i wanted to post this up yesterday but was too tired and the upgrading update was taking really long cos of photo loading problems. so here it is now. stuff i noticed in the tuesday edition of the new paper.







notice the "for those who like" bit? well i guess it means that no one is going to like this show then. cos there isn't a single person who likes any of the shows listed.









this is up cos i think it's stupid. not cos i support piracy or what. but this whole ad is just stupid in that it doesn't have any logical reasoning behind that main statement at all. look at the next photo to read the small print.










"each time you reject piracy, you encourage creativity." hey thanks for repeating yourself. and then they try to make you forget to look for a reason by asking and targeting you with "Whose life do you think that will affect tomorrow? Yours.". this effort to support the statement by making the readers/perpetrators go on a guilt trip and also feel like they're at a major losing end is just stupid. and check out just check out the closing lines equating creativity with originality and hipness. of course hip is a play on the acronym HIP standing for the Honour Intellectual Property Alliance. it is like so totally unhip to like take part in piracy dude. come on man. at least. AT LEAST substantiate the statement with some sort of proper argument.

Day 2



well i didn't go to town today as planned. i ended up going around with my mother and getting bathroom stuff again. so another hot and tiring day. yeah i'll leave out the long ramble today so on to the photos.







i found out what the metal container thing with the blue lid is. i saw this guy using it. he's the guy in charge of all of the containers. guess what. it's a vacuum cleaner. i thought that my guess of septic tank was right earlier when i saw him pouring water in the container. but i guess he was just washing it. anyway who would open a septic tank at the corridor.









my mother calmly telling my neighbour how she kept things under control with some sort of hypnotic kung fu. my neighbour is skeptical.









work work work. the chinese guy started to sweep the place after he realised i was taking photos.









beware my mother. good thing the guy started cleaning up.









then after the guy cleaned up the place this guy decided to show up and proceeded to hack down the tiles on the ceiling beam. so it's a mess again. when he arrived my mother wasn't around so he had to answer to me. and now i'm "brother" while my mother is "aundie". "brother" here had to get him a chair so that he could reach the beam and tell him to clean up the mess he made.









anyway while i was out today i happened across this in a public toilet. my favourite kind of retort graffiti. the ironic dumbass kind. reminds me jc times when my classmate danlin wrote on my foolscap pad cover "aloy is a idoit", without realising what she had done.









irrelevant photo taken going down the escalator into chinatown mrt station. look at my muscular arm man. well actually it doesn't look very muscular at all. whatever.









today's update has been brought to you by cock's head concrete. i feel really assured and vaguely amused that the foundations of the upgrading are made up of this. i thought of photoshopping the photo and replacing the cock head with a erm...cock head but i'll try to keep this upgrading series as PG as possible.



no photos of the bathroom and the toilet today cos the portable toilet is in the way and i can't take a full photo. all that's different is that there are new pipes inside. and also outside. oh they didn't dismantle the portable toilet. they just moved it aside. i should have figured.



thank elvis it ended early today.

Day 1



so the first day has passed. the main thing they did today was clearing out the bathroom and toilet. and i really mean clear it out. it's as bare as it could be and there's some new concrete slathered about the place. today's supposed to be the dustiest and dirtiest day cos of all the destruction. i hope that's true cos it really is fucking dusty and dirty. i've finally gotten a shower and i'm feeling relatively much better and cleaner. i spent the whole day wandering about the neighbourhood with my bag full of stuff. stuff to ease my boredom. and finally in the afternoon went to get some stuff with my mother. bought a new heater and some light fittings for the bathroom and toilet. this is the list of the places i went today -



1. downstairs for breakfast after the workers came to start work and everything was underway at about 9am

2. to the CC to use the toilet

3. to the post office to pay bills.

4. to shaw balestier to hang out at macdonald's. tea costs way too much there. i got incredibly bored and sleepy sitting there waiting for my mother and eventually i...

5. walked sllloooowwwlllyyy back to my block and ran into my mother downstairs.

6. walked to the contractor's main office to check out the colour of the toilets offered and to see the study and rest rooms they've provided for the residents.

7. walked to toa payoh.

8. from there took a shuttle bus to turf club.

9. came back to toa payoh.

10. took a bus to kitchener road to get bathroom stuff.

