Mugged

So I live in one of the safest cities in the world. So safe that you can walk alone in the city in the middle of the night and there is a high probability that you will return home safe and sound without being bitten by a dog, robbed by a thug, shot by a sociopath or sold to a terrorist training camp. Living in such a place naturally makes you less aware of your surroundings. So, you go out one fine morning for a leisurely stroll in the park and get mugged … by a monkey. Not only does it remind you that low crime doesn’t mean no crime but it also hurts your rather fragile male ego.

I kept mum about this incident for a while but I finally thought I let you (my dear readers) know. So it started off as a lazy Saturday afternoon with nothing much to do than surf (on the internet). A friend of mine and I decided to do some activity and we figured that the MacRitchie reservoir was the closest to go. Now anybody who has ever been to a state park anywhere in the world knows that it is not good to feed wild animals the junk food that we have grown up on (not only is it unhealthy but also it is really bad for their survival instincts). Singapore makes it doubly sure that you do not feed animals by making it an offense with a hefty fine attached to it.

We wore our trekking shoes, geared ourselves up and decided on the 11 km route that we planned to take. Now, being in the rainforest, its always good to keep ourselves hydrated. So I bought a bottle of an isotonic drink to keep me company. Barely 10 steps into our walk we saw a monkey on our path. Now, monkeys never deter me. If I see a lion, may be I would twitch a bit (girls please take note ;) !!). So we continued our walk oblivious of its existence, till it jumped right in front of me and snarled. My dear friend had the presence of mind to run away (yeah he sprints really fast!) and in no time he was a distant spec on the horizon.

Looking at the monkey’s size and my apparent beastly appearance, I decided to be a man and fight back. So I naturally snarled back and growled (effect of seeing “The incredible Hulk” I bet). Not only did that annoy the monkey but it also made it take a rather aggressive stand (which looked like he was about to jump on me and bite my face off). I looked around for a second, salvaged all my pride and started to run. It was the first day I realized that given enough face-threatening snarls from a monkey, I can run like a chicken about to be captured. It also made me realize that I run so slow that any monkey can yawn and still catch up with me in no time. While I was running (with a rather old monkey walking leisurely behind me), I realized that the only thing on me that the monkey would be vaguely interested in, was my bottle of drink. So I yelled to my friend (who by now was standing at a distance and watching all the fun) to catch the bottle as I tried to throw it at him. However my clumsy throw was expertly intercepted by the monkey (a-la Neo from Matrix in bullet-time) and he victoriously walked to the side of the trail with his just-robbed bottle of drink.

Moral of the story? You don’t look as fierce as you think you do. You are not to feed wild animals, but they don’t really know that you are not supposed to. And finally read every signboard that you see in a State park. On my way back, I read this signboard.

 

Aim to fly!

Whoever has been to the Men’s restroom in Changi Airport must have noticed the fly printed at the bottom of the urinal. Its an interesting artifact to miss considering that while you are peeing there is not much you can see or think about. Anyways, just in case you indeed missed, I tried to take sneaky pictures of the fly after I had done my duty.

 

Now I have been googling about the “fly in the loo in Changi Airport” for a long time but never really chanced upon any article suggesting its existence. Till very recently I figured that the fly is meant for men to aim at. A very comprehensive research of men’s peeing habits revealed that men are not particular good at peeing into a bowl. Without focus we tend to pee all over the place.

If you have been to the Changi airport toilets you must have realized that they are cleaner than your own toilet at home. This level of cleanliness can only be achieved if men are trained to aim straight into the bowl. But if they put up a board saying “Please pee carefully” we would dismiss it to be just another example of Singapore’s kiasu tendency. So by printing the fly at the bottom of the urinal, the airport is indeed trying to keep you busy by making you subconsciously aim at the fly. So you end up watering the fly and in the process, you actually aim for it. Wow. What a brilliant idea. Research shows that the fly helps reduce human spillage by 85%. Its time we start drawing flies in urinals all around the world :) !!

