Hahaha! These geniuses!

Don’t get me wrong. I am not a Twilight-hater. In fact, I quite like R-Pattz cos he has the drollest Brit wit I do dig. But what’s funny are all the crazy Twilight fans running amok as the sequel New Moony is arriving. They definitely need to read Nightlight.

EXCERPT

It was then that I saw him. He was sitting at a table all by himself, not even eating. He had an entire tray of baked potatoes in front of him and still, he did not touch a single one. How could a human have his pick of baked potatoes and resist them all?  Even odder, he hadn’t noticed me, Belle Goose, future Academy Award winner.

A computer sat before him on the table. He stared intently at the screen, narrowing his eyes into slits and concentrating those slits on the screen as if the only thing that mattered to him was physically dominating that screen. He was muscular, like a man who could pin you up against the wall as easily as a poster, yet lean, like a man who would rather cradle you in his arms. He had reddish, blonde-brown hair that was groomed heterosexually. He looked older than the other boys in the room—maybe not as old as God or my father, but certainly a viable replacement. Imagine if you took every woman’s idea of a hot guy and averaged it out into one man. This was that man.

“What is that?” I asked, knowing that whatever it was it wasn’t avian.

“That’s Edwart Mullen,” Lucy said.

Came across this excellent article about torture music in NY Mag.

It’s pretty funny that “Baby Hit Me One More Time”  (ironic) was used on Ruhal Ahmed, an American terrorism suspect, at Guantanamo Bay. And now musicians have protested that their music is being used to inflict great pain and suffering, “a crime against humanity” as Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine puts it.

Haha, really? Is listening to Jolin Tsai over and over again as painful as having your fingernails yanked out? THen again maybe.

We all know how horrible music played at maximum level is infuriating and insanity-causing. I know because where I used to live, i have a neighbour who karaokes  LOUDLY to the sappiest chinese songs at 4pm on Sunday afternoons just when I am having my weekend nap. I hate him.

Off the top of my head, my “accoustic bombardment” soundtrack would probably have these few tracks:

1. Anything with screaming screeching metal

2. The worst of Mariah Carey  including “Without You”

3. “My Heart Will Go On” (Please, God, no)

4. Mahjong tiles clanging and bashing against one another

5. Stupid Fergie’s “London Bridge”

6. James Blunt’s “You’re Beautiful”

I always thought it was a highly Singaporean thing to say “No outside food allowed” judging by these local signs.

But apparently it’s not! Because i just found a Sarah Silverman clip plugging MTV Movie Awards that says the same thing!

But isn’t “No food from the outside” more grammatical? I guess two more words does make a helluva difference on a sign.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. First Transformers.  Then Street Fighters. Now GI Joe.  I don’t hate these movies.  As an 80s kid, there was some excitement watching the first Transformers movie two years ago (and discovering the cuteness that is Shia LaBeouf).

But the second installment was just overBLOWN. GI Joe was just as bad. It was even more irritating as it pretended to have a plot. I won’t go into how crappy it is because many a film critics can write an entire thesis on it as evident on Metacritic where it scored a pathetic 32 points.

What I am angry about is WHERE ARE THE 80s MOVIES FOR GIRLS?

Okay, I suppose nobody would really want to watch live action My Little Pony Tales.  But still, surely we can put together a nice, updated, politically – and anatomically - correct version of Barbie. Or even Jem! Does anyone remember Jem and the Hologram? Don’t forget the rival band, The Misfits!

With so many Hollywood stars thinking they can sing and dance, there’ll be parts for everyone. By the way, Jem is no Josie and The Pussycats which was totally lame.

Maybe MediaCorp should remake this instead of the crapy shows they’ve been putting out like The Ultimatum. All seven princesses can star in the show. And Fiona Xie returns from her mysterious disappearance  to play Jem.  In fact, I think the climatic final scene should be a showdown with The Misfits in a karaoke bar or dance-off in Thai disco Sabai Sabai.

What also got me annoyed is how my childhood idols have been rendered unrecognisable! I caught sight of my nieces’ Strawberry Shortcake bag and I’m totally horrified!

See they look completely different! I don’t want Strawberry Shortcake to look like a frigging pop star! This new Strawberry Shortcake is too trendy, too sexed up and too ridiculously salah-looking.  Strawberry Shortcake no more; Strawberry Slutcake, anyone?

Our nation celebrated its 44th birthday with much fanfare, and to show how far we’ve come, we get to witness a bunch of deluded, cam-whoring, fame-seeking citizens among us as shown in the third season of Singapore Idol. YAY!

