There are some rather poor newscasters on the radio these days.

For instance, while listening to Power 98 this afternoon, the newscaster spoke about the car bombs in London which failed to "de-toe-nate."

Then, for sports, she spoke about Liverpool's shock bid for Gabriel Heinze (pronounced "En-ze") but pronounced it as "Heinz." As my mother put it, "what, is Pool bidding for all 57 varieties?"

Sugar Ray, Pet Shop Boys and Black Eyed Peas (and some say, Cyndi Lauper) at Fort Canning on August 9?

At S$150?

Man, I'm gonna be broke.

Map My London, an initiative launched by the Museum of London on November 16, 2006. The website aims to create an emotional memory bank and will form part of the museum's permanent collection. You will be able to upload your experiences about the city onto the Map My London site under headings including “Love and Loss”, “Beauty and Horror” and “Fate and Coincidence”.

[via Gridskipper]

Me: So, yes, he's a confirmed atheist and is only willing to go out with girls who are the same.
Friend: You know, if you want to meet Christians, you can go to church. And Muslims can go to a mosque. Where do atheists go?
Me (resisting the "hell" comeback): ... Bookshops?

While out at the Heineken Green Room event featuring Buzzin' Fly DJs Jimpster and Justin Martin at the National Museum of Singapore on Wednesday night, my friend, one of the hardcore kings of clubbing in Singapore, comes up to me and tells my guy friend dancing next to me, "You can tell she's a real raver. She may be looking all office-y and dressed up, but you can tell she's a true raver by her shoes."

For the record, I was wearing a nicely elegant shirt, a short skirt and trainers.

Heh.

As for the event itself... well, the music was good and the venue - one of the empty rooms in the museum - was pretty cool. The crowd sucked though. They seemed far more interested in being outside or chatting or basically, generally not appreciating the music.

I guess one reason could have been because this was the most poorly organised Green Room event I have been to so far. While I was always told that I had already signed up and been registered for the event, apparently flyers didn't go out on time, and neither did reminders, leaving a fellow Green Room member and I to debate at 11.30 pm on Wednesday whether the event was still on. Geez, organisers, for such an established record label, there was some seriously bad publicity.

I bought a pair of sparkly gold hotpants from Topshop. The picture on the web site doesn't show off how sparkly it is under direct light, but when I saw them, they did look gorgeously bling... and a little stripper-like, I'll admit.

It could be temporary insanity because I've been looking for a pair of shorts for a while, specifically, shorts I could wear to go to clubs in (proper clubs, mind you), but, hey, they do look kind of nice... to me at least!

Apropos of nothing, my friend and I were walking through Borders when we came across Ice Kabobs which had the tagline, "Everything is more fun on a stick."
Me: As a straight girl, I can't dispute that.
Friend: I think it would be better as "everything is more fun with a stick."
Me: Works either way... even with the ice.

Hot Fuzz was good fun. The film is mostly set in the fictional town of Sandford, Gloucester, where Sergeant Nicholas Angel (Simon Pegg), a dedicated and over-achieving police officer, is sent to by his superiors who are worried about his making the rest of the team look bad, given his arrest record is 400% higher than the average London police officer. There, he is partnered with Danny Butterman (Nick Frost), a naive and eager police constable who also loves watching action movies. When strange accidents occur in Sandford, a quiet little village which has won Village of the year three times in a row, Nicholas gets suspicious, only to be met by the ignorance of the general populace. Determined to get to the bottom of this, Nicholas and Danny investigate the 'accidents' only to find that there is more to the sleepy little village than meets the eye.

I decided to watch the movie based on the credentials of the director and the production team. I am a big fan of British humour, and absolutely loved Spaced, a series I was introduced to by an English colleague of mine, who was also kind enough to give me Shaun of the Dead, a movie which I have yet to watch. However, one worry regarding Hot Fuzz was the possibility that I would not understand the jokes relating to the setting of the movie, i.e. the sleepy quiet village. That turned out not to be the case, and without giving too much away, I would say that any intelligent Singaporean would be able to relate to this incredibly well, particularly when Nicholas discovers what the motive behind the series of 'accidents' is.

