home alone woes

finally sent in my credit card application form after months of needless procrastination. oh well, credit cards are evil things anyway.

our washing machine is broken, just when my parents are gone for holiday for 2 weeks. shit.

i wish meowmeow knows how to open her own cans of catfood. i mean, she knows how to destroy slippers, why can't she learn more useful things...

beijing!

really belated, but here's a glimpse of beijing from the frantic 2-hour self-tour around tiananmen square, before we had to fly back to singapore. although we did the customary walk around the square, i really wasn't very interested. plus the buildings are way too huge to fit into my camera lens. on the other hand, this little alleyway we ventured into yielded tons of little treasures!

precious one-childs battling it out to help reduce china's population

who needs landscape architects to design green roofs?

everytime i take out my money, i get dirty stares...

the fried rice definitely looks the least appetizing

you can't see, but their pants are open (both front and back) so they can pee directly on the sacred tiananmen square ground. at least this boy did.

and sometime before that, we had our Keppel Land International KTV night, where everyone delighted themselves with beer, curry puffs and old old chinese songs.

like that i dowan to get married liao...

check out this piece of news...

Plant a Tree for Each Newborn

JAKARTA - AN INDONESIAN city battling the effects of deforestation has come up with a novel way of tackling the problem. Would-be families must plant a tree.

'Everyone who wants to get married or apply for a birth certificate must plant a tree,' Mr Syahrum Syah Setia, the head ofBalikpapan city's Environmental Impact Management Agency, said.

'The city's condition is already worrying, and we must act to tackle global warming.'

The areas around Balikpapan city in East Kalimantan province have lost some of their forest cover to deforestation from the mining and timber sectors.

East Kalimantan loses 350,000-500,000 ha of forest land a year and the government can only replant 30,000 ha of that, local environmental group Walhi said.

Indonesia has lost an estimated 70 per cent of its original forest land, although it still has a total forest area of more than 91 million ha. -- REUTERS


come on, are you serious!? ONE tree? i mean, if you told me to plant a hundred trees before i could get married, i'd still do it! they're going to get these poor couples all the way out to the forests with shovels and boots and all, just to plant ONE tree. fainted.

oh and other news: somali hijackers explaining that their $25 million ransom amount was reasonable cos they had to spend $500,000 in hijacking costs. sign of the times man... charge your reimbursibles to the victims too. per diem, travel, accommodation, entertainment... hijacking not cheap nowadays ok?

helene

i realized there are websites that help you find songs by humming the tune! that's how i found the title of this french song which i heard while visiting a sales gallery in Tianjin. i knew i had no way to google the lyrics of this song, which made me really annoyed until i decided to have faith in the power of internet and googled "find songs by tune". wow. internet is awesome.

here's the song, Je m'appelle Helene.

and the chinese version, 依恋.



i can't say which is better.

coffee with no sugar

so i'm in tianjin now, about to have some big meeting. to show us some chinese hospitality, the staff offered us coffee to keep us warm in the biting cold.

but....coffee with no sugar! bleargh...

ok gtg.

bufandeai

i hope they build a park connector from my house to bugis. plus showering facilities in our office so i can ride my bike there! or they could move bugis to upper paya lebar.... i don't think it should be that hard right? the Garment seems to be able to perform these feats every general election anyway.


anyone watching 不凡的爱 on channel 8? i think ruien is becoming prettier with every show! and chen hanwei really does know how to look sick. must learn. can totally get MC anytime man. but seriously, do they have to make everyone in the show get AIDS? unless of course that's really the case in Singapore, which means we should all be damn scared. no more sharing of food with people, no more standing beside coughing people, no more swimming in public pools.... haha. channel 8 shows.... always so irritatingly educational. cannot be a bit more subtle meh?


i'm going to china again! wah too soon liao lah... i barely finished clearing the minutes and follow-up from the last trip, now must go one more time!? ugh. but nvm lah i guess, as long as they give me top class hotel again. shiok. i have never stayed BY MYSELF in a hotel room before man.


sometimes i fantasize about what would happen if i could rewind time for just a little bit, because it is often in a matter of minutes or seconds that our day can get turned upside down, that happiness can turn into heartbreak. but then, maybe even if i could backspace life, things might still turn out the way they do right? cos i'm still the same person... and so is everyone else.

so mostly i just tell myself that tomorrow i get another chance, and maybe it'll be better.

the day the dustbins died

today, a trio of marauding green champions from corporate development raided our office and in a violent act of eco-terrorism, robbed us of all our dustbins. and to mock our helplessness, they leave 2 dustbins (to serve our entire projects department) right outside my cubicle, with an accompanying sign that says "General Waste Bin".

so now the outside of my cubicle reads:

Kenneth Lau



General
Waste
Bin

in other news, bicycles are all the rage now! just like i predicted. maybe i should ride this wave and open my very own full service bicycle rental shop?

i love it when couples tell other people how in love they are. i get a feeling that sometimes people are too protective of their own pride they can't bring themselves to admit that they're hopelessly in love with their partner....or could it be that not many couples are really really in love?

fortune teller

if i were a beggar
i could go down on my knees
without you thinking that
i've fallen for you
and i'm praying for
just a moment or two

if i were a writer
i could fill your whole shelf
with words that could
melt your heart like butter
and you won't know that
i'm really writing to you

and if i were a soldier
i'd be at the front of the line
so i can come home with a purple heart
and just be closer to you

and if i could
i wouldn't be another
silly boy you don't remember
and if i could
i would make the world a better place
so it can never take the smile from your face

if i were a postman
i'd put a smile on every letter
but i'll stick a stamp right over
so you won't know any better

and if i had a boat
i'd sail to the end of the world
and return with a pot of gold
and hide it in your purse so
you'd see a rainbow
every where you go

and if i were a fortune teller
and my crystal ball could give me answers
it'll know that i would never ever fall
in love with any girl but you

and if i could
i wouldn't be another
silly boy you don't remember
and if i could
i would make the world a better place
so it can never take the smile from your face

i hear a pin drop
because when you are not here
the world falls silent

it really sux to watch romantic movies on the plane, especially when i'm alone! makes me wanna hijack the plane and crash land it in ithaca.