Update (03 Mar 2007):jeremyterabyte has taken the videos down upon request from the police. He blogs about it in a new post.
Wait a second… fall to their deaths? It didn’t sit quite well with me, but the image of people accidentally dropping onto the tracks when an incoming train enters the station kept popping up. I seriously doubt that people would do that much as to stand so close to the edge of the platform. Idiots proved me wrong.
I see people jostling for the prime space right in front of where the train doors would open even before the train has arrived. If that doesn’t make sense for you, imagine a train already at the station, with its doors open, and alighting passengers cannot exit out of the door because of the human obstacle on the platform actively pushing inwards.
Now, picture the same scenario, without a train. We get an accident waiting to go off like a cocked weapon.
It is stupidity at one of its numerous peaks. In Singapore, our train squeeze is not as bad as in Japan:
As you can see, though there isn’t any sitting room available, there is relatively enough space to be relatively comfortable. Now then, why do people still bully their way into the train?
Selfishness, I guess. I have no idea how many close shaves had happened at the above-ground stations simply because of stupidity alone: but what I know is that people will persist in trying to give themselves an advantage whenever they need to board a train. Whether we should institute any actions to save them from clinching any Darwin award depends on our administrative stance: Do we want to continue being a paternalistic prick, and put everything into the law, should we be maternalistic and build barriers, or should we leave Evolution to do its work?
Now, we add suicidal people into the picture, and the debate takes on a new dimension. Our country criminalises suicide, and by no means impose penalties for deciding to end one’s own life. There are desperate people with their backs to the wall - they feel that they have absolutely nothing to loss by dying, and choose to hurl themselves to the trains. Erecting barriers would only serve to deter these people from dying under the carriage, and instead, they come up with different tactics to complete the act.
I may be skeptical here, but were those people whom were for the building of screen doors thinking about the lives of the desperate, or were they thinking along pragmatic lines of pushing the problem to other places? The after-math of suicides are disruptive to the lives of those present, as well as cost the economy in terms of lost work hours. Keeping these people away from the MRT only serves to postpone the problem to another place, and do not truly solve the problem of suicide.
Barriers are costly, and do not prevent suicides at all. What’s more, they embolden the stupid to crowd even nearer to the doors, since it is even safer than usual, just like it is at the underground stations (where there are platform screen doors). What we need is a system of fines and a curriculum on common sense for Singaporeans to understand anything at all. It is just as my secondary school disciplinary master would say, “First class facilities, third world mentality. People have such thick skulls that their grey matter don’t start working.”
My bedroom is the pig sty, as usual. The lair remains as messy as the rest of the year, and Chinese New Year does nothing to get me to at least tidy up the mess. Of course, the obvious dirt and dust needs to be cleaned off, but everything stays where they are.
Mother has given up on getting me to do something that remotely sounds like tidying, and instead got me to wash the fans instead.
We have 4 fans throughout the house, among 2 of them are in my room. The greyish goo clung tenaciously to the frame and fan blades when I tried to scrub the entire mess out. One year of dirt, and anyone who gets to see it would wonder if I really did do my National Service. Obfuscation at its best!
The washing machine decided to give up the ghost after just 3 short years of service, right when the change of clothes, beddings around the house generated the biggest laundry pile I had ever seen in one go. Mother got the striking machine replaced without hesitation. That’s what you get when you refuse to do work in the crunch! Mother should really be a HR executive or something.
Its replacement stood proudly in the kitchen, beaming happily at the touch of the button, but it wet the floor the first time we tried to get the dirty water to drain. Not only did it remind me of a new-born, it also shivered harder than any celebrity could shake their babies.
I tried to read the manual that came with the washer, and I had a barely uncontrollable urge to grab a red pen. You would soon understand that Japanese products come with really weird English documentation. The last resort would be to just dump the laundry in, cover the top, press whichever button that makes the most logical sense, and hope for the best. Thank goodness the machine was not some ticking nuclear bomb that we had to disarm: it would be extremely disturbing to have to take potshots in the hope of postponing Doomsday.
At least it worked, and I really like the countdown LED on the digital panel. That gave me something to stare at if I was not mersmirised by the mini-maelstorm stirring in the tub.
