Vampires

Now really, this post is essentially me trying to put the Twilight posters further down my blog so that whenever I look at my own blog I don't have to see it immediately. Also, given several more postings and it'll exist only in the archive. So, in order to achieve that happy notion, here is a theory of mine about how vampire lore came about. This is unresearched. I have never been to Transylvania nor taken a module in linguistics as anyone can tell you.

We all know that the vampire legend came about because of the nasty habit of a very bloodthirsty and violent prince aptly known "Vlad the Impaler" of staking his enemies. Arguably, it is also poetic justice that Vlad or at least, his vampiric incarnation would be staked by future generations, a practice entrenched by popular culture, with its own legendary capability of swaying hearts and mind.

But has anyone wondered why vampires are always portrayed as suave, mysterious, and above all, aristocratic? Unless Dracula is very fussy, and he would have to be nowadays as aristocrats are a dying breed, he'll have scarce food to rely on if he only fancies blue-blood. Kidding aside, but why blood-suckers specifically? Could, perhaps, the myth of vampires have a marxist background?!

My theory (or one of my bad ideas as kappa calls them), is that aristorcrats (or your bourgeoisie) literally sucked the masses dry by 1) not working 2)living a life of indulgence. Yup. This convenient pun lends even further credence to how vampires are coldblooded aristocrats - Counts and Princes and what not - because, they sucked their victims dry of the blood (and sweat) spent tilling the lands for a no-good boss who not only didn't pay you but demanded tithes all the time.

See. It fits in too. Vlad can't have been the only source for the legend. Perhaps some other little thing added to it too?

Attempts

Attempt 1:
And in one night, I learnt to play poker, blackjack and taiti. I used to suck so bad at these kind of games that I wonder how I even pick anything up at all.
Attempt 2:
In other things, origami folding still remains as dismal attempts by me no matter how long I spend twisting and folding bits of paper up. The paper crane looked as though someone put it through a rack (no pictures, fortunately). My sister on the other hand, makes pretty little sculptures while I sit there and flap bits of paper at her and whine, my vocab having being reduced to the following: "darn.", "shit.", "what do I fold now?", "help me", "arggghhh"
Attempt 3:
Then, finally, my attempts to rework a different blogskin has more or less ended with me sticking to the old skin anyway. I feel like taking out the Twilight poster. It's irking me.

Winter Games

A cheery game for the season of festive damp.

http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g3/bells.htm

Poster Talk: Twilight

First up, the producers clearly didn't spend a lot on marketing. I mean, just look at this: the girl actually looks nothing like her poster self in the movie. Then, what in the world were they thinking? That cheesy pose and bare-ness of the poster really really irks. Just because there will be a guaranteed crowd doesn't mean they ought to scrimp on publicity. Then, I do know that Robert Pattinson (aka Cedric Diggory) plays a vampire (Edward Cullen), but did they have to do the make-up like he was dead more than undead? One feels like thumping the table at the wasted opportunity.

The movie itself fares no better. Like the generic, lack of attention and any pretence at effort poster, the flick is utterly flickawayable. The idea of an American gothique in the film seems to be a lot of mist, drippy woods, and green and grey tones for the sets and costumes. While there were some lovely scenes, the cinematography, perhaps unconsciously influenced by all that meteorological wetness, was rather watery fare too. And don't go giving me that old but it's a teen flick adage. Romeo + Juliet was a well-shot teen flick. Titanic stole many hearts (young and old) and won an Oscar. High School Musical was not my kind of movie, but it didn't suffer from bad filming. And grievously, they didn't even follow the book closely, which might have accounted for the awkward dialogue. I found myself just waiting for the next scene to happen, given that the lack of momentum meant me talking to the lovely ladies beside me and ogling the audience instead.

