*choke* *sputter* *spew*

I am being poisoned. Toxified. Toxicated. Gassed. Surely, and not even slowly.

You see, I literally live with a skunk. Each time Babi lets off one of his silent but deadly killers, the stink wafts its way insidiously into my nostrils, assaulting my brain and massacring my senses. I am often left reeling from the catastrophic aftermath.

I am so chum lor...alone in this silent torment, resigned to a plight of kena olfactorily brutalized. Every single day some more.

His stinkbombs are sooooo bad they can wake me from the dead (I'm a bloody heavy sleeper lor). Satan himself would run screaming in the opposite direction should Babi pummel him with the fury of his farts.

They particularly stink to kingdom come when let off under the duvet, which Babi is damn fond of doing. Or I'd be stupid enough to be nua-ing somewhere in the line of fire, and he would let rip a blast right in my poor, unsuspecting face.

Waaaah laaaaan ayyye!!!!!!!

Is it his diet? My babi eats healthy as far as I'm aware, and he neither smokes nor drinks. Those utterly noxious fumes of his are by-products for sure, but of what exactly?! Any help please please pretty please? Desperation begets desperate measures.

I find happiness in slavery and servitude to my Babi, but getting fumigated out of my own room ain't my idea of reward for being wife numero uno. :p

MR 500

Wat a great race! Finally, we managed not to come in last for all the cat we are racing in. Timing for all our races are fantastic although it can be a little better. Hehe. We almost won the Plate Final if not for the stupid tactic of some no balls Dutch Bank team. They got to be the most no balls team I ever encountered in my whole freaking life. How can any1 justify sending their A Team to compete in the Plate Final! Totally KNS sia! Their timing is good enough for a medal in the Grand Final. They juz do not have the courage nor the belief in their own team to fight it out! Wat a bunch of wimp! Our timing for the 12 crew boat in the Plate Final was even better than the Grand Final's 2nd place boat. I really can't believe it! But there is no denying they were the faster boat in the water. It is ok cuz I am sure we can beat them the next time we race them!

It is a real pity the girls are not able to compete in the woman cat as we onli have 8 female rowers. Hope to see them in action soon cuz I believe they will do really well. Thanks to every1 for being so on especially, ZY (Captain muz thank if not cannot get into the lineup nxt time), CT (for believing we can form a team to compete in a real race) & Xiao Mei (our no. 1 fan for supporting & drumming). Can't wait for the next race!!!

The Leap Years Pt. 2

Babi thinks the message behind the movie is fucked up. I'm not quite so unforgiving lah. After all, the movie did deliver its entertainment value. I don't usually bother to scale the moral high ground over a film unless morals are the main driver of the plot (e.g., A Time To Kill, Lions For Lambs, etc).

Wong Li-Lin reprises her usual intellectual-girl-next-door persona, and delivers. Nadya Hutagalung and Paula Malai Ali thrown in as token BFFs make happy campers of the general, undiscerning male population (my babi included). No shortage of eye candy aside, I thought the use of soft focus in the cinematography captured the essence of the movie. And Corinne May is such apt choice for a soundtrack that rings of bittersweetness and reminiscence.

Sure, I did wonder...

1) How come Li-Lin's BFF entourage are all half-ang moh ang mo pai kantangs (reflect the average Singaporean demographic meh?).

2) How Li-Lin and her seamstress mom can afford to live in a typical expat abode (KNN, do the producers actually know how much it costs to live in a shophouse?!!)

3) How come the skanky kantang Nadya and the chee na pai Qi Yuwu can ever in this lifetime hook up (unless he marry down lor) is quite beyond me.

4) How Qi Yuwu can be as 潇洒 and 伟大 as to help his former love rival score the girl he lost to him (he stopped Wong Li-Lin's wedding so that she and Ananda could have the chance to ride off into the golden sunset together). Seriously lor, if I were Qi Yuwu, I would smirk, just drive on by, and then smirk some more. Even if he weren't the comeuppance type, c'mon lor, men just don't pull dramamama stunts like this in real life. It goes against their very nature.

5) How come Ananda Everingham's eyesore of a mole went MIA in old age.

6) How come women in movies seem to fall for the nomadic, tortured artist type with skeletons in his closet...complete with Jesus Christ hair, beat-up leather satchel and that journal de rigueur to pen his intellectual musings down at cafes (no Starbucks please...too corporate sellout, too wannabe wannabe).

7) How come women in movies seem to prefer #6 instead of Jason Chan (Raymond, Li-Lin's dumped-at-the-altar bridegroom). I mean, c'mon, the guy is the epitome of safe (right down to his neatly combed hair and his witty repartee). He looks polished and confident, having arrived early at the upper echelons of his station in life. He also looks exactly the type of profession the Singaporean woman aims for in her life partner (i.e., doctor, banker, lawyer). You think any smart modern Singaporean female with an ounce of brain would go for the mangy pariah when she can have The Status Provider meh? Unless she's a starry-eyed teenager lor.

