Life For Rent

Singapore has been on high alert due to the increase in dengue infections over the past week, reaching epidemic levels. It looks quite bad compared to 2005 even. Hopefully it will not spike higher during the Sept/Oct period as seen in 2005.

Someone I know has been infected already. But he is okay and is resting at home. Although patients have long MC, I don’t think it is very fun to have dengue yeh? Those who had it will be able to testify.

Time to turn my insect zapper on again!

Super long post… grab a coffee first. I am typing this through lunch hahaha…

So far I have circulated my summer mix to ceddy and ben among my friends list only. Both have given me very encouraging feedback. It is my first attempt and I think I may do another one nearer to the end of the year. Some tracks may repeat, while I try and seek inspiration on the ‘feel’ of music should be at the end of the year. Loads of improvement still so I will appreciate feedback. I paid more attention to tracks rather than programming, but in the next one I shall attempt to focus more on the latter, for a smoother ride. Every set is suppose to tell a story. This set tells a story that people wanna hear, rather than what the author wants to illustrate.

For those who have heard it / will be hearing it, the summer mix tells a tale of a quick intro of the main characters giving a hint of who the star players of the story are, building up into the main style and genre of the author(in this case, versatile tribal house which are a favorite of mine). It deviates away slowly from the intro, and transits towards the actual story (with a little latin house) till you find yourself in the middle of the story itself (give it to me, i’m bossy, it’s like that). You know when you are there. The story builds continuously towards the peak of it (umbrella, say it right, aint no other man, we ride, SOS) all, before giving a twist. (a song that you didn’t think I will throw out, but I did towards the last set), and then coming down to a ‘spacy’ and floaty kinda ending. The tempo slows down but in your mind it gives you time to recap and absorb the entire story thus far while you float (born slippy, ride it) before I prep you (wake up a little with a trancey mix of My Love) and ending with the last song.

A lousy writer can lose his/her audience halfway through the book. A good DJ would hopefully be able to retain most of the crowd till close (assuming you do not have to be up early the next day).

However, what makes a good ending? An ending that people want? An ending that the author wants which may not be popular? Or an open ending, inviting the audience to come back for a sequel?

End of the night, did you enjoy yourself? Exhausted, but happy? It was a good night then. Would you wanna read the same book again? Twice? 10 times? 50 times? Probably not 50 times. A story should always be different. Same songs maybe, same style, but you can work the crowd differently. That is how a DJ would get people coming back for more.

DJs can be compared to story writers. Each has their own style, genre, and fans. People recommend a book to someone who is new to the author, and so on and so forth. People who love reading will have at least 1, if not, a few favorite writers in appreciation to the writer’s style. Different styles, for different people. Their best critics, would be people who love their work, but can comment on the areas of improvement. No single work, is perfect.

So when you step into a club, what story do you want to hear? When I first stepped into velvet underground at the ripe young age of.. tada!… 17, I couldn’t understand a thing I heard. And all the zouk/phuture sounds made no sense to me. Think of it as, a romance reader, reading a Sci-Fi book. There are some who will like both, but for a few hardcores like me, we really appreciate selected sounds in a club.

All that changed on Jan 8th 2006. Rohai’s birthday. haha.. after 2 years, someone managed to get me into a gay club, ie, Club Happy. For over 2 yrs I refused to enter a gay club after hearing ‘horror’ stories and many have tried but failed (you would have to knock me out and carry me in literally). This happened around the ‘transition’ between a dog and a prince.. hah hah. And so I entered Club Happy on that fateful night. Like a fish out of water, it took me quite a while to absorb everything in. Wasn’t as bad as I thought. Everyone kept looking at me and I wondered why, and someone whispered “you’re fresh meat that’s why!”. It took a very long time….

All of.. bout 3 minutes! To get through the queue (wow i loved the fact that you don’t queue) and onto the floor. I instantly found my place, with mariah carey and madonna blaring away at the solid sound system (I believe princess ann was at the deck then). When it was time to leave, I almost didn’t want to. Have I found ‘home’?

No other clubs did it for me. Not zouk, not studebaker (who later became venon and CB and gawd knows what else) not New asia bar (top floor, Swissotel), but hello hello, I found what I like to hear.

I don’t know about the rest of you, but if I like a certain author, I would like to learn how to write like the author. On one hand, to appreciate how the author writes even more. ie, to educate the ‘eyes’. You appreciate the immaculate style of putting down a story in words, with the use of certain words, structure, build up etc. On the other hand, don’t we all want to be like our child hood hero one day?

I never wanted to be a pro DJ. It is very hard work. When you are a writer, you MUST write. The publisher doesn’t care if you have ‘writer’s block’. It no longer becomes fun and passion, it becomes work. At least to me. But I have seen many who put fun and work together. I can’t. It destroys the very few passions I have in life. Work is work to me. It is money, food on the table. Passion may not bring in the dough, but that is okay for I do not rely on it to feed me. And I work on it as and when I feel like it.But perhaps one day when the committment level is comfortable, and I am ready, who knows? For now, I have been ‘offline’ far too long.