Speaking of which, the audience sighed at Edward Cullen's every whim (wince) and when the lead vampire made his first appearance, there was I kid you not, a collective sigh from them (double wince). One can only wonder what the reluctant boyfriends are thinking. And gorgeous Pattinson may be, but he lacks the something to carry off the character - and gorgeous is nothing if actor and role do not suit. Kirsten Stewart did a better job though their roles aren't anything to compare by. A teenage girl is possibly easier to play than a century-old vampire though I have my doubts about this statement as it is.

In any case, one can only hope the book is tons better. For the sake of the rest of the living world.

Bus stuff

It has lately been observed that public bus fares have been exhibiting strange behaviours. Peruse for instance, the following four observations made by my colleague, Suz:

Trip #1: BUS 151 Kent Ridge Terminal to Jln Toa Payoh (aka longkang bus stop) = 133 cents

Trip #2: BUS 59 Tampines Ave Two to Bishan Interchange (via Toa Payoh) = 143 cents

Trip #3: BUS 105 Serangoon Ave Three to Jln Toa Payoh = 93 cents

Trip #4: BUS 135 Ang Mo Kio Interchange to Serangoon Ave Two = 31 cents (71 cents minus rebate)

Consider exhibit 4 again. Where did the rebate come from? I have no idea. But 31 cents was exactly how much I paid today. And as to why it costs 93 cents to go from my home to Toa Payoh and only forty cents more to get to NUS from there is to my mind, ridiculous. Consider that on very good days when and if I have the time, I can walk to Toa Payoh. No one walks from Toa Payoh to Kent Ridge. The difference in distance isn't a marginal 400 metres. It's kilometres of difference. And I just know that the 105 bus has something against me. As if it hasn't done enough making me either run for it, miss it, or is unfashionably late, arrives in an entourage and plies a route riddled with jams, crowds, and short roads with many turnings to increase my bus fare.

Alternately, I am baffled that I have a rebate on my way home. 31 cents from Ang Mo Kio to Serangoon? That's even cheaper than when I paid the 45 cent student fare.

Today in Three.

1. Hail

All hail December!
White snow, eggnog and sharp stones,
Tomorrow’s herald.

2. A Snail's Requiem

Poor poor little snail.
Humans, please watch where you step,
or i'll go crack crack.

3. City Lights

The shape of Jurong
Is etched in glimmers of light,
Islands dreamt awake.

Today in Ten.

Today.
Watched Manhattan glitter across the screen in monochrome splendour and felt strangely empty.

Today.
The bus broke down 2 stops from Harbourfront and I didn’t even get a souvenir ticket. Maybe I should have waited?

Today.
It started raining while I was walking to the MRT station and then the escalator tried to eat my foot.

Today.
I wondered what it would be like to shoot Singapore in black and white too, and decided that all the different shades of green on the trees wouldn’t come out nice against the cloudy sky. Or maybe it would.

Today.
Why hasn’t anyone discovered how beautiful Jurong Island looks at night? And it’ll look great in black and white footage too.

Today.
My nose is plugged, and there is phlegm in my throat. I feel ill, though better than yesterday.

Today.
Someone should discover if pathogens have developed a malicious genetic strain that leaves its victim weak and miserable right before and during exams.

Today.
What is love in contemporary urban living? Woody Allen has left me more perplexed and unsatisfied with second viewing.

Today.
I think the phlegm is messing with my brain. After all, if the ancient Egyptians could squish out dead brains through the nose, the two parts must be somehow connected.

Today.
I suck at the game Bubble Town on Msn.

Shoes.