Figaro

Have been exposed to a fair bit of Western Classical Music including Opera lately. It’s funny that when you listen to a certain type of music for a long time you automatically start liking it. One of the oldest operas that I have ever heard was the “Largo al factotum” by Rossini. If you grew up in the 1980s with a fair dose of cartoons like Bugs Bunny and Tom & Jerry, you can rest assured that you have heard this piece before (I thought it was titled “Figaro” for a long time!). I always liked it for its comic element and pleasant sound. Only recently did I realize that it is amongst the toughest arias to perform.

I like the rendition in which a man made out of clay performs it at the beginning of the movie “Oscar”. I am sharing the video with you all to see, listen and enjoy.

Figaro - Oscar

If you really wanna see how tough it is to actually perform you should watch this video of Thomas Hampson performing it:

Thomas Hampson - Largo Al Factotum

And here is a quick guide for non-Italians (and non-art savvy people like me) to enjoy operas. Go read the lyrics in English (Google, Wikipedia and Youtube to the rescue!) before you go and listen to it. Then, even though you wont know what the person is singing, you can always understand the emotion behind it.

Korean

So I have been very busy last 2 weeks and couldn’t really put much on my blog. Today I got some time so thought I do a quick update about the things happening in my life lately. Yeah I have been introduced to a lot of Korean stuff whole of last week so this blog post is all “Korean”.

To start with, I ended up working with a lot of Koreans all of a sudden. Then at home, my apartment mate seems to have developed a strong affinity for Korean dramas. Everyday in the night there is one Korean sitcom or another playing in our house. And then of course, there is Korean food everywhere. Lots of Kimchi flowing through my intestines these days. So I thought I introduce to my dear readers, the last thing Korean I know – Korean music. So here are 3 songs (yeah that's all I know!) from Korea that I like.

Sorry Sorry - Super Junior

I don’t know much about the band. I like their dance steps and of course the sound is catchy and cool.

Nobody - Wonder Girls

If you are from Korea and if you do not know Wonder Girls its a cognizable offense. Everybody knows Nobody by Wonder Girls, and now you know it too.

The song is so popular that there was a parody made to educate people to wash their hands during the H1N1 outbreak in Singapore.

Wash your hands too - Mr Brown

Gee - Girls' Generation

Yeah this song’s got something to do with my nick name. But its too complicated to explain out here. So just go and enjoy the song (and the video :) !!).

So that’s all that I had to say about Korea today. I hope I change my cuisine preference from tomorrow (the Korean people I was working with have already left for their country!).

The Lamborghini Mystery

Disclaimer: I am bad with numbers, charts and interpreting them :) !!

My blanket statement about new Lamborghinis every week has got me thinking. The showroom I pass by everyday has approximately 5-6 cars. Assuming that 2 new cars come in to replace 2 sold every week, it makes 2*52 = 104 Lamborghinis sold every year. That's a huge number for a little red dot.

So off I went to do my research on a lazy Sunday evening. The LTA publishes the car population by model for each year. Here is a quick snapshot of the number of Lamborghinis on the island each year, in the last 10 years. As of 2009 there were 201 Lamborghinis and 294 Ferraris. To put it in perspective, I have compared it to the Ferraris. Since, apparently Lamborghini entered the car manufacturing business to build a better car than the Ferrari.

Some interesting things that I discovered in the numbers. Singaporeans are indeed going crazy about the Lamborghinis (its just not me ;) !!). If I am the Ferrari marketing guy, this is something I need to worry about. The numbers also show a dip in the number of Ferraris on the island in 2003. That’s a bit weird. It means either people sold off their Ferraris to the people in adjacent countries or those cars were indeed scrapped! Wow that's lot of money in the scrap yard in one year.

Anyway, coming back to my so called “research”. There are only 201 Lamborghinis on the island. The maximum cars sold in a year till now is only 46 (in 2008). So 104 is indeed an impossible number. However, 1 car a week puts it to 52, which is not that far a number from 46. So I might as well be seeing a new car in the showroom every week and because of the lack of caffeine in my blood assuming that there are many new cars! Have I just discovered a highest ever sales trend of Lamborghinis out here? Hmm, only time and LTA can tell :) !! Anyway, now I am off to bed. I will put myself to sleep by counting Lamborghinis (lame joke!).