Anyone can be a DJ. I’ll say it again, anyone can be a DJ. But like most industries, what sets you apart from another DJ? More importantly, in the very small world of DJs, what do your peers see you as? There are many DJs who play in big clubs here. You will probably hear of their names here and there, but they are not very respected in the industry. I give them credit for being able to play in a big club though. Somehow. Through what methods, I do not know. Do the crowd like it? I don’t know. Go stand in the middle of a big club on a Sat night (str8 club please), and of all the people on the floor, see how many appear to know what they are there for. I am not talking about enjoying the music or dancing well or in a horrendous manner. But how many know what they are there for? Not many. It is the branding. To say “I was at zouk and attended DJ xxx’s gig” but they are absolutely clueless what is going on, especially after getting the Long Island Tea jugs.

This is very different from the crowd I see at, say.. MOS in London. These people remind me of the AJ crowd. They know what they like, they know what they are doing, and they do really have outrageous party attire to go along with it. Wow. I don’t appreciate the music, but the crowd truly does, and that makes it perfect.

So back to the question, why is it different here? The culture? Or is it cause people just wanna look good being in a hip club. Or is it because the DJ actually plays crap music, but it is covered up by the big club name.

Ok I am done with lunch, can you believe it? But I still have my kopi peng, so I can still continue…

So after that one night at club happy, I got accquainted with Jansen whom I got to know via a ‘popular forum’. It was the music thread and after all the yada yada, I found myself looking for him in club Why Not. I was also there to look for an ex trainee (NS) of mine who was there too. It was some bubble party that night, mid-end Jan of the same year. I walked in and wow. Totally different crowd. The staff and friendliness stuck onto me cause even back then, Happy was giving crap services, but I always figured clubs are all like that. They appear to hate you for giving them work to do. From the door bitch to the bar tender. You ask for a LIT and he gives you the look like he rather pee in it. Why Not was totally different. Very friendly. I like…

And as we spoke, Jansen shared his experiences as a former pro DJ at clubs along the now defunct Mhd Sultan Rd. After him, there was DJ George, and then DJ Ronnie, and the rest is history.

What makes a great club? A whole collection of things. While the DJ is soul of the party, the theme, the turnout, the location, and the rapport between staff and customers need to be there. No one likes an empty club. And as we explored above, people love to go to big clubs.

Did I mention, the company of friends you go with and the club culture in general? I love AJ clubs. Most are pretty friendly, fights are uncommon. Some may be a little more divaish but I think in general it is a good crowd. A crowd that knows what they like, unafraid to explore new sounds, and they really know how to have fun. From the console, to see the crowd having fun is reward enough for the DJ. Could be nerve wrecking to sustain that though, and not clear the floor, but that is another story.

For the aspiring DJs, I’ll say, do not be afraid, be patient, and persevere. When I was 9, I wanted to be a radio DJ. Yes, since I was 9. I recorded voice overs on my own, I learnt stuff on my own. It took me 12 years, till I was 21 before I got my break and explored more on this side. I am happy to say, I have explored both sides of the term DJ. And there’ll be more I’m sure.

But for now I am done with my kopi peng. I have probably lost half my audience through my rambling here haha. You were warned!

By the way I found out, the Silver Surfer cool and mellow voice is provided by Laurence Fishburne (actor who plays Morpheus in The Matrix movies).

WOW.

There was a certain post I read of a certain person who declares when he does get married, he will no longer lust over guys. And he wants kids, cause he sees gay uncles and feels sorry for them that they have no one around them.

To quote, ” really don’t want to be out of the norm but I guess I kinda already made up my mind that is to completely stop all this lusting, ogling at guys action once I get married. I want to get married and have kids because sometimes, I met some gay uncles who are already in their 50s or 40s and I feel a bit sad for them because who’s going to support them when they grow old?”

Hmm. The phrase “support when you are old” does suggest something to do with a return on investment. I guess there are different reasons for everyone. Farmers want more kids so they can all help in the farm. As time went by, they note many decided to study and work in the city instead. Children is not money, you cannot make it work as well as how money can be made to work harder for itself.

Besides being a bad ROI, one should have children because they want to, not because of some agenda, like them supporting you, or having them work in the farm etc.

But support can come in another form. Companionship. Would an AJ die a lonely man? I suppose a lot of people fear that. No bf, no kids, no one else in the world literally. Die already no one also know, until you begin to stench. I personally have aunts who are not married and they are str8. But she has us nephews. You, could have siblings, nephews/nieces etc too. All else fails, i think even in old age, I hope the aj community will stick together still. The friends we make today, could help one another out then. And what about str8 friends? Okay okay I guess most of them will be married off and probably MIA after that (don’t friends do that all the time?), so I suppose fellow ajs will understand each other better. Without being too hopeful or depressing (at the thought of an old folks home filled with ajs only haha), a situation may not be as grim as one thinks.