The script, written by Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright (also the makers of Shaun of the Dead and Spaced) was generally subtle and witty, and the editing was pretty good. The movie definitely had a little more action and violence than I expected it to have. I particularly enjoyed the gay-yet-not-gay overtones of the relationship between Nicholas and Danny, and two other characters in the film, known as the Andys. Overall, while I didn't find the movie as funny as I found certain episodes of Spaced, I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Favourite Quotes (may contain SPOILERS):
Nicholas: What's the situation?
DS Andy Wainwright: Two blokes and a fuck-load of cutlery!

Nicholas (on Point Break): There's no way you could perpetrate that amount of carnage and mayhem and not incur a significant amount of paperwork.

Simon Skinner (over walkie talkie): Michael? Are you there? Michael? Is everything okay?
Nicholas (pretending to be Michael): Yarp.
Simon: Sergeant Angel's been taken care of?
Nicholas: Yarp.
Simon: He's not going to get back up again?
Nicholas: ...... Narp?
Simon: Good.

Your Score: Ando Masahashi

You scored 33 Idealism, 37 Nonconformity, 45 Nerdiness

We are not special! We are Japanese!
Congratulations, you're Ando Masahashi! You're a practical, sensible, person. You're also a bit of a nerd, though you haven't fully realized that yet. You're a great person to go to for practical advice. You're also a bit of a flirt.

Your best quality: Practicality -- you have your feet and the ground and know what's up.
Your worst quality: Finding every person you meet attractive (or maybe that's a good quality -- I don't know.)

Link: The Heroes Personality Test written by freedomdegrees on OkCupid, home of the The Dating Persona Test

Now this sounds like a movie worth watching.

Poltergay
It is, no doubt, every young couple's worst nightmare. You move into your new home, a magnificent old mansion, only to discover that - horror of horrors - it is haunted. But not just any old haunting. No, your new home is haunted by the spirits of disco dancing homosexuals from the 1970s.

And best of all? It's French.

That's hot.

Warning: Link-heavy post up ahead.

I have had so much good food in the past week that I'm terribly afraid I'll gain weight. In no particular order, I visited:

• Kaisan (Raffles Hotel) - Incredibly delicious Japanese food (omakase or chef's choice for between S$70 to S$90 per person for about six to eight courses of food). Probably the only Japanese restaurant I've been to where the chefs banter with the customers in Hokkien.
  
• Men-Tei Japanese Noodles (Robinson Centre) - Great tonkotsu ramen served quickly in a small but cosy setting (S$13 for a bowl of ramen and unlimited green tea).
• Beppu Menkan (Far East Square) - Extensive ramen menu where you can choose the level of spiciness of the soup (scale goes from one chilli to eight chillis). Being the adventurous person that I am, I opted for zero chillis. Tasty nonetheless. Bad points about this place is that you have to wait for a while before you get a table and that in spite of the many fans, it's really hot.
  
• Ivory the Indian Kitchen (Clarke Quay) - Coastal Indian food and really friendly service. Very filling servings too.
• Amara Food Court followed by dessert, a short walk to Chewy Junior for doughnut puff hybrids and Chocolat and Spice for muffins (all at Tanjong Pagar). The first thing I thought when I bit into the concoction from Chewy Junior was that the pseudo-cookie-puff could be crispier, but then again, they would've called it Crispy Junior if it was, yes?
• Lee Wee Bros - incredibly delicious otah otah. Try the fish roe flavour. Spicy and sweet at the same time. Sedap lah!
  

I really need to start exercising again.

And I will write a longer review of these places one of these days... or maybe I'll just start from tomorrow, when my friend and I try out one of the places along Mohamed Sultan.

Indispensable Link
HungryGoWhere - A comprehensive and search-able database of restaurants and other F&B places in Singapore. Lists credit card promotions available at each restaurant.

And now for my weekly Heroes rave. The show just never fails to disappoint. It keeps on delivering. Unbelievable.

I want dark, angry, brooding, trenchcoat-wearing Peter Petrelli to be my boyfriend. Present him is pretty hot but future him is smokin'! Rrawr!

One + One (aka James Zabiela and Nic Faciulli) were pretty good last night. For those not in the know (and I wasn't until after the set), One + One have been touted as the next Sasha & Digweed.

I'm most definitely a JZ fan and was very much looking forward to this night and it seems that everything fell into place so that I could go. I was supposed to go off for a short break with a friend this weekend, but thanks to an eye infection, that trip has now been postponed.

