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Security or imprisonment?

I finished my assignment with Ivy where I was playing the role of the zombie. It was late, I walked towards Singapore River, buying myself a pack of beedi along the way. The wind was blowing. The night was restive

I sat down by the river where I lighted my stick. Sitting there by the river, I relapsed into a thoughtful mood.

I imagined myself a orphan with no kin in this world and no home to return to, surviving by etching out a living on the streets with my wits. Today was one of those fortunate days where I managed some penny in my pocket. This evening I will not go hungry. Puffing away on my beedi, I smiled to myself. Was such a life a sad and miserable one or was it one free from the shackles of kinship?

I seeked further into this imaginative world of mine. Such a person must indeed feel terrible loneliness at times, however such profound sense of loneliness must be intermittenly mixed with a deep sense of peace, a peace which is hard to be found when bounded by ties and kinship but only in solitude. To live this life perhaps demands a great fortitude then. Such a life must perhaps be one that is bitter but yet at the same time sweetness, one that must be very beautiful indeed.

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Bazaar happenings in the clementi neighborhood

I happened to chance across a post on Sammy Boy Forum last night. It was said there was actually a special massage parlour in Clementi Ave 2 area. It was just a few streets away from my place.

I got curious. It felt so strange that what normally happens in sleazy places like Geylang could actually happen in heartland areas like Clementi!

This afternoon after finishing my session at the gym, I decided to take a walk. I finally arrived at block 354, this is where commerce mainly takes place in this area.

I managed to locate the “Da Jie Niang Dou Fu” shop easily. The “Da Jie Niang Dou Fu” shop is a landmark which one of the members of the sammy boy forum posted.

I started walking down the main stretch of block 354. Upon detailed study, I realised there were actually three shops which looked quite suspicious. They were mainly located towards the end of the 5 foot way before it took a left turn. Out of the three shops two were empty while the first one was occupied by two PRC chinese looking ladies. I guess this must be the one. Having confirmed that this location that the members of the sammy boy forum posted was no bullshit but the real thing, I kept on walking down the 5 foot way and took the left turn.

It was not before long that i chanced upon this really eriee looking shop. I stood outstide trying to figure out what this shop was supposed to sell, when the proprietor of the shop beside that one told me to speak to the owner.

Apparently this shop is run by Shaiful. I wonder if he is related to the first shop keeper that talked to me.

This Shaiful is a pretty interesting character. His shop has been around for the past 5 months. He apparently runs tours to places around Southeast Asia to sites that a supposedly haunted.

Seems like his next trip is happening on the 9th this month to Vietnam. This whole thing seems pretty bazairre and interesting. If you are a really interested to find out more about his trips just head down to location stated here on Things To Do Singapore

His website is still under renovation, it is www.soulhunterz.org. I wonder when he would get it up. But I am definitely looking forward to it.

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Parting with a comrade

I finally managed to obtain for Alena her the tourist visa to get into Singapore early this week. She happily booked her air ticket this time around.

And then we had our quarrels again two days ago, as usual… This time I was too tired to call her up. I guess we both went missing for the whole of yesterday. I thought she wouldn’t even bother calling me back again. Guess she did, she texted me today while I was working in the office. I was mentally prepared to just let her go her way after that prior quarrel actually. I was feeling so drained after all these days, somethings got to give. And she seemed the heaviest load I had to deal with at the moment. The temptation to chuck her out like a jettison is there all the time and she really isn’t helping out.

Reading her mind, it seems her first two messages were once again attempts meant to provoke me to anger. I answered indifferently. There were more important things at hand to settle, like my clients! She said she cancelled her air tickets to Singapore with both her parents’ approval.

And thus we went through the process of going down and up the J curve again. This time round due to her lack of control over her emotions she messed up in the most terrible way possible. Firstly, she got angry and made a rash decision, then she was unsure where she should go should we really part,thereafter she was starting to feel lost, she has no idea anymore what to do with her life, finally the doubts creeped in and she got her funds with the air line office making the booking of another airline ticket to Singapore very unlikely even if she decided to change her mind.

“What do you want me to do?” I texted exasperated, not really looking forward to part with my hard earned cash from my previous few projects just to amend another one of her stupid mistakes. These cash could be used for better things.

“Well, I don’t know but never mind.” she replied.

I could imagine the look of being totally lost on her face at the moment we spoke. I saw that countless times, I absolutely hate that look, spending all my effort to just guide her along, protecting her from herself, most especially her stupidity.

I sat then on the sofa looking out the window, I was utterly upset. All would have been fined had she not attempted to contact me again after our quarrel. I would have moved double speed ahead with my life with just the right level of buoyancy and flexibility to keep me afloat for a long long time. Now once again I am stuck with this situation with her.

Anabel my friend from Shanghai, having seen Alena once during our dinner event together, has been warning me all along to dump her. Alena would only be a load in the long run and not a contribution to any of my endeavours. In fact it would have been hard if not impossible for her to find a mate of good calibre for herself with criterias such as hers back in China.

“She makes a bad choice for a mate, even if you don’t think for yourself. Think for your parents and future kids” those were her exact words. Though the words sounded harsh, Anabel’s intent was kind. She came from a back ground that was almost like Alena’s but the difference was Anabel was 3 years younger, with pure perservrance she managed to establish a career for herself and is comfortably married with into a well to do family.