Many do tell me, they dont wanna live for too long. One of my str8 frens actually came to ask me, is that how we all think, because it sounds very dark for someone to say that.

I admit, I have no real solution to this issue. There is no guarantee anywhere or on anything. I aint running away from the issue though, but I focus on other stuff that I have control over. I try to seize the day, rather than go depressed on something that may never come.

Suffice to say, I may never live long enough to experience the ‘issue’. And I don’t see any difference in solution today and 50 yrs later. I am not the sort who would need kids to support me, even if I were str8. So therefore if there is no real solution on end, why bother to think bout it now?

Thanks Ben for the spongebob squarepants keychain! Love it.

And it is tested, confirm and official. Vodka gives me the kind of headache that causes me to stone.

Cranberry juice is very nice.. without the vodka please.

Fantastic 4 : Rise of the Silver Surfer is awesome! The surfboard gives the rider unparallel power. The kind of power that only Jean Gray (X men) would match, if any at all. And the character who played Silver Surfer is soooo cool!!!!
I also bought a new wallet, and my very first crumpler bag! Fell in love with the color and design at first sight… too bad it is a tad small cause they don’t come in the size I want. Oh well.. I was hoping to get 1 for casual days and 1 for work. But the larger ones are like double the price. If I bought 2 it would have cost me like 280 in all. Heart pain leh. Furthermore, this GSS doesn’t feel much of a sale to me. I may be doing it all wrong, but none of the items I want and bought are on sale. This is highly annoying.

And you think you heard it all. This one tops the cake so far. Instead of a usual biochemical used from the cold war days till now, they tried to develop a weapon that turns people gay??
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Iain Thomson, vnunet.com 12 Jun 2007

Newly released documents have shown that the US military was considering the development of a chemical weapon to turn enemy soldiers gay.

Edward Hammond, of Berkeley’s Sunshine Project, used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain a copy of the proposal from the Air Force’s Wright Laboratory in Dayton, Ohio and passed it to CBS 5.

According to the document the Air Force requested $7.5m for the development of such a weapon, but the proposal was rejected.

“The Ohio Air Force lab proposed that a bomb be developed that contained a chemical that would cause enemy soldiers to become gay, and to have their units break down because all their soldiers became irresistibly attractive to one another,” Hammond told the TV station.

“The notion was that a chemical that would probably be pleasant in the human body in low quantities could be identified, and by virtue of either breathing or having their skin exposed to this chemical, the notion was that soldiers would become gay,”

The ideal was first mooted in 1994, after the Cold War had ended. In the proposal the weapons was described as “distasteful but completely non-lethal”.

The news has caused outrage among sexual rights groups. “Throughout history we have had many brave men and women who are gay and lesbian serving the military with distinction,” said Geoff Kors of Equality California.

“So, it’s just offensive that they think by turning people gay that the other military would be incapable of doing their job.

“And it’s absurd because there’s so much medical data that shows that sexual orientation is immutable and cannot be changed.”

Sorry guys, been really busy with loads of things of late. Work, during working hours. Trying not to get sick, working on some events organisation, thinking of new ideas, looking up annual reports to identify key companies to invest in and all that takes a hell lotta time. I cannot share too much info around here, but for stocks investing, feel free to discuss and share ideas. I use mostly FA for analysis, with TA to find entry and exit points price-wise. I have set my sights on a couple here and there so now I am just waiting for the target price to hit, before doing another round of assesment to see if I should hold or sell.

Moving on, as you know, there are serious vulnerabilities in the yahoo messenger. Please go and UPGRADE the software IMMEDIATELY. Don’t ask me what can happen if you don’t and someone exploits your program. If I post it here, you know it is important. Especially since it comes from me. Exploits for yahoo are already in the wild and anti viruses were not detecting it, as of yesterday so don’t take any chances. These days, exploits are hosted on websites. Ie, you have an application that is vulnerable, you surf onto the wrong website (you will never know, because attackers can inject code on any website. Bank websites have been known to carry exploits, before they realise what happened and they took off their webpage) carrying the exploit, and you get hit. You may not even know you get hit, till you realise someone else in another country is impersonating you… etc etc.. you get the drift.

Have a good week ahead! June’s moving really quick. So much to do, so little time.. as always.

Busy busy month at work. I don’t know how long I can tah han. Hoping I can hang on for as long as I can. While stores out there go crazy on the GSS, it is the great Singapore workout here. Day after day. And then there are professional exams to take. Exams that I have been pushing back cause I don’t have the time to work on it. I love my job. But my career sucks.