On examining my poor knee yesterday, I found that it was still red and scrapped looking from a minor fall on Thursday. I can’t remember what I was laughing about, but that was exactly what I was doing before screeching loudly and tripping on the uneven tar between the Computing/Business Faculty and the Arts canteen. I had been wearing a pair of sandals which I detested and which on further examination, looked as though the shoemaker had never met a physicist during the designing stage. The base is narrower than the top. Which means that the centre of gravity is high. Which means said object topples at the merest whim. Possibly at the slightest thought too. So of course the wearer, and a careless one (me) at that is going to stumble around quite a bit, twist ankles, fall ungracefully and scrape knees. The thing is, I didn’t even know I had been bleeding until I rolled up jeans in the lift on the way home 5 hours later. Then, yesterday, I sat in front of the shoe cupboard at home and whined about my lack of footwear. My old flats had given way months back, and I was left with a pair of smelly brown ones which make my toes curl if worn for extended periods of time. I bought a new pair of shoes, and after giving me a bruising under my left toe nail, gave way not two weeks later. The rest of my shoes are heels, which are wrong for revising exams in, and both my pairs of slippers are in dismal shape. PY has seen the newer pair looking holier-than-thou and the older pair still survives in a semi-retired state out of some exaggerated sentimentalism on my part. My blue slippers have been all the way to Venus Drive, trudged through forest mud and river water and remained intact in spite of me having bought them since I was in upper primary.
Oh God.
That’s how long it has been???
Yes. And they cost me only 3 dollars. The newer pair cost 19 bucks and expired less than 6 months later. They just don’t make footwear the way they used to. So yes, I am now trudging around in borrowed slippers, which is upsetting because my mom’s feet are slightly smaller than mine, and I keep stepping on the edge of the slipper. The poor (this part is through. I feel miserable revising) starving (BK is eating all my money) artist (as in, I am from Arts) look is but a poor excuse for the embarrassing footwear I have at home.

Blognality

The Rhetoric Room according to the tests.

We think http://midnightmuttery.blogspot.com is written by a woman (67%).

link: Gender Analyzer

But according to their poll, they get almost as many misses as hits, so it's a debatable thing.

And according to uClassify, my blog is my evil twin. This would have been funny if it wasn't also just as distressing. Maybe I should stop laughing at engineers so much.

The analysis indicates that the author ofhttp://midnightmuttery.blogspot.com/is of the type:
ISTP - The Mechanics

The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generelly prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

And it looks as though me, or rather my blog (I sound just like Wemmick), is OCD.

Attention to details? What? I wander around half blind, and I can never find the stuff I need after I dump them in my cupboard. And I have a goldfish memory. However, clearly the test says otherwise.

Eye Candy: The Many Faces of Alice

Who is Alice?

And, because one gets fascinated by the oddest things, here are more pretty pictures to look at. There are plenty here by various artists over a stretch of time, and the list is certainly not inexhaustible:

Fig 1: John Tenniel's Alice. Tenniel is the original illustrator of the Alice books.

In class yesterday, we talked about visual archives, and how technology has helped to build this visual memory bank of images that become part of how we look at history and culture too. It's interesting that the artists below incorporate easily recognizable aspects of alice into their drawings, such that we know what they are referencing even if they are out of context.
A note before wonderland kicks in: The sources of the images are linked via the labelling for the pictures.

Arthur Rackham:

Fig 2: A series of Alices. Don't know if it's me over-reading, but two of the scenes are inverted horizontally (like through a mirror). The first Alice with all the cards faces left in Tenniel's version, while the mock-turtle and griffin in the 3rd picture faces right.

Lisbeth Zwerger: And except for the Wizard's coat in NYEDC'S OZ (which was modelled after The Matrix's Morpheus), Zwerger also provided some nice background ideas for an alternative Oz, though due to money constraints and the way the script was headed, idea got abandoned.

Fig 3: Her Alice is pretty darn unique too. Not blonde?

Ralph Steadman: The druggie version. And he wouldn't be half wrong too as somewhere along the way, Alice becomes symbolic of the phantasmogorical and amoral, though he keeps the satirical legacy from Tenniel:

Fig 4a, b: Seriously. the mad hatter is a yogi bear like creature?!

