the inevitable result of disappearing for two months on medical leave due to a torn ligament and then coming back to a disgruntled bunch of co-workers who had to cover for you while you were away:

for your own safety, please stand behind the yellow line. actually, don't even get on the train. thank you.

i can't, for the life of me, understand why mrt trains have a 'doors closing' announcement. firstly, it's often inaudible above the murmuring of passengers. and when it's most important to have is when there's a rush to get onboard a crowded train and getting one's self jammed between those train doors that close quickly and suddenly is a distinct possibility. however, that would make the announcement too useful for our own good. "no," the smrt management cried, "we have to find a way around that!" so what do they do?

they make sure the announcement is only played inside the trains. brilliant.

it's alive! aliiive!!!

the crackpots

today, valentine's day, is the day when thecrackpots.com goes live. the result of two months of planning, designing and writing, the site aims to link bloggers from around the world together and to make them have a good, hearty laugh while they're there. right now, the team comprises of damien j gomez (co-conspirator), gaurav (my brother - designer), petrina (resident contributor), ashok (resident contributor) and myself (the other half of the co-conspiracy).

i hope you enjoy what we've put together. there's more to come, for sure. look forward to new articles, features and sections over the next few months.

hail hail, rain reigns, s'no snow in singapore

somehow, when people get caught in the rain and they know there's no way they can escape getting drenched, the human spirit goes into overdrive. they lose most of their inhibitions and this often leads to various boisterous acts such as singing loudly, dancing, laughing uncontrollably. this 'rain-drunk' effect is multiplied by the addition of other drenched people. take for example, football matches. when it starts to pour, no matter how badly their team is playing, the supporters just feel like cheering their hearts out. i enjoy getting wet in the rain. i sing out loud, run through puddles and sometimes i talk to other drenched people. it's like nobody cares what you do when you're all wet.

snow is like the stuff you can scrape off the lid of that tub of ice cream sitting in your freezer. it's ice that comes sand-grain-sized. the last time i saw snow was a couple of years ago, in arizona (of all places, a desert). it's a beautiful thing until you see many, many 18-wheelers jack-knifed along the highway from the grand canyon to sedona. it's beautiful until you see little children taking a piss onto some snow, picking up one of those orange warning cones, scooping up the pissed-in snow and calling them lemon sno-cones. americans.

hail is, well, is.. well, i haven't ever seen hail before. so do send me pictures of some hail.

winston churchill

winston churchill..

from now on, ending a sentence with a preposition is something up with which i will not put.

he has all the virtues i dislike and none of the vices i admire.

history will be kind to me for i intend to write it.

it is a mistake to try to look too far ahead. the chain of destiny can only be grasped one link at a time.

men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened.

we make a living by what we get, we make a life by what we give.

it is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.

i am prepared to meet my maker. whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.

the empires of the future are the empires of the mind.

for myself I am an optimist - it does not seem to be much use being anything else.

i like pigs. dogs look up to us. cats look down on us. pigs treat us as equals.

yes, madam, i am drunk. but in the morning I will be sober and you will still be ugly.

gladstone read homer for fun, which i thought served him right

criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. it fulfils the same function as pain in the human body. it calls attention to an unhealthy state of things.

dictators ride to and fro upon tigers which they dare not dismount. and the tigers are getting hungry.

meeting franklin roosevelt was like opening your first bottle of champagne; knowing him was like drinking it.

my most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.

the length of this document defends it well against the risk of it being read.

the monarchy is so extraordinarily useful. when britain wins a battle she shouts, "god save the queen"; when she loses, she votes down the prime minister.

the truth is incontrovertible, malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end; there it is.

we have always found the irish a bit odd. they refuse to be english.

you have enemies? good. that means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.

--

while visiting blenheim palace (the churchill family's ancestral home) one day, nancy astor found herself discussing women's rights with winston churchill, a man not noted for his fondness of the subject.
at the height of their disagreement, lady astor finally exclaimed, "winston, if I were married to you, i would put poison in your coffee!"

"and if you were my wife," churchill drily replied, "i'd drink it."

by choice..

as i sat in the bus stop outside flea's house today, i watched an elderly gent across the road make his way down a short pathway no longer than forty meters. this was the man i had breezed past moments earlier while thinking about the pain in my left knee. i had walked a good fifteen meters past him down the path, then up the overhead bridge, across the road, down the stairs and into the adjacent bus-stop. and in all that time, this gent had moved nothing more than two meters, i swear. he shuffled his feet, inching his way towards the main road whilst leaning on the umbrella he clutched in his left hand. i watched on.

ten minutes.

he was getting closer to the main road. i could see my bus in the distance. i turned back to him.

god. he was about to attempt the staircase. he's going to be here all night. it's 8.00 pm and i'm sitting here, complaining about my knee. he should camp out by the staircase tonight, i was thinking.

my bus pulls up to the stop and the doors swing open. the driver looks to me, the only person around. and then something goes click, i smile at him and politely decline.

five minutes later and the elderly gent is on step number four. i must admit, he climbs faster than he walks.

i've just willingly missed my bus.

it's another twenty-five minutes to the next one, but i don't care.
because.

how many times, as crazy as it sounds, have i not rushed somewhere? i'm always in a hurry. to what point and purpose? how much will the events of my future be reorganised or cancelled or replaced because i chose to miss that one bus? when i was young, i would think about the consequences of my actions and that if i did something sudden and unpredictable, it would have repercussions on completely unrelated events, such as the football match on the telly. it was as though i could change the fate of everything (because i believed that they're all inter-related events) by moving quick enough to capitalise on its inertia. i would get up, make for the toilet or my room and then turn around and hop back into the couch really quickly. or i would suddenly just shout or holler. and the best bit is that while i remained young, i believed beyond doubt that had i not shouted or feigned, things would have happened differently.

i like how ridiculous it is; the notion that i chose to miss my bus.

the elderly gent made it to the top of the stairs by the time my next bus arrived. i smiled in his direction, tipped my imaginary hat, and thanked him silently, as i boarded the bus, for letting my taste life walked at his pace.

he walks slowly, but how sure his steps are.

why i don't drink

a hilarious little flash animation. alcohol warnings.

like clockwork, folks. she works like clockwork.

i thought i'd make this little poster to show everyone what army is like for my friends.

Singapore Armed Forces promotion poster