Pickerton Syndrome

Adapted from From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia - "The Pinkerton Syndrome is a derogatory Singaporean term describing the tendency of some local Asians who tend to consider Caucasians superior, usually having a bias towards favouring Caucasians over locals."

How true... an official term for that explains the legendary hokkien phrase 'Ang-Moh-Dua-Kee"... and Singaporeans own it! Its specifically labelled as a 'Singaporean term'.

Now you know why:-
- Your ang moh boss is doing so little at work, knows NOTHING, but getting EVERYTHING paid for, not to mention his/her huge pay cheque.
- ang moh gets always gets to be part of the management.
- ang moh wearing singlet and berms can get better service than u in shirt and pants when shopping in boutique or restaurants
- when ang moh speaks, they always gets to finish their sentences and always gets to interrupt anyone they likes.
- (some) locals will instantaneously switch to an 'out-to-impress-accent' when speaking to ang moh,
- no matter how fat/ugly/disgusting/short/hairless/smelly/etc. an ang moh guy is, some SPGs will still want to be with him.

Why?... it's just how we're brought up to be in this little island.

Life is already tough just trying to please your own country men...

Support your local heroes!

New Year, New Year...

I've been too lazy to fill in my blog since the new year started. Well, part of it is pure laziness and part of it was also due to work. I know haven't reflected back on the past year, but the fact is, I hated the year 2007. All I want to say is - I'm glad 2007 is over.

2008 has so far been good to me.. and I'm looking forward to a even better start after this long CNY break... which I'll be back to work tomorrow. Ha... we shifted our seats in office on CNY eve...which according to reliable 'fengshui' sources... I'm supposedly facing the god of happiness while Naa faces the god of fortune. Let see how things goes from here!

29 Dec

It's Jackson's Birthday.

Only difference is that he's not physically here to celebrate with us this year...and the years to come. It has been 8 months now since he left us for the pearly gates, but we've definitely not forgotten about his big day.

The day started early, with us gathering at Balestier for Bak Kut Teh. Quite a handful turned up, or should I say the usual bunch - Josh, Jason, Edmund, Raymond, Lim CK, Jenn, and of course, Joyce and myself. After breakfast, we visited him at his 'penthouse unit' at St. Michael's Church, where Chris Lim was already waiting when we reached.

Deep inside, I can really feel that everyone misses him a lot.. though we were mostly still joking and laughing away on the outside. I was joking about how Ah Buee dislikes pork, and our pungent smell from our pre-visit breakfast will capture his notice on our arrival... Well, one thing for sure, we all know he'll want us to stay as what we were before - fun and some what notorious...

The visit was brief... we went on separate ways after that while a few of us went to get the stuff for steamboat at my place in the evening. This steamboat thingy is our tradition that happens annually around X'mas period, usually at Josh's place. It started because the bunch of us just simply refuse to give in to expensive and commercialized X'mas meals...haha.

The crowd was just nice for the steamboat session... It was nice to have Bernardine (Ah Buee's girlfriend) to join us... I'm thinking.. maybe it's ah buee's will, cos Chris coincidentally bump into her when he visited him at the church in late afternoon, and invited her over. But we weren't so lucky in the 4D we bought that day(ah buee's 'unit no.'), obivously he didn't supported the idea.

Josh bought a cake to celebrate his birthday, with the word 'Happy 32 Jack'...We all cut the cake together, since he's not here. Ah Buee always buys us cakes for our birthdays before... its only right for us to get it for him now. Just hope that he didn't mind its not from Prego.

Happy Birthday, my friend!

X'mas... on actual day

It was a few years back that we started the tradition of having steamboat for X'mas celebration, usually @ Joshua's place. We made an exception this year by having the typical X'mas food - Turkey, honey baked ham and log-cake. We also had hotdogs, bacon wrapped with 'golden needle' mushroom and Josh and Lydia's salad to complete the X'mas dinner. In fact, it was so sumptuous that we had way too much leftovers... Think its enough to save a state of people in the starving nations of Africa.

Josh brought his 3-in-1 game tables and turned the place into a make-shift community centre. It was great fun though... all of us playing undersized table-tennis and pool, and entertaining Kai at the same time. I can almost picture us like some retired elderly hanging out at an elderly corner under the HBD void deck.

I finally got a Christmas tree this year. Not exactly a good time to spend that money, but we got it anyway. I always wanted to have my owned X'mas tree, and I finally got it now at age 32. ..and I'm sure Joyce wanted it too.

Jason went to Chang Mai, so couldn't make it this year. But we had Raymond, who joined us briefly, and George, as the newest member around. Jennifer had actively joined us since she resumed her single-hood and really seem to enjoy herself. Chris came really late and he was dead tired after he ate and slept on the couch for the rest of the time. It was nice to have Leonard pop by, it was always so difficult to get him for X'mas for the past 20 years I knew him. ... and of course, we all missed the presence of Jackson. We knew he will never miss this session if he's still around.

X'mas Lunch - 20th Dec

Joyce's gang of buddies came over our place for an early x'mas celebration on the 20th of Dec, which happened to be a Hari Raya holiday. It was nice though the general activities and food weren't very in tuned to the Christmas mood.. bit like Chinese New Year considering we had it in the afternoon and had food like curry chicken, popiah, bee hoon... and to top it all up, they played mahjong. But I must admit the feast is quite satisfying, both in terms of variety and quality. The atmosphere really kicked in when the group decided to have the gift exchange, of cos, with the help of my trusty X'mas compilation music in the background which I manage to salvage from my stack of CD collection. Thanks to Joyce for arranging with Catherine to help me shop for a present for the session, though I think Joyce was rather disappointed that I didn't get it myself, but I was just too held up at work before to go shop for something. Well, I'm glad it went well, after all, its the only gift-exchange for this year. Oh, I got an extra large yellow calculator! Really cool...