It's not all blue pinafores...
Yup. Even though the Alices all bear some resemblance to the original, artists have focused on more than just her dressing, which is one of the first few things artists are determined not to copy directly. Rackham, who is a famous children's books illustrator from the 19th, early 20th century has his Alice in a pink flowery dress, as if in opposition of the traditional Alice in blue. On the other hand, the striped stockings, crown, pinafore, bushy hair , cards, chess set, Victorian-esque setting and associate white rabbit are often retained in some form to remind the viewer that this alludes to the books.

In fact, moving away from Tenniel's political caricature roots, the Alice of today is definitely more of an icon of fantasy, gothic and Victorian periodization which subsequently fits nicely into consumer culture quite nicely - be it for gaming and video culture, manga, food, or films.

Fig 5: Miaki Kari. Looks like it ought to go on a chocolate box. Also looks like this:

Fig 6: Tenniel's original illustration. Also compare Rackham's above.

Some artists, and in particular those from pop culture, appropriates the Alice figure for themselves. For example, the topsy-turvy game-like rules of Wonderland and questing style of the Alice text adapts itself nicely into gothicky pop art well.

Fig 5a, b: The red or blue debate goes beyond existentialism...

Then there is Tim Burton, master of the macabre and wacky:

Fig 6: Mia Wasikowska as Alice. Very Victorian. Very pop culture. Very blue.

The stockings. As I said....

Fig 7: Vintage Classics edition of the book

Then there is the pinafore, which gives some people odd ideas.

Fig 8: The Internet is for porn. And for everything else.

And just for the heck of it...

Why indeed.

F.g 9: Stuio I.G. and CLAMP.

What kinds of cultural cache is there in the Alice? I wouldn't know. But it does make for a convenient signfier for the weird and precarious nature of society...

And in the end, there is no other Alice like Alice.

Fig 10: Drawn by E.T. Reed, one of Tenniel's successors at Punch, in response to the many imitators out there. Spot Rackham's? A detailed account of Tenniel's illustrations and the new illustrators after him can be found here.

Essaying at breakfast does odd things to the mind

I have 5000 words to write. I have to bake my breakfast. Which will probably double as lunch.

The Pizza Rant

HAD we but world enough, and time,
This pizza would be no crime
We would sit down and think which way
To bake and cook and take all day.
Thou by the kitchen’s side
Shouldst slowly knives find: I by the tide
Of morn’s passing would complain. I would
Wait ten years before the Flood,
And you should, if you please, refuse
To bake till the conversion of the Jews.
My patience should grow
Vaster than empires, and more slow;
An hundred years should go to praise
The crisp golden doughy paste;
Two hundred to adore each slice,
But thirty thousand to turkey ham diced;
An age at least to every part,
And the last age should show your heart.
For, pizza, you deserve this state,
Nor would I love at lower rate.

But at my back I always hear
Time's wingèd chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy goodness shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy oven vault, shall sound
200 degrees! Ding!: then worms shall
The preservative filled pizza try,
And its quaint honour turn to dust,
And into dustbin goes it must:
The bin’s a fine and private place,
But none, I think, do there embrace.

Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on pizza still,
And while it transpires
That oven still has warm fires,
Let me if I may,
Assay my essay like birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour
Than languish in his slow-chapt power.
Let us our brainwaves roll and all
Our depression up into a ball,
And bear this academic strife
Thorough the iron gates of life:
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we can at least have fun.

-- Missfickle.
Adapted from Andrew Marvell's To His Coy Mistress

Postmodernism runs rank and anybody who takes this seriously can't see my point. Sigh. Breakfast smells too good though.

Updated: I realise that the last line didn't make any sense. Hence the change. It in all probability still doesn't, but what do I know?

Happy Halloween

Something on the side of macabre...

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of Annabel Lee;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea:
But we loved with a love that was more than love -
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her high-born kinsmen came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me -
Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud one night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we -
Of many far wiser than we -
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling -my darling -my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea -
In her tomb by the sounding sea.