The one bad thing though - the gig was being held at the Ministry of Sound. I know some people may consider me biased given that I'm a Zouk member, but, honestly, MoS doesn't even come close to how Zouk makes me feel on a great DJ night. It's nothing to do with the having to queue or even the more expensive and weaker drinks. It's just that the crowd sucks, and the sound system seems specially designed to deafen and sicken you.

In any case, given the calibre of the DJs, I decided to suck it up and go. Nic kicked off around 12.30 am, starting out with some tech house, a sound he usually doesn't play according to a knowledgeable clubbing pal of mine. James was up next, and true to his trademark style, parts of James' hour was marked by scratching. The next two hours was when it got really good - James and Nic, back-to-back. The two most definitely looked like they were having fun, even if parts of the crowd seemed utterly drunk, clueless or just groupie-like (James is a very pretty boy). It got to such an extent that after the set ended, my friend told Nic that when One + One return, they should play at Zouk instead. Heh.

While I did enjoy the music though, and managed to drink just enough to have fun clowning around with MoS's Red Ice, I'm afraid my general stressed out state from work contributed to my high level of intolerance that night, thereby making me extremely short with anything that annoyed me. At the moment, I work late three nights out of five and it didn't use to get to me that much a year or two ago, but it's definitely not something I'm coping better than okay with. Add to that a slight insomnia problem, and you've most definitely not got a happy camper. So yes, I was incredibly disdainful towards the crowd, and unfortunately, also towards a friend of mine. I really hate repeating myself, and when you're in a club, it's not something which is avoiding, but... well, I did get kind of snippy after a while. My apologies.

Related
One + One's MySpace site

Ha ha ha! This is awesome - and the ending is great!

I got my ticket for The Cure! Woo hoo!

What the f*** is so good about Rihanna? I mean, she's got one of the stupidest, most melodramatic lyrics ever in Unfaithful* and now, she's got some dumba** song called Umbrella which is being touted as one of the biggest tunes of the year? It's a f**ing annoying tune and the lyrics just don't make any damn sense. Geez. She has got to be one of the worst singers I have ever had the displeasure of listening to.

*I'm referring to the whole "I don't wanna be a (dramatic pause) murderer..." line.

I definitely have days like these... especially when trying to cross the road or thinking of how to approach my boss for something!

Colleague: So how did you fare on the exam?
Me: It's touch and go, really. I have to trust in divine intervention now.
Colleague: Don't worry. Everybody'll be passing in the name of political correctness. Those who don't pass will end up suing the CFA Institute and they'll be forced to pass everyone or be charged with discrimination.
Me: Discrimination against...? Stupidity?!

It's confirmed! The Cure are coming to Singapore! Tickets go on sale at Sistic on June 13 at 9 am.

Three Wishes
By Unknown

I wish I had a telescope,
To scan the starry skies;
But since I have no telescope,
I'm glad I have two eyes!

I wish I had a kitchen,
Run by push-button commands;
But while the kitchen is a dream,
I'm glad I have two hands!

I wish I had a super car,
To give my friends a treat;
But' till that nice car comes along,
I'm glad that I have two feet!

Two eyes to look at God above,
Two hands to clasp in prayer;
Two feet to carry me to Church,
That's why "I'm a Millionaire!"

As recited by Byron Stripling at Live at Duke's Place, a concert by the Duke Ellington Orchestra, for this year's Mosaic Music Festival.

Spiderman 3 may have sucked, but its theme song, Snow Patrol's Signal Fire, sure doesn't.

A couple of songs have kept me sane over the last two weeks, and yes, one of them was this tune. It's typical Snow Patrol, starting out slow and quiet before breaking into a rousing crescendo in the same vein as Chasing Cars, another Snow Patrol tune I love. Sure, Gary Lightbody's vocals do sounds a little too emo at times (although given that it's the theme song to emo Spidey, perhaps that's why), this song still rocks my world.

I am absolutely exhausted. In addition to "dramatically improving [my] portfolio management knowledge" (a section I believe I most probably have flunked, by the way), I have also learnt that I tend to suffer from insomnia the night before the CFA examination.

And at this moment, I am lusting after this - the Diane Von Furstenberg Beaumont Skirt from her Spring 2006 collection:
Yes. Those are indeed artichokes decorating the skirt. Can someone tell me if it's really nice or if I've been seduced by temporary sleep-deprivation-induced insanity?