But each time I thought about doing that, I could not help but recall that utterly lost and hopeless look on Alena’s face that I chanced to observe the one fateful day when she walked alone in the streets unaware of my presence. She tries hard in life but had no idea what the hell she was doing wrong no matter the amount of teaching she received. The recollection of that scene still pains me and brings me close to tears just thinking of it. I never ever want that look on her face ever again if I ever could help it.

So many girls I have dated, and so many of them I have parted without worries, they were strong smart and intelligent. Alena oh Alena, I find it hard to ever part with her without the assurance that she is in the safe hands of another. Failing to do so, it would have felt as though I have abandoned a comrade in the battle field just to save my own skin. How dishonourable is that. Such a thought just leaves a foul taste in my mouth.

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Lunch Experiment Backfired

Today mom cooked glutinous rice for lunch. Recalling that glutinous rice is hard to digest because of the high amount of oil content in it, this idea occured to me. I saw a pile of lemon on the dining table. Thus I halved cut one of them into and proceeded to squeeze one half onto my rice.

Thinking that resulting dish should be quite yummy, I hurriedly shoved a spoon into my mouth. I was definitely in for a surprise. The whole taste was off. Ewwww….. The saltish taste of the rice did not go well with the overwhelmingly sour taste of the lemon. In fact they did not blend at all.

Not wanting to waste the food. I shoved the rest of the dish down my throat doing my best not to taste anything. Well at least I got for myself a healthy if not tasty meal today.

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Google wave, the stanford model works, Serendipity

Seems like Google is coming up with a new web 2.0 platform again, this time specifically targeted at communications online.

It works pretty much like the winword document in the gmail except that this time you could also rewind time and see what was actually being written or edited at specific time intervals.

A video goes on to show that this algorithm has been originally been an area of academic research for the past 10 years before finally being commercialized in the form of Google Wave recently.

Seems like the Stanford model is working very nicely over in the States. What started as research in academies upon maturity gets rolled out commercially as spin offs.

The advantage that Google has is that fact that the whole company started out via this model as well. They are experienced in this.

In Singapore we do have something like this, but it seems owing to the general risk aversive culture of the place, this model is not taking off as well. Hey look, even my dad and mom has been nagging at me to get a stable job instead of constantly going through this process of trail and error that is inherent in technological ventures.

But hey no way am I going to call it quits that easily. I am still surviving so far am I not?

The other thing also is the lack of funding for start ups. Ironically, while lots of funds have been put in place to support start ups, fund managers are not really willing to seed start ups unless they are really confidant that their business model will be commercially viable.

Who’s to be sure anyway? Half of the really cool technologies around that were thought to have the potential to make a big bang when they hit the market never really did when they finally did arrive. Others that were thought to be flops magically succeeded at becoming dominant features on the internet without much explanation.

It is like choosing to play safe in an arena where the way to success contradicts the idea of playing safe. Hence most of these public funds get squandered off by companies who are good with paperwork to do stuff that is not aligned with the main objectives for the existence of these funds. The model is just not working.

Face it, success usually requires a certain amount of serendipity and the thing is such a thing is usually hard to predict. Mostly we are in the hands of God. It is like a leap of faith.

Kudos to that.

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Every one has something to say – use a blog!

Recently I met a religio while on the bus on my way home. She took my contact number and started sending me lots of religious messages. Being a free thinker, most of these messages just came into my phone and went into the trash folder. It was just too long to read over an SMS. and I hate longs SMS s over the phone.

Then it occurred to me, I thought hey all these efforts by her should not be going to waste. so what happens immediately after that was that I set up a blog for her at adonis.name1price.com for her to send her message out to the world.

Now, my phone avoids getting overloaded with mesages not related to my essential day to day operations and at the same time she gains access to the whole world’s audience. And the whole world’s audiences may finally get themselves some salvation if indeed they are looking for some.

Who knows she with her vigor might just turn out to be the next Anthony Robbins or Robert Kiyosaki!

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Cold reading

Recently having gotten interested with astrology services on the internet, I decided to put my particulars into one particular site. The message I received was so convincing that I wandered the truth behind it.

Then again I recalled the fact that given a statement without anything to disprove it, the brain will automatically search for evidences to villify the truth of this statement.

Deciding to see how the actual system works on the internet I proceeded to the site of the fortune teller and started messing around with the site.

Pretty smart actually, the message, the only thing though is that it is a standard message for all to read except you are the one reading it and being convinced by it.

Click the refresh button or change the query string alittle and you will have either a different message from the whole collection of them or the same message again but with no name. Try it out yourself.

https://secure-astro.com/cgi-bin/request.cgi?p=request.cgi&r=2b&c=uht0s&f=tnel

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In Transit

Depiction of Lady Fortuna
Depiction of Lady Fortuna

Lady Fortuna

It would have been really easy had all three elements, the mind, the heart and the soul been after the same thing. Apparently it seems not the case, these past few weeks. It was a time of trial indeed.

The mind says for money and security, the heart says to go for love, while the soul says all the prior are not important, the quest for the truth ever beckons.

Here I stand stuck at the fork of the road in my journey. While most parts of the journey prior to this were clear and simple as the path in which the soul demanded, the heart and mind both concurred; this once was different. They each beckoned their own way.

I stand here at this junction examining all three paths, they all looked equally promising while at the same time seemingly disastrous. No amount of foresight I have seem to allow me the ability of sight to penetrate this fog of destiny.

Perhaps none of all three paths is the one, the true path lies hidden still. I could only wait and be patient meanwhile, before Fortuna deals me another card from her Deck of Fates which brings me to the true path.

Wait I shall then.