The Double Decker anomaly

So I take a double-decker bus to office everyday. Well, not that it is my only option, but somehow I find the inconvenience of leaving perfectly good single-deck buses and getting up early to get this one bus; small enough to fulfill my fascination for them.

And anyone who has ever been in a double-decker bus knows that the best seat is the one above the driver. Anywhere else and you are not really doing justice to the bus. You might as well get off and take an ordinary bus if those seats are not empty.

And then on my way to office, I pass this Lamborghini showroom that makes me go weak in my knees every time I see those gorgeous cars staring at me (remember I am seeing them from the top deck of a bus, so better view :) !! The showroom somehow manages to replenish its stock of Lamborghinis once a week. Considering that Singapore is a small country and there are only approximately 576988 cars on the road as of 2009, that's a miracle that I have not figured out yet.

However, there is this slight technical problem. The showroom is on the left of the road. So if I have to feel like a king and at the same time ogle at the cars, then the only option I got is to sit on the front left seat. Now all this while, life was good. I had my left seat to myself, I would get up early, get dressed and go wait for this prized bus of mine.

But lately there is this 6-7 year old school going kid who is causing me problems in my quest to world domination. Not only does he want to sit in the front of the bus (ok fine!) but he also wants my seat. Yeah, you got it right. MY Left seat. Its like someone trying to steal my throne.

First couple of times, I let him do that cause I felt he is a kid and he can have the pleasure. But then I figured, enough is enough. He has a longer life to live and might end up driving a Lamborghini sometime in his life (for that matter, I don’t even know why he likes the left seat – he could very well take the dumb right seat in the front of the upper deck and be happy about it!). So I started competing with him to get into the bus first and go grab the seat for a while. Unlike me, however he is small and agile and beat me to it almost everyday. (Ok I am not that slow, but yeah, I carry an office laptop and can’t really run around in the bus like he does!). But what I lacked in agility, I feigned as an act of kindness towards him. So I let him take the seat for a few more days.

But then, how many days can someone not ogle at the Lamborghinis as you pass by the showroom? That's just injustice to the cars. So now, being the nice guy I am ;), I get up half an hour early to catch the earlier double-decker, so that I can sit on the right seat, see the cars for a fraction of a second in my entire journey and then reach office half an hour before time and impress my boss as the "hard worker”. Sometimes life is just too good :) !!

Little Durian Star

Durian is amongst the first fruits you notice once you come to Singapore. Pardon me for my limited knowledge, but to me, it looks like a Jackfruit but smells like ….. Yeah you guessed right. Durians are sooo pungent that you cannot miss the presence of a Durian within 50 feet of wherever you are (and I ain’t kidding about it). The fruit smells so bad that it is officially banned on the local public transport. Anyway, God has also blessed me with a limited sense of smell and taste, and I kinda like to eat Durians (cause they remind me of Jackfruits but taste better if you ignore the smell).

There is a Durian vendor close to where I live and each time that I pass by, I am tempted to buy some. If an Apple a day keeps the doctor away, then a Durian a day keeps everybody away. If you wanna be anti-social the easiest thing to do is have a Durian early in the morning and then burp away to glory the entire day. No one would wanna talk to you anymore.

Anyway, if you have not been living under a rock, you are probably already aware of the World Expo 2010 happening in Shanghai this year. Singapore has chosen a cute little 5 year old boy named “Little Durian Star” as a mascot (I searched for the Indian mascot as well, but I couldn’t find any. Here is the Indian pavilion though). I like the way he has been given an entire personality with Hobbies, Values etc etc.

“Little Durian Star is nuts about durians, but they're not readily available in the places his family travels to. To help her poor son who's always thinking about the pokey fruit all day long, Little Durian Star's mum made him a delightful little costume. And now Little Durian Star looks like a little Durian. Wherever he goes, this little king of fruits makes other children green with envy!”

And his favorite food? – Durians, Laksa, Hainanese Chicken rice, Black Pepper Chilli Crab and Roti Prata :) !! (Which reminds me, I gotta write a “Girish’s guide to food” soon :) !!) Its funny though, they have not listed his favorite brand of perfumes. Some company can make a killing out of advertising their brand as “Even a Durian can smell good”.