After all these, I realised that I had not yet bought any clothes for the new year, and I rushed to Toa Payoh for my last minute shopping.
The shops were thankfully open, but the selection was boringly plain. There was a huge range of plain tee-shirts without any pictures, though I was turned off by their uniformity. It was disturbing to see all the shops stocking designless shirts.
The New Year was saved by a signboardless shop. I caught sight of a few tee-shirts - though a little plain, they were way less boring compared to the blank slates. I like their price tags too! You would, if you managed to get your hands on a $5 tee-shirt; as compared to settling for $23 plain, single-coloured, designless uniforms from a branded boutique.
Humans get all riled up and vengeful if they get pissed off, but till now I have not realised the extremities that some would go to just to get back at the offending party.
In taking support calls, I have had customers whom are internally bitter about the governmental organisation that my company represents. You see, the organisation is one that many Singaporeans had to be part of, whether they like it or not, and the buldging behemoth itself is prone to making interesting (and sometimes scary) blunders.
These cause panicked questions from the recipients of some very strongly worded letters, along the lines of “offence” and “charge”. In itself, that is nothing worth writing about, if not for the fact that innocent victims are also sent these letters. I wondered whether this was due to a system error (since these things are automatically generated), or a result of human error when the records are not updated as and when they occured.
The meek ones would plead for leniency, and I cannot help but sympathise with their situation. It involves taking non-paid time off from work just to go down on-location to explain the matters, irregardless that evidence present currently is sufficient enough to exonerate everything - that is where the more vindictive ones show their assertiveness.
[quote]
“There is no way in (insert vulgarity) hell I am going to take leave just to do that!”
“You will be hearing from my lawyer for this!”
“This will not be the end of it, I tell you. I’ll let my MP (Member of Parliament) know about this!”
“I’ll migrate, and we’ll see how you (insert synonym for the relief hole) can touch me!”
“I’ll send you a bill for my time wasted on this matter!”
[/quote]
Notwithstanding myself being the target of abuse, I cannot help but wonder just how angry people would do absolutely anything to get back at the offender. Is revenge everything we can think of whenever we get dissed by something beyond our control?
Their pain is understandable, since this organisation is really powerful: it can serve legal threats and follow-through on them. Receiving a legal letter from it further fuels the internal hatred for that organisation, and probably enrages those who previously had a neutral opinion of the entire affair. I can’t blame them for being extraordinarily angry at the potential wastage of time.
Thankfully, the main management of that organisation recognises its own failings, and have allowed my company to push through support tickets for the victims. While that won’t serve to alleviate their hatred, at least it doesn’t waste any more of the victim’s time, and keeps things running, even if it is at the cost of further goodwill.
What we could possibly do is to remember that there are human faces behind the anonymous giant, and errors can be made. If all it takes is a simple phone call to have the matter resolved (provided this is not being done last minute), why spend the time stewing in frustration?
[MEDIA=4]Here’s what you get for taking it up the hard way
I don’t really like to slather chemicals onto my already messy hair, but the disorganisation drove me mad enough to get down and have it put into its rightful place once and for all.
The front fringes like to curl, and they spare no time in doing so after I get my hair cut. Some clumps looked like the curly fries you can get from McDonalds, while others just coil up like a centipede.
I met a friend at the local train station early in the morning to have breakfast before we went down to a household salon in Yishun to have those furs ironed.
There were many hawker stalls already open for business at 9am in the morning, but we ended up having vegetarian noodles, since both of us were not in the mood for the heavy-hitters. The alluring smell of fried carrot cake tempted me from the pious indulgence, which was something that took a little more willpower, and a grab at the flab to overcome. Fats are one of the worst enemies of diet, since they take time to burn, and are sinfully easy to pile on.
We hopped onto the bus down to Yishun, where we met another friend. The 3 of us were going to getting our hair straightened at the same time, so it was a taxi ride down to the rural reaches of the country.
The salon is set up at the living room of a flat. It was literally possible to follow the scent of chemicals to the house after walking out of the lift. Inside were many ladies, all in various stages of rebonding.