It’s truly something to be proud of.  Ten years ago, we wouldn’t get all these people willing to make a fool of themselves in front of the camera. It’s a sure sign of our nation’s maturity.  There were some insane characters, but none that were that memorable or laughable, sadly. It was so sad, Mr Nong Nong ago and Careless Whisper man from the first and second season had to make an appearance. It felt absolutely contrived; I suspect they were paid. The two of them looked utterly sien performing. Even their performances were boring and lacklustre – more like “here we go again”.

Where are all the weirdos? The trailers for this season kept showing this guy.

I was expecting some wild performance. Maybe he’d attack the judges or say something mean or shocking. Instead, he whimpered. I couldn’t even hear what he sang. It turned out to be John Lennon’s “Imagine”. So disappointing. Dick Lee gave an off-hand comment that he just “looked like Cher, with bigger boobs.” How unscary.

There were a few other jokers like a dude bending over singing Rick Price’s “Heaven Knows” as if he was kneeled in the balls. And a 17-going-on-37 chick trying to be Avril Lavigne. And another teen who made a funny ice cream stick poster with Lady Gaga’s head on the other side. Actually I thought she was rather cute and wasn’t half bad.

And i really hated all the Jason Mraz wannabes with their fedora hats.  What’s with the hats?! And the checkered shirts! And skinny jeans.  Get your own identity, copycats.

I meant to blog about this topic for sometime. Except due to my tech-unsavvy ways, I couldn’t as I had no scanner. Finally managed to scan 2 magazines yesterday so you can see the photographic evidence.

L’Officiel Singapore isn’t quite the masterpiece as the original French edition. Calling itself the ”The Gossip Issue”, the August  issue of the magazine tries to tease, provoke and tantalise like a juicy piece of gossip. The ed’s note even states “did you blink and miss the July issue?” cos they “stealthily suspended the July issue , to set the scene for our much-talked about Gossip Issue.”

Well, nobody missed the July issue. Not that I know of. But what my friends and I did notice and talk about was the $2 drop in the cover price from $7.90 to $5.90 implemented a couple months back. High fashion just got cheapened. Okay give chance – maybe it’s the recession so no judgement.

Anyway, they ran a fashion spread titled “In the Tabloids” and what we got were these two pictures below.

                       Caption from magazine: “Stay in line, Kate!”

                  Caption from magazine: “Chris Brown Lashes Out!”

Sure, we know it’s meant to be an edgy, controversial-laden take on the cult of celebrity-dom. Pfft, in fact this entire angle is overdone and definitely better done in many other magazines. My problem with it is, is there really a need to glamourise drug use and domestic abuse like that?

Rihanna getting bashed up by Chris Brown isn’t simply celebrity/tabloid fodder. It’s a very real situation that many women around the world are faced with. It’s highly insensitive for a fellow female magazine to turn around and rub it in their faces just to display some eye makeup genius. The model doesn’t even wear any friggin clothes in that particular shot, save for a Chanel diamond and white gold necklace.

I don’t know what the message of this spread is. Maybe there’s some super cheem subliminal layered contextual meaning but the next time, your boyfriend seems in danger of threatening you physically, remember to put on some jewellery so at least you’ll look good enough for a magazine.

The August issue of Female magazine too has a crazy fashion spread inspired by H1N1.

At least this one shows the point of the fashion spread by having some clothes on the model. But surely there is a better way to showcase these threads instead of using a H1N1 setting? At last count, there were 8 H1N1 deaths in Singapore. Kinda makes the fashion spread tacky to play up on that, doesn’t it?

It’s not in Singapore yet, but Burger King has this amazing new burger called the Angry Whopper.

It was launched in the US last December touted as the one mighty spicy pissed off burger topped with jalapeno chili peppers and hot sauce over the usual beef patty, tomatoes and veggies. What’s cool about this hot bun is that it made its way to BK Japan last Wednesday, and you can trust the Japanese to come up with a crazy contest to mark its arrival. They held an “angry shouting match” in downtown Tokyo and you can scream your fustrations away to win a year’s worth of Whoppers!

News reports state that contestants shouted stuff like “I NEED A GIRLFRIEND!” and “PROFESSOR, GIVE ME MY CREDITS!”

How exciting! I know a good friend of mine would yell right now:

“FUCK THIS FUCKING PIECE OF SHIT DOESN’T WORK IN SAFARI EITHER! FUCKING USELESS” [he has javascript problems at this very mo]

Imagine if this was held at Raffles Place. What would SIngaporeans scream and shriek in angst? Some suggestions:

Overworked office lady: “DON’T BLARDY TAKE MCs ALL THE TIME AND MAKE ME COVER YOUR WORK!”