The Finger Print Scanner

Yeah, sorry for the techie title but this thing has been bothering me for far too long to not write in my blog :) !!

The place where I work is like a hi-tech organization with all the latest gadgets for geeky minds to play with. So to be in with the times of "biometrics" all our office doors are secured shut by Finger print scanners. For the uninitiated they look like devices that got holes in them to put your finger in, to be identified as an employee.

Now, I personally don't like inserting my finger into holes where others have put their fingers in (pardon me if my imagination is running wild here but it is for obvious hygiene reasons!). I am quite ok with putting my finger in to mark my daily attendance, to get into the server room etc. But the one place where I really dread is the scanner right outside the restroom.

To start with, I haven't yet figured out the need to have a scanner to enter a bathroom. I can't think of having anything secure inside the bathroom that only people with a "legitimate reason" to be there have to enter! (Yeah before I wrote this post, I did a reconnaissance operation inside the men's room to see if I was missing something (I have not completely neglected the possibility of having a highly secure code on the toilet paper).

Statistically 23% of people do not wash their hands after relieving themselves. So statistically there are people in my organization who fit that description. And then statistically, I end up putting my finger in the same scanner after they have put in theirs (Its the same reason why you are not supposed to eat free peanuts kept in a bowl in a bar!).

Anyway, I decided I had to do something about it. So I complained to the HR and Admin department about the obvious lack of hygiene in the fingerprint scanner outside the bathroom. Luckily, they agreed, and viola, we got a hand sanitizer installed next to the scanner.

Now here comes the fun part. Hand sanitizers dispense a gooey liquid that takes time to evaporate. And scanners can only scan "dry fingers". And since most of us don't have the patience for the sanitizer to evaporate before we scan our fingers, we now have rendered a scanner useless by inserting our gooey fingers in it. The device now makes us insert our finger a couple of dozen times before it finally recognizes "Oh its you!". The sad part is, its the only place in the entire office where you are in a "rush" to get in. So much for technology!

The Big Bang Theory

So I have practically disappeared from the face of the planet for the last few days. The only place I am forced to go is office. I patiently wait for my office clock to tick 6:00 pm to run home. Reminds me of my good old days in school, when the last lecture was practically spent staring at the second hand of the school clock waiting for the magical school bell to ring.

Anyway, the reason you ask? Well well, I have been completely hooked onto the comedy sitcom "The Big Bang Theory". Its semi-geeky, very funny and I haven't been able to stop myself from watching it. I finished watching the first season in 4 evenings and I have this sleepy red-eyed look that makes everyone feel that I have been working really hard ;) !!

That also means that I haven't had the time to update my blog, eat (I have had cornflakes two times a day), wash clothes and do rest of my daily chores :) (that explains my obvious anti-social behavior)!! Haha, anyway, I am done with the first season now and before I start with a marathon second season, I thought I take a break come back to the mundane world (called reality!) and let you all know about it. If you have not yet seen the sitcom, I would highly recommend that you start watching it, and if you already have been seeing it, then I am very angry that you didn't tell me about it before ;) !!

The Problem with Teleportation

Accents

So a little known game is causing a lot of furor amongst the Bloggers that I follow in Singapore. The reason being the leader of the rebel group in the game Just Cause 2, Bolo Santosi has a Singaporean accent.

Bolo Santosi

Yeah, some Singaporeans do have an accent. Personally I don’t think Bolo’s accent is that pronounced. For that matter, I had not heard the “real Singaporean accent” till I shifted to the new place where I live now. My neighborhood is as authentic Singaporean as I can dream of. Scavenging for dinner is an interesting exercise for me these days cause most people have no clue what I am ordering for (yeah my terrible Indian accent), and I don’t bother to think about what gets served in my plate later. As long as things don't start creeping out of my bowl, I guess I will be fine.

Singlish Chat

Most places I have visited always have had Indians around me. So I never felt like an alien before. But these days, I am actually like the only Indian guy out there. I get those “hey look at the alien playing with chopsticks” glances!

And since I started with accents, I thought I end with this funny video of Russell Peters about the Indian accent.

Indian Accent