Bah, humbug

The first BS of the year comes from my boss. Who sent an email with the usual happy new year greetings, along with "enjoy the long weekend". To people who stayed till late on Wednesday night, came in early on Thursday/New Year's Eve, will be working New Year's Day and also Sunday. Bah, humbug.

Looks like stuff that's too bitchy to post on FB will end up here

Home at midnight after a night's work, and choosing with care what to wear for an all-day work retreat tomorrow that starts at 9am on a day off, and which features a lunch that my Muslim colleagues cannot eat. The boss said he wanted to take this out of office so I'm feeling free to dress out of office.

Enough already

Biting my tongue and not responding to what's trending on my Facebook and news feeds for 48 hours hasn't cut it. So I haven't posted anything hasty and peppered with typos, but I'm fed up still.

Angelina Jolie is pissing me off.

Admittedly, she had high probabilities to weigh and hard choices to make. But everything else is PR machinery for a boob job. And I'll give top marks for her PR agent for getting her on The New York Times. And sweeping the Australian Budget off their newspaper websites on the same day. Even the British Guardian, which could usually be relied on for acerbic observations, was gushing like a fan girl.

I didn't see that badge of courage pinned on Sharon Osbourne when she had a double mastectomy, and after actually fighting cancer. What, your boobs don't matter when you're middle aged and you're not Lara Croft?

The whole crux of the matter, to me, isn't so much the preventive mastectomy, but making the US$3,000 gene test that she had affordable and accessible to all women. When we all have the resources that she has, only then it's worth gushing over what she's done.

OK, my personal context is that the news of her preventive double mastectomy came two days after news of a friend who had to have a mastectomy emerged with nerve damage from the operation and now cannot move an arm. There is a flip side. There is always a flip side. But nobody is talking about that.

L has the best last words: Let's see if Brad Pitt cuts his balls off. That could prevent a whole lot of things too.

Close encounters of the lift kind

My pet peeve is a common Singaporean complaint -- people who crowd round train and lift doors, and rush in as soon as they open, without first giving way to those who want to come out. I've never understood this. Surely there would be more room for them inside if they let the others come out first?

Last Wednesday: A Chinese-speaking lady tried to enter the lift as soon as the doors opened, before L could and Queeni could leave it. Queeni snorted. Not barked, not growled. Just snorted in a pig-like way, which is Schnauzer for "ahem". The lady jumped back and exclaimed in Mandarin, "Scared me to death." And then raised one high-heeled foot and made as if to kick Queeni. That was when L stepped in. Ordinarily monolingual, he summoned enough Mandarin to tell her: "Your face also scared me to death." She was all dolled up but looked like "an extra from the Rocky Horror Show", he later told me. I still prefer to have kicked her.

Last Friday: A teenaged girl barged into the lift as soon as the doors opened, only to walk right into us -- two people and two dogs coming out. This time round, the dogs were silent. Not even a polite doggy "ahem". Young Lady promptly burst into tears at the shock of there actually being people (and dogs) wanting to come out of the lift first. When we were well down the path, I turned back to look at her -- she was still standing at the corner of the lift lobby and crying, while her boyfriend held the lift door open and looked helpless. Poor sod. The guy, not the girl. The girl's just what Queeni is biologically termed as.

Hmm

If I said that I wanted to red pencil this, then I would be equally guilty of verbing a noun, right?

Playground wars

"Eh. No dogs allowed," said the teenaged boy perching at the top of the playground slide. It wasn't so much directed at me as I walked past with Roop, but he was posturing to his mates.

"My conservancy charges paid for this playground. If you don't want me here, I don't want you here either."

I do not like teenaged boys in the first flush of testosterone.

Grrr

It's taken me the long weekend to calm down.

On Friday, I had meant to stop by the pet shop on my way to work to get another bag of dog food. For a confluence of reasons, I didn't. The connecting train to the office arrived just at the same moment as I crossed over to the platform, so instead of taking the escalator to the exit where I would get out of the station and upstairs into the shopping centre where the pet shop was, I stepped into the train. I figured that I would pick up the dog food during dinner hour instead. What I didn't know then was that goD was looking out for me and my dogs.

Because 10 minutes later when I got into the office and checked my e-mail before starting any real work, I found a post on my dog e-list on a dog food recall. My blood ran cold when I realised that the brand that I feed was on the recall list.

