Ok guys I think I've managed to fix the comments bit. Thanks to u guys for tipping me off that it wasn't working! I was greatly relieved, as I had begun to wonder why no one was leaving poor ol' lyn comments. Any more problems, give me a tinkle.

Fortune Drive

I've been following this local band for 2 years now, seeing them first play at the students' union. Last night, I whacked on my dancing boots and caught a quick drink to prep for one of their absolutely body-rocking gigs. They're the best upcoming local band at the 'mo, and news (courtesy of Robert) is that they're representing the UK in a music festival in LA. Way to go boys! See more pictures of last night's gig at the Fleece here or check out their website for music and news. Check out the latest video of them recording their first single! This is definitely a band worth looking out for! And you just gotta love the lead singer, Bobby, what an adorable little man.

--> Cherie Booth and her expensive locks


In line with my oft-iterated view that politicians are monkeys (click here to express your approval), today's FT exposed some rather interesting expenditures chalked up by Britain's political parties in the 2005 elections:

£299 on six 'Star Trek' outfits bought by Labour to mock John Redwood from the Conservatives,

$4000 on groundhog costumes and £1200 on actors to wear them, bought by the Conservatives in response to the 'Star Trek' outfits;

A further £1400 by the Conservatives for a groundhog computer game and a mysterious £3500 on two 'unidentified' animal costumes imported from the US;

£3500 on Michael Howard's make-up (it's a wonder he still looks like he does)

£7700 on Cherie Booth/Blair (whatever she calls herself)'s hair - £275 daily for 28 days of campaigning

£250,000 on an 18-seat helicopter for Michael Howard and the press;

£4800 on six two-piece suits, and £355 for six cotton shirts for Charles Kennedy;

And the list goes on. So for my dear hardworking friends working your butts off in London, handing over 40% of your income to the wonderful tax fund, it's good to know that some of it is going to making Michael Howard, Cherie Booth and Charles Kennedy look pretty.

Man, I love bryan boy's blog. What a hilarious camp boy maniac! Gotta love it.

So jackie's home, having gone to london for the weekend and cleverly evaded our weekend spring clean. As if vacumming wasn't tedious enough, ours has a funny habit of sucking the dust in and shitting it out later, without warning; at least it puts it all in one place. I can just hear it thinking 'you poor bastard, cleaning on a Sunday afternoon while the rest of Clifton Village is sipping coffee at oo-la-la cafes and shopping for their oo-la-la lingerie from a shop (actually) named oo-la-la. And the people working there are actually French: 3 French 30-something women who insist on speaking French to EVERYONE, just in case you didn't notice 'nous sommes francaise, vous comprenez???' They sit around wearing oo-la-la French clothes over lingerie by brands like princesse Tam-Tam and Chantal Thomas, with skirts just skimming the laced stockings they are wearing, and when I walk in and try out my broken French on them they look at me like I'm a retard.

Ah yes, Clifton village is just wonderful but for these little exceptions. That includes Rainbow Cafe, the owner of which is a middle-aged lady who is penny wise and pound foolish. If you sit there and don't order anything, chances are she'll chase you out. And if you spill tea there, she'll give you a wet towel rather than a napkin to clean it up.

I don't know why I'm ranting. Maybe it's just boredom today. Maybe I just don't want to revise, though I know exams are looming, and I don't want to practice my Mandarin.

Recent events have made me rethink my Mandarin abilities, and it's brought back all these memories of Chinese class in school. Every one of my chinese teachers had a vendetta against me...the poor things, they had a lot to deal with. In Junior College, they got all the worst students from all the classes together into a special 'remedial' class (remedial = slow). Looking back, that's what saved my life and allowed me to scrape through A levels with a C5. That teacher was a real star. What I wouldn't give to have personal tuition from him now. *Sigh*... who ever thought, 10 years ago, that China would be the world's biggest emerging superpower? Maybe I would've paid more attention to my tuition teacher then.