Now, if you can suspend all disbelief and chuck common sense at the door, you will enjoy the ride. But this is, after all, a chick flick at heart...it would appeal to the emotional, the dreamer and the escapist (i.e., not the gender with the dangly bits, excepting the broken-wristed or the man-trapped-in-woman-body types lah).

Babi is spot on about the message being...it's ok (romantic even!) to long for another when your fiance is on her deathbed, notwithstanding the probability that the one yearned for is your soulmate and the one dying is the one you settled for. An affair romanticized and glossed over with the whole fate/destiny shebang is still an affair, my ever-logical babi reckons. He's not wrong, coming from an analytical point of view.

Being typically charbor though, I am dead sucker for the whole agony-of- soulmates-kept-apart-by-damning-circumstances shit. I sniveled through Happy Birthday, wept buckets at Legends Of The Fall, bawled out loud at Cinema Paradiso (the kissing montage at the end is definitive romantic cinema)...but every molecule of every fibre of ME enjoyed every snort-filled, runny-nosed moment of 'em all.

A sin romanticized is still romantic. Romance doesn't have to be realistic. Romance doesn't have to make sense. Romance certainly knows neither scruples nor is it capable of the rational. Romance is never painted in black and white, but steeped in myriad shades of greys. Romance, unlike love, or more accurately, commitment, doesn't have to be sound. Romance is all that is throw-caution-to-the-wind and bask-in-the-heady-abandonment-of-reason. Romance, above all, is best enjoyed when you can afford to commit quixotic follies (i.e., when youth is on your side or if you're a masochist lor). Or, in the comfort of the big screen as you tuck into your upsized popcorn and soda, Kleenex fully within reach.

Soooo....

I don't care if it's as realistic as Donald Trump's tacky toupe. I don't care if it's clichéd as Afro on a negro. I don't care if it descends into melodramatic madness à la Taiwanese television. I don't care if I sound petulant. I don't c-a-r-e. If realism is what you crave for, you should just stick to reality and give entertainment like movies a miss. Reality alone is enough of a burden for us to contend with without it seeping into our outlets of escapism.

The Leap Years (Pt. 1)

The Leap Years is one movie I was bery looking forward to watching. Really like the trailer, which was very well edited, in fact one of the best I hv seen in a bery long time. Watched it with ah pui & the both of us came out of the show with totally different perceptives of romance, luve & lust that the movie is representing. I would strongly recommend all men to watch this movie with their partners cuz after the show (if its message is anything to go by), you can safely cheat on your partner with another woman & she will tink that you are so lomantic lor. I totally can neber understand the concept of lomance & luve from a woman's perceptive. Totally missed out on the element of luve in the movie or if that is luve then it got to be really really cheap luve. Overall, like the movie, hated the story & totally cannot stand the kind of luve it represents except for the part that says you can cheat on your dying partner with Wong Li-Lin & the whole world still tinks u r so lomantic lor. Hehehehe. Cuz I seriously dun understand what is so lomantic about one nite stand with a stranger, thinking ur in luve when you dun even noe the person. Luve cant be so cheap, right? At least I noe my luve isn't. :p

Moneyless Money Tree Talks

What is it about me and habitual money-borrowers? I must've been an Ah Long in my past life lor. No matter how much I take care to siam, chronic money-borrowers flock to me like starving bees to fresh honey.

Now, lest you think I'm some neow ji, consider the facts that so-called friends have been borrowing money from me since time immemorial. The first incident occurred when I was in bloody kindergarten, when a classmate borrowed 50 cents so he could gorge himself with Chickadees. When he conveniently forgot about payment and I broached the subject, he stared at me blankly, "Got meh?"

That marked the beginning of me being much sought-after. For cash handouts.

Mind you, I'm hardly swimming in $$$ myself either hor. I just don't get it.

It's not handing over the cash part that I detest, but the having to chase for payment bit. I swear lor, getting these people to pay back is like trying to extract molars from their mouths. And I don't even want anything of theirs. I just want what rightfully belongs to me.

I'm not a bloody mint or an ATM lor. Like everybody else, I have to toil for my money and despite the common misconception...us lowly makeup girls don't have it easy. We're not even on the lowest of the low rung of the corporate ladder, so you can imagine how much shit rains down on us from above. It's blood money ok!

My handphone, at the height of my money-lending frenzy, was groaning from the weight of IOUs. Typically...

5/3/98 - Jasmine owes me $18 for Sakae lunch.
12/3/98 - Ben still owes me $496 for Gundam collection purchased on 22/12/97.
13/3/98 - Sabrina owes me $397 for her Feb '98 handphone bill.
19/3/98 - Jean owes me $30.
22/3/98 - Antoinette owes me $20.
26/3/98 - Wayne owes me $50.
29/3/98 - Norjannah owes me $19 for cab fare.
30/3/98 - Shirley owes me $175 for half bottle of Cordon Bleu ordered at Velvet.

