82nd ave

This polaroid and this story by girlhula made my day.

better than shit

I think I busted a gut trying not to laugh out loud while watching these at work. It's like a game of Taboo, but using English to describe Chinese words. I know, it's very bad to laugh at people's poor language skills, but I can't help it.

mad hatter

On a trip to Ikea a couple of days ago, ostensibly to buy a photo frame but actually to eat the best chicken wings in the world, we found these felt hats, $9.90 each, in the kids' department.

The flower one was suitably potty, while the fruit one was clearly a basket case. But my favourite was the birthday cake with the candles and strawberries. I felt so happy my head could fit into it. What does this say about my mental age, though?

camera gear porn

There is actually a (mostly sad) story behind this standard photo of camera gear porn which you see so often on Flickr.

My dad's friend so generously gave me his entire old skool collection -- because he has stage IV cancer. I'm very very touched by his gesture.

Even though it hasn't been cheap, I have sent the Minolta and the 58mm lens for servicing (at the Camera Hospital -- yes, that's the shop name, and the "doctor" is a very helpful man), so I can shoot something nice to give to him.

Guess I'll be shooting film from now on (even though I've never owned a SLR, digital or otherwise, in my life and only have a vague idea which lens is good).

P.S. The Cosina Hi-Lite in the middle is actually my own, a cheap thrift-store find while in Vienna. It actually works!

Day 143 of Project 365

what i look at when pretending to work

People who are so dedicated to their Project 365 put me to shame. Tiagoribeiro popped a hell lot of popcorn, got two friends to get nekkid and then took his photo of the day.


I'm so in awe of the creativity of the photographer behind Type The Sky. I never saw the negative spaces between buildings as letters before this. Brilliant!


There's a whole bunch of people doing this transparent screen thing, which makes me think, "So clever!", followed by "How difficult can it be? I also can do!" Watch me eat my words.

cuckoo

My sis the Hello Kitty fan very kindly loaned me her handphone charm -- currently not in use -- after my beloved squishy Doraemon one broke.


When you press the "chimney", a cuckoo bird pops out from the clock. I was instructed not to press it more than once a day, "wait it spoil".

During lunch today, I was idly playing with it when I realised it was stuck. No action whatsoever no matter how hard I depressed the little chimney. Die lah, I make spoil.

In a panic -- my sis was gonna eviscerate me -- I blurted out: "My cuckoo won't come out anymore!"

Luckily, I'm not a guy. But that didn't stop my lunch kakis from laughing for a good five minutes.

just an illusion

"I could go back and google how the trick was done. But I won't. Let it remain as magic"
-- R in the car at the end of the night

Saturday night. It was K's 47th birthday dinner-cum-drinks. (Has it been one year already?)

We stuffed ourselves silly at Beng Hiang Restaurant. I secretly thought that two suckling pigs were a tad excessive (for 12 carnivores, 1 vegetarian and 1 baby). I was wrong. We crunched every last piece of crispy skin and fat. To my horror, I later realised the suckling pig cost $180. Each.

After six raucous rounds of bilingual Happy Birthday songs -- the restaurant is popular for such celebratory events -- we adjourned to Bar 84 for drinks.

It was exactly how I imagined a jazz bar from one of Haruki Murakami's novels would be like -- tucked away from those not in the know with misleading signage to add to the confusion, understated lighting and decor, nothing too plush, unobtrusive music and waitresses, meticulously prepared mojitos which took 20 minutes to arrive and were topped with mint leaves sprinkled with icing sugar to look like freshly fallen snow. The fact that it was owned by a Japanese man who also performed magic tricks might have had something to do with it.

There were the run-of-the-mill sleight-of-hand tricks, which felt slightly old-fashioned compared to the likes of David Blaine and Criss Angel, but I liked them precisely because they were classics. Coins mysteriously appearing and disappearing. Rubber bands that stretched alarmingly then passed right through each other. And many many "pick a card, any card" type of tricks.

For the grand finale, three of us -- J, K and I -- each picked a card. We were instructed, in charmingly broken and slyly flirtatious English, to write various personal details on the card, mine being my name, the date and my (incomplete) address.

J's card disappeared from the deck and reappeared in a wooden box, folded into a little rectangle. Mine was found in the magician's wallet in a sealed Japanese red packet.

But the most amazing one was K's. He was instructed to pick one lemon out of three from the bar fridge, then cut it open with a knife. No prizes for guessing what was found, rolled up and marinated in lemon juice, inside.

It was one of the oldest tricks in the book, but to me, it was pure magic.

"The magician teaches us that romance lies in an unstable contest of minds that leaves us knowing it’s a trick but not which one it is, and being impressed by the other person’s ability to let the trickery go on."
-- The Real Work, by Adam Gopnik, The New Yorker

free books

This is art? More like a tasteless prank to me.