Another thing that sucks is this NETs thing. Maybe they are right, it is not the consumer’s problem. But why is NETs charging a commission similar to credit cards? Do we get to pay for our purchases on credit? Do we accumulate points? How far is 1.7% from 2% that credit card companies charge? 0.3% is definitely more than the jump from 0.3% – 1.7%. Their excuse seems to be “if we do not increase the rate, banks may not find NETs feasible to maintain”. So now we are held hostage. If we use, goodness knows how much more we have to pay directly. Else, they may just scrape the whole NETs thing, simply because debit cards and credit cards are far more profitable.

I do understand that from a financial perspective, banks need to earn profit. NETs was first created to promote a cashless system. Hence, why are banks in charge of this NETs system? There should be an independent party to handle the whole network. Not banks.

I do not blame the banks, or NETs. I sympathise with the retailers, and consumers alike. I am a consumer too. Throwing this out on 1st July in line with GST increase couldn’t have been ‘better’. Everyone gets pinched, harder.

I do blame the system. This whole system is flawed. Suffice to say the logistics behind the network is heavy and only banks who already have existing infrastructure to cater to credit cards may implement an ‘add on’ with lower cost. This is not entirely true, for you will remember it was only recently credit cards have gone electronic. In the past, retailers swipe your cards with the this big thingie to get your credit card numbers printed on the carbon invoice.

Solution? I think the only solution is to have another company take over. The banks talk about competition. Many asked, who would counter competition with increasing price? This is an internal competition. If credit cards bring x%, and NETs brings only a fraction of it, but cost almost just as high, why should banks even maintain the network of NETs? So it is an internal competition. Increase the rate to make it feasible, or drop it.

Banks want to earn profit. They are a business after all, not a charity. While there is a social responsibility for NETs to be friendly to everyone, I am not too sure it is the bank’s problem. Why should they be a charity? They are accountable to shareholders too! Shareholders who invest in their stocks like you and me.

If they could sell the whole business to a company who is wiling to take over the network and infrastructure, maybe we have a choice. Else, I don’t think there is one. Just suck thumb. Guys are trained in it for 2.5 yrs of their lives. Girls? Well.. you’ll probably learn to suck too. Although it is likely to be something else other than the thumb.

The same something else that I like to suck on too!

Welcome back to the cash system once again. I did say before, as technology grows, we move back further in time. What if I told you, if we went back to the conductor system in buses, our bus fares (minus inflation) could drop 20%. Would you use the ezlink system, or have a human come up to you and collect money (and provide change too!).

So are we going backwards? You decide. Technology, like a lot of things, is a double edge sword. Live by the sword. Die by the sword.

Next year’s CNY will fall on a thursday/friday. So take 3 days leave from mon-wed and you get 9 days in all.

Time for a vacation then. Suggestions?

Gosh this sounds bad. And what did we hear about all the things the government is going to do by 2020?

Future not so rosy for working-class S’poreans
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MANY Singaporeans must be celebrating at the moment, with the buoyant economy, high employment, higher salaries and, for private home owners, skyrocketing property prices and ‘en bloc’ frenzy.
However, is the current state of the economy and future as rosy as it appears for most working-class Singaporeans?

According to data published in a report on the wealthiest cities in the world by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) on March 11, Singapore ranks 36th out of 70 cities based on gross domestic product (GDP) in 2005.

A look at the rankings will reveal that, apart from Singapore, all the cities in the bottom half are in Second and Third World countries.

Singapore’s GDP of US$129 billion (S$197 billion) pales beside other Asian cities such as Tokyo (US$1.19 trillion), Hong Kong (US$244 billion), Seoul (US$218 billion) and Shanghai (US$139 billion). In fact, we are only slightly ahead of Mumbai (US$123 billion).

These rankings are arrived at by using purchasing-power-parity exchange rates.

However, unlike Singapore, our Asian counterparts in Hong Kong seem to have more to look forward to. The projections for city wealth in the year 2020 show that Hong Kong is likely to rise to 14th position, while Singapore is likely to decline to 40th.

The study (taking into consideration deduction of taxes and social-security contributions) reveals that net salaries in Asian cities such as Tokyo, Dubai, Seoul and Taipei will surpass Singapore.

However, these sobering statistics apply only to the average Singaporean citizen. The top bracket of earners in professions such as medicine, law, banking and, of course, within the ranks of the Government, will earn as much, if not more, than some of their counterparts worldwide.

What do these figures tell Singaporeans? We can conclude that even though we pay a relatively low rate of personal income tax, the net amount of wages we take home leaves us in the bottom half of the 70 cities in the PWC report.

-end-

And have you realised a weird phenomenon? When a report comes out someone fell onto the MRT tracks, within days to weeks multiple incidents will happen. Same with falling trees. And today, anotehr girl died in a swimming pool. That’s 13 this year. What is happening?