-- Edgar Allan Poe

The Book Post: The Graveyard Book

Yes. I chose the kiddy cover

As a toddler, the night his family is killed, Nobody Owens* ( aka Bod) manages to wander into the neighbouring graveyard, where he is then raised under the relative safety of its ghostly citizens. The killer, meanwhile, remains undeterred from his unfinished task...

My most charming reader,

I must take this opportunity, while I am on another of my frequent, if short bouts of haitus from my essaying to introduce you to this lovely book. The author, Neil Gaiman, needs no introduction. He is afterall, the well known writer of Stardust, American Gods, and the Sandman series of graphic novels. He didn't draw the last one; Dave McKean, and some others did. Dave McKean also needs no introduction here; he illustrated the so-called "Adult" version of The Graveyard Book (as if different versions matter to the story, and is as such, a marketing ploy which I have been successfully suckered into), which in my opinion anyway, has a less exciting cover. Sorry, Mr McKean.

Back to Neil Gaiman. The Graveyard Book marks his return since awhile to fiction for younger readers, and much as bookstores have placed several copies of Stardust on the children's bookshelf, I am absolutely certain that this is the heavily edited version with several naughty bits snipped out of it. And so, technically, no, Neil Gaiman hasn't written anything for teenagers (and below) for some time.

Reading The Graveyard Book, this might have come as a surprise. After all, the book pulls you in quickly, thus keeping the attention deficit child of the Internet Age hooked quickly. The book has an easy prose, a likeable protagonist and quirky, endearing characters. It doesn't condescend to the child, and neither is it overly sentimental, which might put off the older reader. All in all, it's a book that manages to keep the balance in its readership.

One slight thing of note, which would be totally negligible if this is your first Gaiman book, is that there is the sense that Gaiman is repressing some of the grislier details. Understandable. This book is meant for a more general audience than say, Neverwhere, or American Gods. But this means the villains aren't very well fleshed out. There is a rather vague sense of menace that rolls off them, but they aren't seriously terrifying. On the other hand, as the book is more or less from a child/teenager's perspective, the lack of background information might be because a child, even one raised in a graveyard, would not have access to this kinds of knowledge, though the ending builds a promise of changing this, I think. I hope I haven't spoiled the book for anyone. But then, a well-spun story doesn't really need to go all out to make its point.

Overall: 4.5/5

*spot the pun?

The Neverending Cyber War, or Angsty Stream of Consciousness

UPDATE:
OK. It decided to work after all. After I worked up the nerve to swtich it on again that is. Don't know how long it'll last though.

At the risk of sounding like a choric extra out of some homeric epic, The Fates are against me. I had a nasty feeling when I saw the windows update prompt about downloading a new service pack just as I had sat down finally to do planning for the SEA Lit essay. In any case, this being an important looking update, I let it get down to whatever it (it, here being my laptop) had to do and I proceeded to do what I had to do. So, after coming to a rut in the planning, which from the beginning has been a painful and mind-freezing affair, I checked the service pack installing thing and it had hung. Typically. As per usual. Something had to go wrong at the wrong time.

Now. How did I know it had hung. I knew it had hung because the installing bar wasn't moving one peep. Having wisened up to the incredible and seeming incompatibility with me and all things electrical, I saved my work in my thumbdrive before forcing a restart, only to have that stupid blue screen staring belligerently at me. Only this time it had words on it, which went somewhat along this line: Your system configuration installation is incomplete (duh. whose fault? not mine. not exactly). Rebooting to previous configuration.

Am now sitting panic stricken in front of the desktop. I am absolutely certain that there is unsaved data in the laptop. Which at this moment looks unretrievable, because the stupid creature is still rebooting. The first step, as gd ol' lappie proclaimed is successfully complete. The second, which it is calling a rollback, is still in the midst of being completed. And has been for the past half an hour. Someone let me know if I should be pulling the plug yet.