After spending the last few months vexing like a spoilt child over the tedium of long flights and how travelling makes my back ache, I'm up and itching to go again. Last year having been 'travel-frantic year', this year I have remained remarkably static in comparison. Aside from my romantic rendezvous in paris from time to time, I have been a good ol' groundhog.

Once exams end, all that's changing. I can't wait for my holiday to LA and Las Vegas, crashing in a cheap hotel room made cheaper by going dutch amongst 5 people, socialising with the Hollywood folk (or not), gambling small money, living it large in the hippest clubs, revelling in fashion, and having a blast in general.

After that, it's off to Bordeaux with my parents, bro and bf. We wondered for a long time what the sleeping arrangement was to be (bro or bf in third bedroom?) and my dad delivered the most hilarious verdict - boys in one room, girls in another. And we're not even catholics. (No honey, you can't sleep in the car.)

Afterward, maybe Spain, or Scotland, or the English countryside??

All this daydreaming perhaps explains my complete lack of motivation to start revision. And I don't know about you guys, but I'd much rather be at this table:



than this one:




Yes, it is exam time. Perhaps, *whee*, that explains why I don't have any drama in my life. Anyway, I wasn't aware that my blog was here to fulfil some public need: a blog is about personal catharsis. And if fulfilling your entertainment wish-list requires me to get piss drunk, break a leg doing cartwheels, start a fight with my best friend, star in a porn video and set up a political protest against the school administration, I don't think I could oblige (or if I DID any of those, I probably wouldn't tell you ;))

Current playlist of choice:

Aimee Mann - You Could Make a Killing

Regina Spektor - Love Affair

Bonobo - Scuba (Amon Tobin Remix)

Corinne Bailey Rae - Put your Records on

Fiona Apple - Fast as You Can

Rufus Wainwright - Gay Messiah

The return of the geeks



I'm not sure if anyone else has noticed the recent high profile nerds have been receiving of late. Or maybe it's just me and British TV. In any case, in the spirit of exam frenzy and library lunchtimes, it's time to pay a tribute to the geeks.

Ah, what indeed would we do without our bespectacled and easily fascinated friends. I think I got the idea to blog about this when, looking through the blogger websites, I came across this. I mean, everyone knows any self-respecting geek (and a fair amount of non-geeks) loves his video games, or even t-shirts saying 'MACS ROCK', but an obsession over how board games work is exteme. Somebody give the dude an Xbox.

I just finished watching a program on TV called 'Beauty and the Geeks'. As you can probably guess, they've paired up couples consisting of 1 VERY thick girl and 1 VERY nerdy guy, and their task is to educate and transform each other in the ways they are lacking. When they traded partners for a romantic dinner (called 'geek-swapping'), one geek read his thick date a 12-minute poem entitled 'Should I compare you to a medieval medallion?'. It was cringeworthy and almost heart-wrenching watching this girl's eyes glaze over while he spurned out lines peppered with 'blood' and 'sword' and 'armour'.

I had to confess though, like everyone else, that the geek couple Dave and Lori on the amazing race was the best thing to happen to the show. But they were COOL geeks. I insist on making a distinction.

One of my favourite geek piss-takes is this video of Triumph the comic dog making fun of the geeks at the opening of Star Wars. You really won't regret downloading this one! I think I'd watched it about 10 times, and last year I decided to show it to a guy I was seeing, laughing like a maniac throughout the whole 15 minutes of it, before realising he was the biggest Star Wars fan and owned a light saber on a keychain. On hindsight, I suppose that's why he was in such a hurry to leave. Or why I was in such a hurry for him to go.

While I do love a good law book seething with tidbits of boring information, and I play SSX on the Xbox like a semi-pro (anyone for a showdown?) I don't think I could ever cease being entertained by the fascinating world of the four-eyed folks. So long live the geeks (if they get the chance to reproduce).