P&G had issued a voluntary recall of some brands of pet food because a manufacturing facility had been compromised by salmonella. I googled like crazy but couldn't find anything which told me whether the recall was limited to the US and Canada, or also included exports to Asia.

In mounting panic, I called the pet shop. Yes, they knew what I was talking about. Yes, we are affected. And yes, stop feeding that to your dogs. Right now. They bent over backwards, working out a refund scheme for me, and helping me to select another brand that was close in composition so that an abrupt change of feed wouldn't throw the dogs' digestive system out of kilter. But when I asked why wasn't there any publicity about the recall, they pointed out that if I wanted to take up the issue, I would need to contact the importer/distributor. They were merely the retailer.

I left the office, retraced my steps back to the train station, got to the pet shop, got alternative food. Getting something to feed the dogs was at that time more important than doing work. No offence to my US friends, but this time, I elected not to buy American. I'm fussy about buying made in China foodstuff, but I think I've fallen into a colonial sort of complacency where I had assumed that anything Western-made is A-OK. Well, that's a fallacy these days. A British cat breeder friend had remarked that EU requirements for pet food are much stricter than US standards, so with that thought in mind, I decided to buy British.

Then I returned to work. I could really have used a good stiff drink, now that I was done with the crisis. But there was no possibility of that since I was at the office, so I opted for a cigarette instead. Yes, I am kinder to my dogs' systems than I am to my own.

By then, I had somewhat stopped freaking out. Meanwhile, L at home had thrown out the dog food and cleaned the container in which it was kept, as well as their food and water bowls, and also the kitchen counter top, and after all that, the sink and also sponge which he used to clean up. We're not fooling with salmonella. We're only jolly lucky that we don't have young children and elderly people in the house who could have been easily compromised by handling the dog food.

What really shook me was that there was no news of the recall here. If it wasn't for a heads-up from the US friend on my e-list, I would not have known. And that's when I started getting pissed off with the importer of the pet food, as well as Agri-Veterinary Authority (AVA), which is the regulatory body. The P&G release was dated July 30, a full week ago. In the 7 days since, we had no publicity on the matter.

The local importer has my name and address on its database -- from time to time, they send me brochures on the brand's products and on special offers that they may be carrying. At no time did they contact me regarding the recall -- when they knew full well I must be feeding that brand.

And as for the AVA, which during the last melamine-related recall made so much self-righteous noise about how they regularly test pet food that has been imported and how all imports meet their requirements, well this time they were well and truly caught with their pants down. I shot them an email that night.

I haven't yet heard from the importer or the AVA -- the parties with whom the buck should stop. They could be puking over the toilet bowl now for all I care. As long as it's not my furkids and my family doing that.

I can still do with that drink.

Sure, politicians say smart things

In the newsletter published by my constituency's grassroots group that is distributed to residents, the foreword written by the mayor (who is also a constituency MP and junior minister) stuck to the issue's theme of fathering, since it's Father's Day coming up next month. He wrote of his own method of bonding with his child, that he "make(s) it a point to send (his) son to school every morning", ie he drives his son to school. Well, bully for him. This constituency is in HDB heartland, ie 90% of the residents live in public housing. Of this demographic, not every household owns a car. According to 2008 figures, 430,000 Singaporeans (out of a population of 4.8 million) own cars. Most kids who live in an HDB estate take a bus to school, or walk to the neighbourhood school.

Another MP preaching to the choir.

There must be a term for it: not trusting politicians.

The joy of tax

It's surer than death. I received a letter from the IRAS dated April 3, outlining my provisional tax for the year of assessment 2010. The letter arrived on Saturday, so it took a full week to arrive -- which either shows how slow the post office is or that the IRAS did not pay for first-class next-day delivery.

April 3. A full 12 days ahead of the April 15 filing deadline, they are already telling me how much they expect to squeeze out of me. They are so out to get my money. Maybe they need it to pay for first-class postage.

Welcoming foreign talent

The senior minister, at a community event where he presided as the constituency's MP over the weekend, urged Singaporeans to make immigrants feel welcome.

Well, I don't need to make them feel unwelcome -- because his government has already done that. I didn't really pay attention to the business side of the Budget report in Parliament in Februrary. I knew they revamped the scheme for issuing employment passes to foreign workers -- it's now more expensive for an employer to get a new Employment Pass or to renew an existing Employment Pass for a foreign worker, and also the quota of Singapore workers to foreign workers have changed -- all supposed to gear employers towards hiring local.