Corporate drone failing to make it down to Happy Hours: “I KENNA ARROW AGAIN AT THE LAST MINUTE!”

Job-hunting fresh grad: “THE INTERVIEWER IS A SICKENING PRICK!”

Scheming work vixien “YOU WANT TO PLAY POLITICS WITH ME? YOU WATCH OUT!”

Impatient hawker: “CHILLI OR NO CHILLI ALSO TAKE SO LONG TO MAKE UP YOUR MIND!”

Email ettiquette expert: “STOP CC-ING THE WHOLE WORLD IN YOUR FRICKING EMAILS!”

Taxi driver: “WAH LAU, HOW YOU CROSS THE ROAD!”

Dude in taxi: WAH LAU, HOW YOU DRIVE ONE!”

I would so pay money to watch this if it ever happens. Not that it would. Singaporeans are notoriously paiseh. Why is it that a polite and refined society like Japan’s is able to be zany and not take itself too seriously while we can’t?

We’ll most probably end up griping bitterly via our Facebook status.

A more fun alternative might be this Angry-Gram Burger King has created for their Angry Whopper. Well, since we can’t actually scream in our bosses’ faces.

Where you do your business has now become everybody’s business. It was very amusing to read the posting by Strait Times’ Fash Hag on her blog yesterday, titled Going Potty Over Ion, on the VIP toilets in the newly opened  Orchard Ion.

Who doesn’t know that Orchard Ion is probably where tai-tais would be sashaying into and where nervous guys  will be keeping their girlfriends from. To sum up the article, Fash Hag  reports that there are two VIP toilets in the mall reserved only for “dignitaries or celebrities”. These washrooms are done up in black faux marbled wallpaper (ironic, isn’t it if it’s supposed to be that luxurious) and equipped with Japanese WCs that keeps your bottom nicely toasty with warmed seats. High-spending customers of luxury boutiques are also welcomed to use these toilets. In other words, you need to pay an entrace fee of say, $10,980.

My question is: Is there someone policing these VIP toilets to ensure that you’re a celeb, dignitary or the wife of a money-laundering mobster? Do you require some sort of identification to go in? Or do you just to flash your multiple Gold Amex cards?

Cartier goes one step further. It has its own private toilet in the stores. So convenient if you  feel like making a deposit after purchasing new rocks.

I’ve yet to find a picture of these VIP toilets on the net. It might because there are no celebs, dignitaries and obscenelyloaded customers who want to brag about using these facilities on the Internet. If you’re rich  enough to be allowed entry, do think of us plebs longing to sneak a peek at such looxuries. Snap a picture and upload it. We’ll be grateful. Really.

I’ve actually come across this promo last week, but was too damn lazy to blog about it. But it entered my consciousness again this afternoon when a friend brought up the topic about – what else – why does a guy take 4 days to return a SMS.

Me: “What?! That’s too long! Is he playing hard to get?”

She: “At least he replied – even if it did take four days.”

Another friend: “Wah lau, four days and you’re still so hopeful. Didn’t you watch He’s Just Not That Into You?”

Then I recalled seeing this:

Such comfort this DVD promises. It knows it will crush any secret hopes that the hot guy you’ve been introduced to at Butter Factory will call, so what it does is to make up for it by offering you … not one, not two, but FOUR matchmaking services courtesy of Lunch Actually.

Wow. Does that make you feel like you should run out to get the DVD? The DVD you’ll most likely watch when you’re in your sweats, bingeing on Ben and Jerry’s and sobbing into an half-eaten tub. I know I would, especially if I  really did buy the DVD because I was enticed by the Lunch Actuallyvouchers.

Those who feel like you’re doomed to singledom, take heart a DVD is thinking of you.

What does it say about our society when food guides upon food guides are published for the all-consuming, non-discerning public? We love to eat. Sure. Obviously. And we also love to show off. To demonstrate that we know where the coolest, hippest, newest, best restaurants, yada yada yada …. No wonder we’re starting to look the fatty Americans. And what do we do? We get conned into gym memberships, yoga lessons and marathons sign-ups to prove we can be greedy and healthy.

Citibank has tied up with Business Times for some Gourmet Awards book launch. This is the latest following a whole series of Makan Sutra-like guides in recent years. Last year, there was a Miele Guide, and the year before was Makan Places Lost and Found, and before that, Eat Now, Boast Tomorrow.

Food has become the new status symbol in Singapore. Dining at one restaurant over the others proves your superority. And being able to provide a dissertation about desserts is akin to flaunting your cool cred.

It’s just food lah! Some people don’t even have one square meal a day. Why take it so seriously?

Me, i just want to eat.