This time last year, I was putting in 6-hour work days, plodding around the quiet easter-time library rushing to get a headstart on revision (I am a self-confessed geek). This year, however, I feel strangely the opposite: I'm chilled as a beermug, spending my days faffing about much more than doing work. My courseworks are almost done and revision does not need to start till a week from now, so why bother, really?

Yesterday, I took a complete day off for a coffee and cake with laura g and jax down at coffee #1. Somehow, our conversations always end up centering around the same topics. 3 years of university life where I am has been eye-opening, and in line with the mantra to never regret, I have embraced the good and the bad experiences. Not to mention the freakshows. And I am not afraid to admit, that having met numerous people, socialised myself into the English culture, and exposed myself to others, aside from the Singaporeans the lifelong friends I have made here can be counted on one hand. It is a shame, but thus has been the unravelling of the three years, three years that I have cherished, exploited and will eventually pack away as a distant memory.

On the upside, the best friends I have made will be spread across the globe. So looking into the future, I see long-haul flights, nostalgic tears and chats over tea. Where is that hanky?

At first glance, I found this picture pretty funny. It is good advertising to say the least. However, the cause really isn't that funny; in fact, the poster is a plea to boycott the China Olympics unless China mends their patchy human rights record. But 'patchy' is a mild word. Given the blatant acts of repression by a too-long-in-power totalitarian regime, and recent events such as this, any hope for improvement in the near future is a mere damp swab.

However, I am equally skeptical at everyone's pleas to get America involved. For years, America's foreign policy has been preoccupied with encouraging human rights in China, especially since they lost their strategic alliance built to oust the Soviet bloc. Not only has there been little progress, but America's effort have in fact led to greater resistance by the Chinese public who don't like people putting a dirty hand into their affairs. Secondly, America isn't exactly Mahatma Ghandhi as far as human rights go (re: Guantanamo bay). Thirdly, as history has rendered familiar, efforts made by the US to tamper in other countries' business are usually motivated by personal interests (re: Iraq and the remaining Middle East), and usually end disastrously (re: Iraq also).

Perhaps a little pressure from the US won't hurt to lend support to local anti-government resistance, but essentially, China has to carve its own path to a coherent human rights system, with the backing of the international community as a whole. So bravo to the brave Olympics boycotters, and bye bye Bush.

Don't. Want. To. Work.

Since taking out the time to redo my blog last night, I have delightfully used it as an excuse to evade work. Rather than exercise my brain cells studying intellectual property, I prefer to browse colour codes (fascinating, isn't it, how many colours are out there) and find new blogs to link from mine.

I am officially a lame duck (copyright of Teri Su), in more ways than one.

It seems my picture above has generated some controversy: narcissistic/sadako-like/scary/like a child?? Oh well, some controversy is always welcomed, as I take my cue from Madonna's pink leotard and Ang Lee's gay shepherds.

Dear friends and passers-by,

After close to 3 hours spent staring at the tiny HTML on my computer screen, I have emerged (eyes watering and bum sore) to unveil my SEXY new blog. Finally, I have taken matters into my hands, as long promised, and renovated my virtual home. Tell me what u think! (Remembering that I 'welcome' criticism... ... ...kidding, really I do)

The content will remain largely the same (do I hear cries of 'HURRAH'?). This means that my blog will continue to include the following:

1) Rants about petty but annoying everyday-isms, normally directed at my mobile phone service provider and/or my landlord;

2) Discussions about subjects in which I pretend to be an authority, be it films, music or food (ok for that, I really am)

3) Political bespeak

4) Nostalgic talk

5) My-boyfriend-is-the-coolest musings

6) Tags from the people who keep my inspired (this is emotional), YOU marvellous peeps

My pictures can still be accessed from the link on the right, as well as my old blog, in case either 1) your boredom hits the roof or 2) you love me THAT much.

Before I fall asleep, I'll end off. Hope to hear from u soon!!