Free Books by Eric Doeringer (obviously not a book lover) is part of Art In Odd Places, an art project in New York.

From its website:

A box of books labeled "Free Books" is deposited at various 14th Street locations. A seeming act of generosity, the artist has removed the last few pages from each book. The alteration will only become apparent to the reader after he or she has nearly finished the book, converting the cast-off into a statement of art.

In other news, I've been back from my little Austria trip for weeks but am too lazy/busy to write or post anything here.

mini me me me

On a slow day at work, my love for all things miniature and crafty collides with my vain and vapid self, and I decide to make mini Zann standees using colour printouts of my photos, some glue and tape, and paperclips (do I sound like MacGyver or what).

Yes, it's narcissistic, but at least it's on a small scale. (It's also misuse of office supplies, but ssshhh...)

P.S. This photo is taken on Day 101 of Project 365. I am still slightly in disbelief that I have made it almost one-third through.)

P.P.S. I am so procrastinating. I'd rather blog than mark my students' assignments. Kuluolan!

nine seconds

I read this quite a few days ago, but it's stayed with me. There's something wrong and I can't seem to link directly to the blog post on Dooce, so here it is:

Last night was the sixth anniversary of the evening Jon and I stood on a cliff in Yosemite National Park and vowed to give each other shit for the rest of our lives. This weekend that we have spent in San Francisco at a three-day music festival was planned at the last moment, and it was something we thought would appropriately commemorate this anniversary. He and I met at a music festival in Utah in 1997. He was married to someone else at the time, and I knew this, respected this, had heard stories about him from some of his close friends, but I couldn't help falling in love with him on that very hot summer afternoon. And he was totally oblivious.

Yesterday morning I was thinking about all of that, how it's a miracle and a blessing that even though I knew there was no hope and had given up on the idea of Jon Armstrong, had moved on with my life, had said to myself that I could settle for someone else, that here we are, six years later, knocking each other in the head every night with our twin skinny elbows and knees.

We've spent the last three days running around Golden Gate Park with two heavy professional cameras, one that we rented on a whim the first morning we got here, taking photos of some of the bands whose music has been the soundtrack to our lives together. Last night when it was all over and we were back at the hotel sipping cocktails on the roof overlooking the city we couldn't believe what we've lived through in six short years together: unemployment and moving into my mother's basement to owning our first house, a kitchen remodel, pregnancy, postpartum depression, physical and occupational therapy on our child, hoping and waiting to see if she would ever walk, two MRIs, starting our own business, getting sued by a publishing company, marriage counseling, skin cancer, traveling all over the country, to Canada, to Europe, adopting a dog who eats her own poop, and several deaths in the extended family. We made it through it all. And it wasn't easy, there were times when both of us didn't know if we were going to make it but loved each other enough that we were willing to try.

My friend Leona gave me some really profound advice last night as we were talking about how much better our thirties are compared to our twenties. She said, "No matter what horrible thing you're going through, when it's all over it only takes three seconds to sum it up. Remember that."

I lost my mind, got some help, and then I found it again.

We thought we were going to lose our house trying to pay legal fees. Thankfully, it didn't work out that way.

My dog likes to pee all over the house. I thought I might kill her, but I didn't.

Once I threw my keys at my husband's head because I thought he didn't understand. He didn't leave me.

My daughter wouldn't put any weight on her legs, and the doctors said she might not ever walk. They were wrong, and now she runs.

I am very much looking forward to the morning six years from now when he and I are taking a few moments before the chaos of the day consumes us, and we can look back and talk in three-second sentences.

Summing up my life in three three-second sentences:

I was bedridden for three months but now I can run. In heels.

I lived in a house filled with the stink of cat pee. It's been replaced by a faint doggie aroma.

I found someone who made me laugh. I learnt to let him go.

supersize me

My love for miniatures is well documented. But did you know I also have a thing over supersized objects (asides from McDonald's meals)? If only I had the space (and money!) to own this sculpture by Robert Therrien.



The above is not really related, but it's from a New Yorker piece that I always recall on long elevator rides. The story is about the longest smoke break, which lasted a harrowing 41 hours due to an elevator malfunction.

P.S. More riveting chatter between my twin and I here.

tony's wedding

The Merry Black Widow Party celebrates Tony Leung's recent Wedding of the Year.


C is visibly upset that Tony is finally off the market.


J wears a strangely sultry look.


W wears the dress (with cleavage) bought especially for Tony.


Zann seems only interested in dessert. Tony who?

doom dee ya dah

Another minute of a lazy Sunday. I love Discovery Channel.

avatar

A fun way to spend 15 minutes on a lazy Sunday. Face Your Manga and pick and choose your features to see what you think you look like.

miss popularity runner-up

The results are out. I'm the runner-up for the popularity contest.