Why why why now. Now. When I have essays. It could have been last week. Or the week before. Anytime would have been preferable to this week. I can't lug my desktop to school... or to work... I am so forwarding my plans to buy a laptop before I graduate to sometime soon.

Thank You

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made
(Robert Browning)

Thank you for the drinks
Thank you for the fun
Thank you and you, and you.

Thank you for all the letters
Thank you for the dinners
Thank you, and you and you.

Thank you for being there
Thank you for being everywhere
Thank you to you, and you and you.

Thank you for the help
Thank you for the advice
Thank you for being nice.

Thank you for msn
Thank you for all these times
Thank you, all of you.

Thank you for the kind words
The encouragement
Thank you, and you and all of you.

Thank you for the good times
Thank you for the care
Thank you for
You;
And for more Thank Yous.

Notice

My damned phone (and may it rot in hell) died today. Will be completely uncontactable for a while. Watch this space for updates.

UPDATE:
It decided to work, mysteriously, after all...

F1?!

Kid you not, but I think I can hear the cars revving up from my home... I am hoping it is somebody's television...

Lessons

I do realise that I am blogging a lot about my sad life as a tutor, but please bear with me...

Lesson #1

Student (muttering indistinctly): oliveristerrible...

Me: What?

Student (giggling slightly embarrassedly): Oh, I got this classmate call Oliver. Because it rhymes with terrible, he called Oliver is so terrible.

(pause)

Me: But Oliver doesn't rhyme with terrible... (tries it out) oliver...terrible...
(nope. there's the 'l' which gives 'terrible' a lilt at the end that 'oliver' doesn't have.)

Me: Umm. It might be a very weak rhyme. It doesn't rhyme at all, unless you say "terrible" as "terriber", and even then...

Student (quickly): Oh, My classmates's english is lousy one. When teacher is explaining in class, all they do is talk and laugh.

Me (seizing oppourtunity, adds sanctimoniously): Aha! See! If you all had been paying attention, you all would be able to rhyme properly.

Lesson #2

A conversation sometime ago. Heavily edited by scabbed memory.

Me: But why do you always wear black?

Morphie: **********

Me: Is your cupboard full of clothes that's black?

Morphie: **********

Me: Boring. (Quickly realises that is not a question) Umm. Do you like black?

Morphie: **********

Me (is quickly exhausted): You know. There was a point to me asking all those questions.

Morphie: And that is...?

Me: Er... I was attempting to conduct an experiment a lecturer said we should try, and that is to answer a question with another question.

Morphie: You don't have to. You already do that all the time.

Lesson #3

Me: And so, let me tell you, children nowdays are incredibly gossipy and irritating. And its not even the girls.

B: What happened?

Me: The irritating kaypoh kid, and a boy mind you, asked me if why I was dressed so nicely in a floral blouse. I remembered ignoring him, and the twit went on to ask me if I was meeting my boyfriend. I ignored him and went to write something on the board, and he asked me if I was going to a candle-lit dinner. I said dryly that it was a little too early for dinner as it wasn't even 3 in the afternoon then. He then asked me if I was going out to study and I replied that I was going home after tuition. Let me repeat. Children are full of obnoxious questions.

B: But that's because you didn't answer his first question. He'll stop if you just explained why you wore what you were wearing.

Me: Oh yeah...
(To be honest, I hadn't even thought I was even dressed that nicely... But on helpful advice and hindsight, if I had chosen to point out that I didn't think I was dressed that nicely, I might have had an easier time that day in class.)

Further Proof that the World is some kind of joke.

First the laksa,
Then the Shoe.

And to add to the seemingly unending list of surreal moments in the land of tuition:

Today, I was making a sweep down the aisles to ensure that the kids were all copying their homework as dutifully as they should be when I caught my boss waving and beaming cheerfully at me through the glass window in the door. I beamed back and gave a slight wave, and because I had reached the end of the class, I made a turn back to the board to write the explanation for the next question. On turning back, I discovered my boss opening the door, "Oh sorry, excuse me. Can I talk to you?"
... ... ...
Oh.

