My wife and I were both strangers to the highly successful hit series, which never did make it to Singapore on TV. Of course we had heard of the name but we never saw the show at all. Hence, the premise of the show, the characters and all were all new to us.

The show turned out to be pretty interesting and there were of course, plenty of love-making scenes (with a title like that, who wouldn’t have expected that?). But I suppose the Singapore censors did have their hands full, snipping off scenes (there were several obvious pts where cuts were made).

The 4 female protagonists of the show, all engaged in their own love/sex lives, continued their story from where they left off in the drama series. We had no idea what it was about, so we just watched on with a fresh mind. Some two hours later, the show finally ended (I think it was 2.5 hours long or so). Again, another show that is worth a watch, not for the sex scenes, but for the engaging storyline. Keeps you guessing what’s gonna happen next for each of these ladies.

On Sat, I sent my wife to Woodlands, where she was conducting a piano lesson. It took us a while to get there and reach the destination as she wasn’t too sure of the exact location (she used to walk from the MRT, so taking a car there was a first). We basically depended on our Garmin nuvi 200W GPS to navigate our way around the place. We got a little lost, of course. When we finally found the place, she was about 15 mins late.

After that, I went to Causeway Pt to look for food and walk around a bit. Wanted to park there, but there was close to zero parking lots available there. And there was a whole line of cars waiting in succession to go in. Circled the place twice before I decided to detour to the nearby HDB carpark, which turned out to be not so ‘nearby.’ It took me a 10-min walk to get to Causeway Pt from where I was parked. But no choice, didn’t want to waste any more time going back to try again, so I just walked lah…

Causeway Pt was another Jurong Pt in the making. There was such a crowd! It’s not as if there was some big sale or something. But people were streaming in and out of the place.

Before I bought food, I went to have a stroll at the pasar malam which was just beside the building. Pasar malams nowadays have lost a bit of flavour. All the stores seem to sell the same old stuff. But cheap lah. Bought a pirated Spongebob Monopoly set there for $12. Wanted to buy the Star Wars Risk but no extra cash to buy. Had the guy given me a discount, I would have bought the Risk as well. Haha~!

After the pasar malam walk, I settled for Cavana, where I bought our dinner. The waiter seemed a bit lost. 1 min after taking my order, I was seated outside and he came up to me and asked if I wanted to order something. Food prices really skyrocketing… a BBQ wing set cost $8.50 just like that. And it didn’t have come with a drink! 3 chicken wings, plain rice and potato chips… $8.50. Ridiculous!

It was about time after I bought dinner, so I headed back to look for Cheryl. It was much easier finding the place this time round.

We decided to use the GPS to find our way back home. We thought that the GPS would bring us back to BKE and we could return from there. Unfortunately, the GPS directed us along the minor roads, going down Thomson and we got sidetracked along Lornie Road. The GPS directed us down a small road known as Sime Road. The moment we entered the road, it felt like something wasn’t right. After a short distance, there was no street lighting. And the road became narrower…

Then my wife suddenly told me, ‘Oh shit! It’s a cemetary!’ Then I looked around and yeah, she was right. (anyway, I didn’t mention that it was in the middle of the night, about 10pm or so). We continued driving and I told her to just continue giving me the directions. I think both of us tried not to look elsewhere but ahead. After all, my wife sometimes could sense non-human stuff, so I was kinda worried that she might just say something that would knock my socks off.

It was a lonely single lane road all the way, and we finally saw some houses in the distance, and we had managed our way out of the darkness. A road sign (University Road) was a relief to see. We came out along Dunearn Road. The GPS has routed us through this shortcut, which we would not have otherwise known or taken.

From Dunearn Road, it was pretty much smooth sailing as we made our way back down Orchard Road. It was our first adventure on our little yellow Jazz…

After two months of waiting, our ride has finally arrived.

Our little yellow Honda Jazz.

Greeting us with its effervescent sunshiny hue, it brought a smile to our faces.

A goal achieved. Moving on to other stuff.

Another one of M Night Shyamalan’s failed attempts at the box office. Probably the last of his movies that we will try to catch on the big screen, unless reviews say otherwise.

My wife and I (together with my bro) went to catch this movie at GV Jurong Pt. I went there to get myself a new G-Shock as there was a GSS offer(my past Casios were all Baby-Gs - small wrist mah).

After shopping and having lunch there, we decided to catch a show. And the Happening was the show that was just released, so we opted for it. Wanted to use my two complimentary passes for the show but were not allowed to (all the stupid terms & conditions!).

I remember seeing the trailer twice or so and thought that it might be promising. Or at least it aroused our curiosity enough to want to find out what it was about.

**Warning - Spoiler alert!**

So the story goes that bees started disappearing mysteriously. Then people started freezing in their steps, repeating their sentences and finding ways to kill themselves. The first person you see killing herself in the show was this girl who was in the park with her friend. She removed her chopstick hairpin from her hair and stuck it into her throat. The unusual events soon spread through NYC. People just killed themselves using whatever they could find. If they had a gun, they would shoot themselves. If they had a car, they would crash into a tree. Something like that.

While the US Government was trying to find a reason (blame it all on terrorist attacks), the common folk were trying to hide/escape from this development.

It was through a semi-cuckoo farm owner that the lead realised that it could be the trees releasing chemicals that could cause people to lose their senses and kill themselves inexplicably. This was the revenge of Mother Earth, against the atrocities of humans against nature.

As the characters moved into the rural areas in their attempt to escape the wrath of nature, you are introduced to the crazy folk living in small towns… gun-wielding paranoid people, crazy old lady who hadn’t interacted with people for 20 years… etc.

Then as suddenly as it started, the phenomenon stopped. And at the end, the horror began somewhere else. As someone sitting in front of us summarised at the credits, this show was so ‘unhappening’.