I'd like to thank my father, my mother, my sister and all my adoring fans who voted for me. Thank you, thank you, I love you all so much.

[I showed my entry to my mom, who hadn't seen the photo before, and she said: "Like that also can win second prize ah?"]

chewren

I suddenly remembered this drunken conversation I had on a cab ride in Hong Kong with two other fashion writers, all single, who were giggling over photos of teenaged male models on an iPhone.

FASHION WRITER A: Theeeeees one sooooo cute!
FASHION WRITER B: Aiyoh, they are sooooo young. Young enough to be our chewren!
ME: (Giggle)
FASHION WRITER B (the most drunk one): Why this industry so many cao ah gua? Otherwise we would have chewren already...
EVERYONE: (Silence)

Then we arrived back at the hotel and staggered to bed, leaving behind all thoughts about the chewren we could have had.

inane chatter part 451

MY TWIN: it drives me absolutely crazy when my colleague prints out something and doesn't arrange the papers nicely so that all the edges align before she staples them together. like what, will it take you 1 second to just make sure all the edges align?!? isn't that a sign of a slopppy mind??!?1 or am i mad? Hahaha
ME: it drives me mad too!!!!!!!
MY TWIN: twins!!!!!!!
ME: or when people anyhow fold papers, not exactly in half! i feel an attack of hives coming on just thinking about it!
MY TWIN: yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!! muahahahahahahahhahahahahahahhahahahahaha please blog this! or i will, after i clear my backlog
ME: hahahahahahaha ok ok...you blog about the cockles and karma*, i blog this
MY TWIN: muahahahahahhh ok!!!! wah, now we are like airlines, you know, doing codesharing
ME: when i see people folding corners of their books to mark their pages, i die a little inside
MY TWIN: yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
ME: and if someone does it to MY BOOK...DEATH TO YOU! our friendship is OVER!
MY TWIN: or people who rip pages out from library books! especially recipe books! then i hope their cooking attempts failed
ME: i just had a thought last night, looking at my PRISTINE cook books...that maybe i should photocopy those pages i feel like cooking, so i won't dirty it
MY TWIN: that makes perfect sense!!!
ME: somemore, those blasted cookbooks can never stay opened on the page you want!
MY TWIN: ya!!!!!!!!
ME: but we're not that bad lah, i've heard of urban legends of people who have to iron their newspapers before reading
MY TWIN: muahahahahhhahahhhahahahahahahahhahahahahahah anal!!!!!!!!!!!!
ME: does your husband do that???
MY TWIN: thankfully no! in fact, he leaves the papers in a mess after he reads them, and that drives me crazy too! all the pages are misaligned, so the papers don't fold properly in the middle! i hate it! hahahahha
ME: oh i hate it too! my mom does that! my dad and sis are as neat as me!
MY TWIN: hahhahahahhahah

This is what my twin and I prattle on about when we're bored at work. I'm so glad she's back from Hawaii, because, really, who else can muahahahahahhahahahahahha as well as me?

* Cockles and karma were the highlight of inane chatter part 450.

fashion victim

This is too hilarious not to share (I've also posted it on the Swirl Girls blog).

Christy (one of my elves) was watching some Mandarin programme on TV some time ago, in which Chen Hanwei (actor-turned-host-cum-stylist) and his guests comment on the dressing on people secretly filmed on the streets. One of his guests was David Gan (also known as the celebrity hairstylist who gives Zhang Ziyi her comb-overs).

Anyway, Christy spotted someone who was wearing this exact outfit (with better pixelation of the face, since I do not have Photoshop) who was being rubbished on national TV by Chen and Gan.

I believe they exclaimed over how unflattering my haircut was and how round it made my face look. Unfortunately, they stopped short of giving any useful advice on what sort of hairstyle would suit my moon face. Drats.

addicted to pain

So. My neck and shoulder aches have been getting worse [probably from lying right on the edge of the bed trying not to elbow or kick the other two occupants], so I called the tui na centre.

ME: Hello, I'd like to make an appointment on Sunday with Mindy* please.
RECEPTIONIST: Oh, Mindy is away until the end of the month.
ME: Ah! Is there anyone else who is as good as Mindy?
RECEPTIONIST: Errr...no.
ME: Errr...ok, I'll call again when Mindy is back.

* Say her name with a cheena accent, like meeeen-deeee.

remembrance

I was tossing and turning fitfully last night, unable to sleep, because the bed was too small for three [long story, my sis and my dog are now sharing my bed], when I suddenly remembered an ex-colleague telling me something sort of related to the post below about the swastika.

I was about to go on a backpacking trip to Japan and all excited about it when he told me, coldly: "I would never go to Japan. I will never forgive the Japanese for World War II."

He was the same age as me, mind you, not some war veteran.