I didn't think it would concern me. I was dead wrong. Now, the restaurants in Little India are reportedly affected. Restaurateurs are having problems in the kitchen, which is usually helmed by a cook from India. This goes the same for zi char stalls and Chinese restaurants with a chef from China. No cook, no authentic food, no business. So they've got to hang on to the cook. But they can't hire more Singaporeans to renew the foreign cook's Employment Pass because there's only so much wait staff you need. And if it costs more to retain the cook's pass, of course the cost gets passed on to the customer.

This much I know from one of our reporters -- that at least one restaurant lost seven chefs in a span of two months when they were unable to renew their Employment Passes. The boss was told to switch those Employment Passes to S Passes. And S Pass-holders are capped at a ceiling of 25 per cent of a business’s total workforce.

And on a more personal note, my dance master, who is from India, is also now facing employment pass problems. He is hired to teach at a yoga school, and not unsurprisingly, a good half of the yoga teachers are from India. That probably means half of them will have to go. And wasn't welcoming foreign talent the mantra only yesterday?

Bah, humbug

I didn't join in Earth Hour, didn't turn off my non-essesntial lights for an hour between 8.30pm and 9.30pm on March 27. Partly because all the non-essential lights and non-essential anything were already off anyway. This household practices Earth Year all round, and not just lip service for an hour once a year.

And why should I sit for an hour in the dark when the people who could have really done something about climate change sat around and did absolutely nothing in Copenhagen?

What happened to holding up half the sky?

International Woman's Day (yesterday) was not a good time to read The Economist -- the cover story really made me sit up. It wasn't so much the topic -- gendercide -- or even the fact that China and India had abnormally high male sex ratios at birth. It was the fact that Singapore was also among the Asian (read paternalistic) countries with a skewed male sex ratio that was above the natural rate. At no point did it even imply that Singaporeans kill unwanted baby girls, it merely pointed out that distorted sex ratios are not confined to the poor, uneducated, illiterate agrarian societies because distorted sex ratios also exist in affluent societies such as Singapore. Now I'm stunned. Is there something happening in my backyard that I'm not aware of?

There's a reason why they're called killer whales

It's a horrible tragedy, the SeaWorld orca that drowned its trainer. Somewhere along the way, we've lost sight of orcas as hefty sentient beings with minds of their own and need to be respected in their own right. Which is why I feel weird visiting marine parks and didn't want to swim with dolphins in Hawaii. It must be a form of Disneyfication -- to think that dolphins are friendly, because they have smiley upturned jawlines; and sharks are nasty, because they have rows of sharp teeth.

I live with two dogs and I don't forget that they are really two wolves in my parlour -- even if they look so cute when snoring across the sofa that they're instantly forgiven. Which is why I disagree with L when he picks up and cuddles the one that looks like a teddy bear whenever the cuteness factor so impels him. If any pet owner hasn't been biten or scratched, it is because their dogs and cats have shown great restrain. Even a chihuahua is capable of taking off a finger, if it really wanted to. Maybe they should, everytime they're stuffed into a handbag. Teach us some respect.


Rupert's the sweetest natured dog I've ever had, but those teeth can do a lot of damage -- if it occurred to him.

Tax dollars at work

A friend of mine (who should be unnamed for his/her protection) recently became a librarian at a public library. Which means that I'm technically paying his/her salary since he/she is now a public servant.

Well, I just found out that public servants who work at libraries get reimbursed for a tailored jacket every year. They also receive a S$100 shoe allowance every year because they must wear "covered shoes".

I pointed out that the shoes which I wear to work -- Converse sneakers -- are also covered shoes but apparently they are not considered to be the same class.

Heart & soul

I recently caught an interesting programme on the Chinese language TV station, a locally produced series called Hometown Flavours. Every week, it features a local television actor or actress, and explores a home-cooked dish particular to that person's dialect group. It looks at how it is cooked in Singapore with maybe a short sequence shot at a hawker stall or restaurant that sellls the dish, then cuts to China where the actor tastes it in a local restaurant and talks about the difference. Then he is sent to the market to get the ingredients and must cook the dish with a local family.