First, they apply some conditioner, which I presume is to prepare the hair for the straightening. After soaking the hair in the chemical for about half-an-hour, it is washed off, and the hair is then blown dry. Next, a clapper-type hair iron is used to force the strands into attention. Mine flew like a spaceship in the air after being heated. It looked very, very cool without any curls, and I flailed the hair a little to see them hover in the air.
Immediately after that, a setter is applied to the hair, and I had to wait for another half-an-hour for the hair to stew. Then it was off to the wash-basin to wash everything off.
They were too busy to blow my hair dry, so I was left to have the entire patch dry in the room. Already, the effects were visible: largely uniform hair strands, except for the few that couldn’t be reached by the iron because my hair was still quite short. It is nice for once to have hair that doesn’t curl up in front.
The two ladies with me had to take a longer time to have their hair rebonded, since their hair were way longer and denser. While we waited, I amused myself by looking around the household. There is a guest room that got converted into a steam-room, with two hair steamers standing at the side of the room. One lady sat with her head half-hidden by the dome, and steam was gushing out of the steamers. Her head looks like a bun from where I was, and the three of us giggled at the sight.
The lady boss’s children were having tuition in one of the other two rooms, which I presumed was their own rooms, since they had cartoonish bed-frames, and a computer at one side. Other stuff were kept in weird niches in the house: a sewing machine in the kitchen, along with the wash-basin to wash off all those chemicals. The living room contained a television set and a display of hair-care products right next to it.
My hair treatment eventually cost $50, which was a whole lot cheaper than I had expected to pay, from what I see in salons around town. It really pays to go down the beaten path, instead of driving down the nicely paved roads: the entire affair could have cost double if I were to do it in the city.
A very interesting event happened after we left the salon. When we reached the main road to hail a taxi, a surprisingly 100% of the empty ones that passed by failed to stop for us. We waited for a good half-an-hour without being picked up, and had to take a feeder bus instead. Incidentally, on our way to the bus stop, a taxi driver came by and stopped for a lady further down the road. I asked my friend to pinch me, just in case we were dreaming, transparent, dead, or any combination of the above.
As the feeder bus wound around the estate, we found a hidden niche where all the taxi drivers have stopped at, with no passenger in sight. Were those predators just betting on getting frustrated commuters to dial for the cab instead? My respect for taxi drivers whom stoop so low to earn an extra $3.20 booking fee has dropped way past the negative.
It is because of things like these, that I am grateful for karma.
What a day! First, I had self-delusional customers whom believe that they can get what they want if they assert their willpower over me (though they forget that even if they get past me, they still have the bulk of the law to face), then I had great fun in the office getting shot at, hypnotised, and poked by my colleagues (you would think it was Hollywood inside there today!), and then I realised that I got tagged by Veron while I was showing off my blog!
If daily life was made of bananas, today was a tropical blend of apples, bananas, pineapples, watermelons, durians, and everything nice!
5 things you didn’t know about me
I have an irrational fear for cockroaches: While I got over most of my other childhood fears like being alone in the dark, getting lost, or taking lifts; I never really conquered my fear for those brown-shelled monsters. Whenever I go near one of those things, it would start to scurry towards me. It really creeped me out, especially since one crawled into my pants while I was sleeping back when I was still living at my old house.
I curl up when I sleep at night: Call me the New Age Sensitive guy, whenever I sleep, it is always with a bolster, tucked nicely into my legs while I hugged it. One of my close friends once told me that the foetal position was an expression of insecurity, so I guess this speaks volumes about my inner tendency. I feel really nice and comfortable sleeping that way, so no psychological test is going to stop me from doing that!
I hate telephone calls: Somehow, this has stuck to me since my primary school days, when I got all fired up whenever my friends call me. Initially, my young little mind got the impression that they were out to disturb me, so I started ignoring phone calls, unless I really felt like answering them. It got worse when I got a mobile phone with caller identification. Since that made call screening easier, I was more selective about the calls that I pick up. That my phone plan has free incoming calls didn’t help me kick this bad habit. It has gotten better these few years, though when I feel under the weather, the phone stays off.