I noticed its a really a nice thing to have the company of kids around for X'mas, certainly brightens up the mood. Maybe because I'm getting older and enjoy seeing the young happy faces, or maybe its the aftermath of my deprived experience in X'mas celebration when I was their age.

Joyce made Tiramisu for the 1st time. The overall feedback was good from everyone, and I thought it was pretty good too. Its nice to see her take interest in something close to 'cooking'... I knew she had been collecting some recipes and this dessert is a a very good start. Well Done!

November Rain

Been a fantastic month since I left the comfort zone into the world of 'minding my own business'... literally. A lot had happen on the Nov month... apart from doing the work and dealing with the clients, we had been looking for a new office space, planning for it, getting furniture, DIY and reno the office at the lowest cost possible.... I could have written it all in different blogs on different dates.. but the work is just so up my throat. I hv been going home practically past midnight everyday... i hardly hv any time to sleep, let alone blogging.

In short, we moved in the new place at Jln Besar and official started there on Sunday, 2 Dec. According to Naa's mum, its a good day to start, and according to my mum, its best to start on after 11am. So we did - went in, send some emails and put up the signboard... wala!.. its official. We even gave each other Ang Bao.. everything proper except the ribbon cutting... haha.

5 Dec was the worst day to date since everything.. we got into some trouble with the lease agreement - Well, technically, it wasn't a legal agreement. Apparently, the guy, Clarence, who rented the place to us wasn't the real landlord. He was actually the original tenant, but he got into some financial problems...So he sublet to us and moved out, which he wasn't suppose to. The landlord pop by that day and busted the whole thing. Our negligence was that Naa and I were too excited abt taking up the place and didn't notice that the agreement has no signature of the actual landlord. ...Lucky thing was that the landlord is an understanding person, and was willing to gather all the parties involved the next day to attempt to resolve the matter - before she solve it via legal means. It was a nerve-wrecking evening to wait till the next day...it almost like a criminal waiting for a next day sentencing. What made it worst was Jason came over and got our toilet door locked up from the inside, and we don't have the key!... and we end the evening by going to a Eddy's mum wake. What a day!

Well...the good news is, we got it all resolve the next day and we're here to stay! I'll spare the details...

Anyway, I'll take some pic of the place and post them up soon.

Last day @ Creative

Friday 26/10 was my last day @ Creative, but today is the official date to 6yrs 5mths since I started working there. It was on the last day that I really felt I'll be missing the place. Well, ...the gang, not the work. I was going around trying to feel and touch everything... and trying to capture images in my mind... it felt like I was almost unwilling to give it all up.

Started the day with my usual breakfast w/ Tejo. Khim couldn't make it on time but Linda, Janie and Nick was there. Tey was sick but he made it to the canteen to say goodbye, I can tell he's one of the saddest to see me leave. Just a few days back, he was mubbling something about eating lunches alone in the future. He's a great guy, even though some people may seek to differ. Like I always say, you just have to appreciate him from a different perspective.

Didn't do much for the rest of the morning... I can only remember I loaded the Chupa Chups into the authentic Chupa Chups metal tin in prep for the afternoon 'say-goodbye' rounds. Oh... Su called up for last minute lunch appt., which he eventually couldn't make it due to some meeting. Ended up eating at Nordic centre with Ken, Siek and Daniel... Well, probably for the better.

Made my rounds after lunch... I must say it was almost as tiring as going around tables during my wedding dinner. All that rushing from station to station, lots of photo snapping... etc.. Chupa Chup was a good choice as a token of farewell - handy and definitely enough to go around. Thanks to Jason, got the idea from him. Janie made a bad choice with his Mamee and chips, which were bulky to handle and never seem to be enough for everyone. He ended up loaning some of my Chupa Chups as back up supply....haha. Come to think of it, I think Sally, Janie and I made quite a loud exit... literally. With all that loud talking and laughing, gatecrashing into meetings, intermitent camera flashing, and the big badgages of candies, chocolates and snacks supplies... It's like:"who the hell cares, man."

LC summoned 3 of us back to her office at around 5pm. She gave a short thank you speech and presented us with a gift each... I got a stuffed bear. Hmm... what can I say, but it does look expensive. Anyway, I was sort of reminded by her not to 'pull' designers out of Creative... haha, I'll try my best.

Went back to the ID room for the last time at the end of the day... Finally sent out the video clip which i did as a tribute to myself, together with the farewell email... not much reaction from the people around, ...thought I'll see some runny eyes... haha, evil...

The end of the day photo session in the ID room was both fun and funny... It really makes my day with all that laughing and joking. ... Will miss Kar Choon's poses...haha. As planned, we left the office for dinner in a group... at least I didn't walk out lonely.

Dinner was great... never really goes wrong where there's oysters. It was all fun and laughter as we eat. Towards the end, the guys surprised me an Apple's wireless Mighty Mouse...must be Tejo's idea. I didn't say much for the encored speech, for fear that I might get too emotional... Yup, that's me. Many do not know, I may look stone cold on the outside, but I can get miserably weepy if I get overly-sentimental.

The after-dinner program was a small group of us drinking at Dempsey. Nice place to settle as we talked through the night... it was almost like we didn't want the day to end. Too bad Gigi couldn't join us as we all know she's wanted to, but due to uncontrollable circumstances, she couldn't make the call.

Well... so long, guys. Thank U for everything. Life has to go on... Anyway, we can always gather elsewhere to catch up. Who knows... if I can succeed (and I will..), some of us will definitely be working together again.