In the episode I watched was a scene where a Hakka actress is in a China market getting ingredients for lei cha (literally, thunder tea -- it is herbs, peanuts and sesame seeds ground into a paste which is turned into a "tea" with hot water. That is poured over a bowl of cooked rice topped with spoonfuls of different diced vegetables, peanuts and beans. You stir it up into a sort porridge of leftovers, that's what it essentially is.) Anyway, at the China market, the actress was peppering the stallholder with questions of what sort of vegetables to buy and how much to get. From off camera, you could hear the stallholder's wife scolding him. So the actress went over to Mrs Boss and tried to engage her conversation, and Mrs Boss just snapped back: "Why should I waste my time talking to you even if you are filming? You just talk and you don't buy anything."

And this is why I don't buy Chinese. No customer relations and no PR, and absolutely no heart, whether it is a market stall or a milk powder producer or pet food manufacturer, it's always just the cold hardnosed bottom line.

My first spelling mistake

Maybe the folks behind this pre-school group was going for cutesy little tyke sort of spelling. But you'd think that parents looking for their kid's first school would want to pick an institution that can spell school in the first place.

You know how teachers have been blaming students' lack of ability to spell nowadays on texting and instant chat. Well, it started way before that. Dun blame e fone, e teech in skool st8ted it 1st.

The elephant in the room

I don't know how some of my colleagues do it -- cover a ministerial conference and file on the creation of the Asean Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights and its mission to promote and protect human rights in Asean. All done with a perfectly straight face while behaving oneself in a roomful of ministers as Burma shuffles her feet in the corner of the room.

Nyah nyah nyah

It's bad enough that the episodes of the Ellen Degeneres talkshow that are being broadcast on the free-to-air station here is six months behind the US screening.

It's even worse that they are shown at 3am. (I catch them because I happen to watch TV at that time of the night after coming home from night shift.)

But it is unforgivable when a whole episode goes missing.

I was watching the show last week when I saw on the little crawler that flashes the next day's guest: Portia Di Rossi. Who also happens to be Ellen's spouse. Now that would be a nice episode to watch, I thought.

The episode never materialised. Play It Safe Broadcast Corporation didn't just apply their usual (insert sarcasm here) light censorship hand, they took an axe to the whole episode.

To say that I was piffed off was an understatement.

But then, I figured there was no point getting angry, writing in or complaining. Play It Safe Broadcast Corporation would only say that they had to follow the Media Development Authority's broadcast guidelines on undesirable content or risk paying a fine.

They probably thought they got away with fooling an audience of maybe 5 people at 3am. Maybe they thought that we didn't notice the crawler. Or that we blinked and missed Portia's guest spot. Or maybe they thought we're stupid.

We're not. We know what you did. And we know how to YouTube. And there it was. Two people glowing with happiness when they talked about their wedding day because they could share their life together. A gay couple who outshone a straight couple when they played The Newlywed Game, the game that tests how well you know your partner.

What's more morally reprehensible or more of a threat to the insitution of marriage: a gay talkshow host who proudly introduces her wife on the show, or a straight talkshow host who recently confessed to having sex with his staff when he was in the middle of a long-term relationship with his partner?

Suck it up, Prop 8 and Section 377a. And suck it up, Play It Safe Broadcast Corporation.

It's not happy. Period.

There's a feminine product here that has followed its American cousin in using a new advertising tagline: "Have a happy period."

It could only have been dreamt up by a male advertising guy. Because if he were to bleed from his penis for a week, he'd understand that there's nothing happy about periods. You cramp, you bloat and you bloody *bleed*. I bloat so bad even my fingers swell and I can't wear anything that requires doing up buttons or a zip at the back because the bunch of bananas that my hands have become can't manage them. Not a happy camper at all.

Never trifle with a menstruating woman. She can bleed for a week and still not die.

Dumbing down

One of the things I got to do with four days at home was to watchTV, which included a lot of quiz shows. Does anyone remember Magnus Magnusson in Mastermind? Now, that was a real quiz show. I can't remember how much it paid out, but the point wasn't really winning money but the laurel wreath of being really, really smart.

As opposed to the winners in Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader now on TV. You could win a million dollars by knowing the answers to the stuff you were *supposed to know* when you were 10 years old. It must be why we've gotten collectively stupider over the years, when you could win a million bucks for knowing what the measurement oz stands for instead of boning up to be quizzed on say, sexual politics and power play in Shakespeare's tragedies. Or string theory. Or the periodic table. What's the point of being learning so much nowadays when popular TV has taught you that it doesn't really pay?