I love to drink milk: I read somewhere that a good portion of the world population is lactose-intolerant. That’s most definitely not me. Since I was young, I have been addicted to milk. So if you have been wondering why I am that big-sized, it was all the milk-guzzling. I had my worst milk binge back during my days in National Service. At that time, for the two days per week that I book out from camp, I would polish off 2 litres of milk during my precious hours at home. While I don’t siphon milk like I used to any more, I still relish the few times I allow myself to indulge.
I cry: No sane guy would publicly admit that he does weep, since there is always the stigma that cry-boys are weak. I am not sane; and I cry. It is a very good emotional vent, and I don’t harm anybody else. I scare away my friends even more when I roar, so I choose to shed tears instead. Sometimes all these happen during my dreams, and I wake up with absolutely no recollection as to why I cried. After each bout, I would feel calm and relaxed, like a huge load lifted.
Tagging time!
Now that you have taken an intrusive peek into my personality, I want to take a look into YOURS! If your name is on the list, now you are IT!
It is interesting to be able to take a psychology test and be suggested what kind of a lover you are. I have no girlfriend to test this out with, so if any of you might like to apply (especially after you see that the theoretical results are preliminarily socially acceptable), please do not hesitate to email me
Steady, reliable, and cradling her tenderly. Take a deep breath, and let it out real easy…you are The Slow Dancer.
Your focus is love, not sex, and for your age, you have average experience. But you’re a great, thoughtful guy, and your love life improves every year. There’s also a powerful elimination process working in your favor: most Playboy types get stuck raising unwanted kids before you even begin settling down. The women left over will be hot and yours. Your ideal woman is someone intimate, intelligent, and very supportive.
While you’re not exactly the life of the party, you do thrive in small groups of smart people. Your circle of friends is extra tight and it’s HIGHLY likely they’re just like you. You appreciate symmetry in relationships.
Your exact opposite: The Hornivore
(Random Brutal Sex Master)
My conscience hit where it hurt the most: right in front of my thoughts. I was typing about being nervous to be the over-aged applicant in a local polytechnic, but I couldn’t sensibly write with it hanging in my mind. Kind of like a jab in the ribs, but inside my head.
After recoiling, it took me a few minutes to hunt for my digital camera. The Casio QV-R61 decided to hide itself when I needed it the most. Pretty sneaky, though a quick call to my Mom (whom was irritated that I had to bother her, since it was, after all my stuff, and my own fault that I am living like a pig without hygiene problems).
It wasn’t among the mountain on the computer desk, nor the one where I kept all my sleeping-reading materials. I found it in a drawer instead. There must have been 6 months since I last used it, which would have enabled the Leak of Death to consume the nodes in its green oxidation glory (also known in short for being spoilt). Luckily, there was no sign of that, which made me very happy.
Here are some snapshots of my Malaysian trip back in June 2006. It was that long ago!
I took this photograph at the Yong Peng rest stop in Malaysia. The drivers need to eat mid-way through the 6-hour jouney, and we stopped just north of Batu Pahat (which is currently flooded because of the monsoon). Just barely 6 months ago it was scorching!
The elaborately painted bus that you see here was the one I took for the trip. The 24-seater features an individual entertainment system at each seat, like most modern commercial airliners. Of course, everything is held in place by “air-suspension”. I have no idea how they manage to do that, but it is a really comfortable ride.
The seat was cushy and broad, probably large enough to house an average non-asian. My Mom is always big on saving money, which makes this bus trip a very unusual luxury. I had bought the tickets to Kedah initially (economy), since we wanted to visit my maternal grandmother for her birthday; but later they decided to do it all in K.L., and we had to rush down to the agent to have the tickets changed.
They didn’t want to change the ticket to economy for Kuala Lumpur, since they do not refund the difference in price for the nearer destination. In the end, we settled for the VVIP bus to K.L., with a minor price difference from the original ticket, but with all the frills.
A view of the on-board entertainment system from my seat. The sunlight was very bright that morning, you can see my reflection in the blank monitor screen. You can watch pre-loaded movies, listen to the very recent music collection, or play games with it, much like the one you see mounted in the aeroplanes these days. The only thing they don’t do is display the current location of the bus. That would have been very cool!
That’s all for this batch of photographs. There’s more to come in a bunch, but that will have to be in another post.