Yes, I'm ashamed to acknowledge that I've had so-called friends who are so pathetic I had to bail them out of their debts. One particular loser had the audacity to jio me out for lunch and expect me to pay for his share as well.

When I've had to ask for payment (none of these people ze dong pay me back when they get their salaries hor!), I am usually given this look like I'm the one who did the borrowing instead of the lending. Then come the avalanche of evasions...

"Eh yang, sorry ah. This month I can't pay you back cuz my grandma in hospital & I got to pay her bills."

"Orh, like that ah. Tell you what. I'm quite tight this month. On the 25th, I promise, when I get my pay."

"I don't have much cash on me now leh. Tomorrow lor."

"I've only got $10 left and I need it for my cab ride back. Another day lah hor?"

"Wah lau aye, you need it back now meh? Don't worry lah. I won't run away wun." (har?!!!!)

No cliche more apt here than the one that goes, with friends like these, who needs enemies? Truly lor.

I'm embarrassed to have to ask for payment, but these people are apparently unembarrassed about owing me! The way I go through life, it's as if I've got huge neon blinkers tattooed on my forehead.

24-HOUR ATM
Borrow all you want. Interest-free. Payback optional.

Over the years, I have weeded out most of these habitual borrowers as friends (i.e., sever all ties). I hate to say it...but due to my tendency to be a loser-magnet, I am suspicious of every new person I meet until proven otherwise. Or if a person called, and he or she has borrowed before, I can't help but think, "Must be to borrow money again lor, what else?"

And just when I think I've dodged the best of them...

I hit JB with a new colleague yesterday. It all initially sounded fine and dandy. She said she was going to bring SGD$600 there (I was actually naive enough to think, "Wah, $600 is alot sia. More than enough to shop at JB."). As history would have it, yesterday played out like a bad nightmare. The SGD$600-toting cow lost control and blew almost every cent on a prescription drug (she's a junkie; see what I mean by me being a loser-magnet?). After that, she was too broke to do any shopping and she still had stuff on her list not bought yet.

Then came the clincher, "Steph, how much you have on you?"

KNNCCB, I knew it would come to this.

I bloody hate it. I couldn't say no because she knew I had some cash on me. I didn't want to lend her any either because I didn't want to subject myself to the inconvenience of having to chase for payment yet again. But she was a new colleague and I didn't want to make an enemy (you know how petty females can be lor...may it be love or money, reject them once and they bear a grudge forever), so I settled for, "I only have SGD$50 to spare."

Between popping pills like candy and guzzling on gallons of coffee, the wired, empty-pocketed cow staggered into every shop with my SGD$50 (RM$113) wanting to buy anything and everything.

Then she asked the unbelievable of me (considering the fact that we hardly know each other!), "Steph, you help me sign card first can?"

Extremely reluctantly, I said ok. KNNCCB, she don't have her own credit card meh?!

She made a ruckus at a first shop haggling over the price and condition of a faux LV bag, "Look at these stitches! So terrible, so crude (it wasn't). One look only everyone knows it's fake! I want look 100% real wun!" Like HUULLLLLOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! If you want one that looks 100% real, then drop 100% cash by going for the real deal. Don't stand there waste people's time spouting this kind of kiam pak cock.

She then breezed into a second shop and loudly haggled for an exchange of a supposedly faulty lock of a faux LV bag that she'd previously bought. The kicker? She never even brought along the faulty lock! Can still stand there argue about suing people! Like HUULLLLLLLOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!! Dunno who bought fake LV leh.

Thereafter, she breezed into every shop as if my stupid credit card were her guarantor. Ya-ya papaya and lao lan as hell, she acted as if the entire Holiday Plaza was her oyster for the taking.

"Steph, this one nice boh?"

"Steph, should I get this or not?"

"Steph, what do you think of this top ah?"

KNNCCB, with my SGD$50 at stake, no way in hell was I going to be objective lor.

"No, very Ah Lian. Doesn't suit you."

"Don't get lah. You just got the LV the last trip, right? Need so many bags for what? Save money."

"No, don't get the top. It makes you look fat."

Eventually I lost patience, "Don't just buy for the sake of buying lah. If you don't need it, don't buy it. And you don't need ANYTHING!" (You only need to return my SGD$50 without kicking and screaming, and without me having to tear my own hair out chasing you for it...that's all you bloody need)

Thank God (in this case, there is one!) my credit card was spared and she didn't swipe a cent on it. If I had to pray hard for something (anything!), it wouldn't be to strike Toto or 4D; it would be never to be borrowed from again (such is the hassle).