Wedding Furore

After hearing my alarm go off early for my jog, I determinedly ignored my conscience and went back to bed - which was just as well as it started pouring minutes later. My slight guilt resolved, I had just snuggled comfortably into my blanket when minutes later, a car horn sounded loudly. I ignored that. If you live next to a carpark, you get used pretty soon to the sounds of motocycles firing up, speed demons raring about (occasionally), school buses looming in and of cause, car honking.

This morning was different.
First, one car honked, then followed by another and then another in a rising crescendo. I stumbled out, not as blearily as I would have liked, which shows how futile my snooze had been, and went to the window, convinced that some large vehicle like a lorry or van must be blocking the only exit/entrance to the carpark. Of course it wasn't. There was a wedding SUV parked outside the lift entrance to my block, and I knew then which twits had been the cause of my less than tranquil time in bed.

Muttering to myself, and still wrapped in my blanket, I stalked out of the room, slightly amused and rather annoyed. A quick glance at the other bed in the room indicated that my sister was apathetic to all noises and still asleep - I suspected on purpose.

And, so, grumbling about how the groom and gang was likely still high from their stag party, I went to the kitchen and found my mom at the window there. I joined her there and being busybodies, began commenting on their choice of wedding carriage, flowers, colour scheme etc. For the record, the SUV was silver, and bundled in white flowers on white ribbon. Apparently, the wedding planner had anticpated well in advance the uncooperative weather (more fit for a funeral) and the wedding entourage were sheltered from the elements by a matching pair of large black and white umbrellas and several smaller blue ones. Additionally, the men were all, as I noted with a snort, togged in palish pink-lavender shirts. Pants were black; they were clearly not that insane yet.

All normal so far, and I couldn't help but make snide comments about how men were generally idiots. My dad on the other hand, as the only male in the house and a misanthrope, was making his usual cynical comments that the bride was likely from China. I doubted it very much. Firstly, it wouldn't be the bride's fault, as she is the one waiting for her groom to appear, and such failure to abide by the usual custom seemed more the work of a contemporary Singaporean. Secondly, my dad tended to blame anything and everything on either the Government or China. My theory was that these lot had probably in their life up til then been part of some wretched well-meaning if ridiculous student council for them to commence with the further stupidity that would come next:

They got into their cars (I make that about 5 or 6) and getting into line with the wedding car in front, began a roundabout round the rubbish dump next to my block, honking for their worth and I suspect, grinning inanely at the cameraman, who squatted in the middle of the road to take their pictures. Then, abruptly, when the honking had reached its zenith, somebody in the block, to my right and downwards suddenly yelled in what appeared to be either a sleepy or drunken slur, "You B******! ASS****! Damn F****** P****S!" My dad, who has a puritan mindset worthy of the Aunts of the Victorian period, triumphantly uttered, "They deserve it! Probably from China!" The wedding entourage, which had still been attempting the slow roundabout came to a standstill, and the honking stopped. The rude yelling went on, and one could almost sense the wedding party wilting from the searing criticism they were receiving.

The sort amusement which I had not been enjoying in a while was wiped away in an instant both by the yelling jerk and my dad's comments. My mom replied by saying he was an unfeeling person, and while we both agreed that 6 cars honking early on a Saturday morning was a bit much, the wedding didn't deserved to be cursed and swore at. Someone could have just yelled, "Stop honking!" or "Quiet!" instead of all that. What could have been a funny early morning spectacle ended up being dampened by someone who clearly took life too seriously.

Then, of course, being that sort of family, the topic jumped from a vehicle of one sort to another, which is of the F1 variety. My dad still complained about the Government, I ended up on the opposite side and defended its decision to host the race... and such is one morning flown by even though I had wanted to work on my essay...