11. came back home. reached home at 5pm.



by then the demolition of the bathroom and the toilet was done and i was like hurray we got back just in time. BUT we waited outside the house for them to clean up the place and put up the portable toilet inside until around 9pm. yes 4 hours. sweet. so after that we went down for dinner and then finally now i'm all clean and settled. kinda. i was so tired and tired during the day. man. it sucked. i think i'm gonna go hide out in town or something tomorrow. but trust me. trying to spend a whole day out of the house is not easy. especially when you start early in the morning.



good news is tomorrow they're starting work a bit later so we don't have to get up so early. but actually that is most probably bad news cos they might end later also. fucked.



anyway here are some pictures.







the first few workers showed up and the bigger shot is taking photos of the bathroom and toilet. it's procedure so that they have proof of how the bathroom and toilet looked before they destroy and rebuild them so that owners can't go like hey there was this thing in there before which wasn't. anyway i took a whole load of pictures of everything i could think of so that they couldn't get away with fucking something up and saying they didn't do it. so i've got them under scrutiny too. the other guy is proceeding to tear down the doors to the bathroom and toilet.









here's the cardboard and plastic laid out onto the ground so that they don't fuck up the ceramic tiles. those two fellas are all deer in the headlights cos i accidentally switched the flash on while taking this picture. well. at least they know they're being watched.









the outside of my house. on the floor you see the cupboards that they've stripped down from the bathroom and toilet by this time. and the plastic thing on the iron grill door? it's their effort to make a sealed passageway so that not too much dirt will get to areas they don't need to be in. it's probably for some security reasons too. anyway if you don't get what i mean, you will soon in the subsequent pictures.









the mirror above my sink and the light cover from the bathroom or toilet. all going to the dump. i'm still wondering what the metal container with the blue lid is for. i'd like to think it's full of beer but it's probably for cleaning purposes. or maybe even a septic tank. i think most probably a septic tank. i know that i could ask the workers what it's for but i'm playing the part of the quiet amused son while my mother is playing the part of fussy housekeeper. it's a good cop bad cop thing. if the workers get irritated with my mother at least they see that i'm understanding what they feel too so they don't get too irritated in the end but feel amused too. hey this is all psychological man. and anyway, i don't feel like trying to understand what the workers say. i mean, they're not terrifically bad at english but i'd rather not try. they're actually really hardworking and nice guys. not surly and sullen.









here's the sealed passageway i'm talking about two photos ago. huge sheets of plastic held up with adjustable poles. and they even put up this doorflap thing in the doorway to the kitchen. pretty nifty. that's my mother going to give them yet another instruction. it was so dusty by then cos they already started breaking stuff that she retreated quite quickly after lifting the flap a little. at one point one worker exclaimed "aundie, go!" cos my mother was getting in the way and telling them a lot of stuff. ah that was funny. if you think my mother is fussy, all i got to say is hey you wouldn't want your home to be undergoing this shit and then end up having it all fucked up and not as you want it either. i'd be fussy too but i got to keep in character.









right i wanted to put this photo and the next up yesterday but blogger just wouldn't show the photos. this is the bathroom before today. it's looking pretty empty cos we cleared it for today. the shower gel is looking really forlorn and lonely on the floor. and my shokubutsu and shampoo aren't speaking to each other anymore.









and this is the toilet. goodbye squat toilet. it's the end of my squat toilet days at home. i don't hate it but sitting down is really less tiring.









here's the bathroom after being destroyed and partially patched up.









and here's the toilet after being destroyed and partially patched up. that white pipe is the pipe from the portable toilet. that object next to the pipe. i have no idea what that is. i didn't really look closely.









and the glowing cubicle of relief. the portable toilet. yeah it's a portable toilet but i really don't think it'd be a good idea to do a no. 2 in it. seeing how it has no flush. i just took a cold bath in it and i really feel a whole lot better. tomorrow it gets dismantled i think to make way for more construction work. i'd be really surprised if it isn't. then it'll get all assembled again at night when they clean up again. this is a special portable toilet cos it's actually the display portable toilet at the contractor's main office cos they ran out of portable toilets. and in the morning someone said that we didn't want a portable toilet in our house after the cleaning up so they didn't prepare one for us. so they had to lug the thing all way from the main office which is like maybe a kilometre away? and it being a sample display toilet. we can be assured that no one's used it before and that all the fittings are new. we know it's new cos we saw them ripping open plastic bags to reveal shiny new fittings to put in the portable toilet.



yep so that's it for today. i really hope tomorrow will be much cleaner. actually it's not so bad cos they clean up the place pretty well. i'm just hoping for a less tiring day tomorrow cos i ended up really hot and tired and sticky today after all that wandering about the place.



one thing. i made a mistake. EVERY room in the house is undergoing upgrading work. cos all the windows will be changed.



1 day down.

Day 0



upgrading in my house starts tomorrow. ten days of dirt and noise. and i got to be out of the house for most of the days for most of the day cos they'll be working everywhere except the master bedroom. so it's a pain. i'll be trying to update every night when i get home to show the progress in the house. anyway, here are the pre-works photos, showing how the house looks like the night before the invasion.







everything covered and safe (hopefully) from all the dirt. the sofa's under there together with the tv somewhere. i've lost count of the number of coverings there are on the furniture. there's layers of plastic sheets and cloth. very kua zhang yes.









the other end of my living room. four dining chairs are under the paintings on the wall and at the end is my father's study area and some black bags containing some bodies we found under the sofa while clearing everything up.









look into the kitchen. and wonder to yourself (for those who've been here before), where the fuck is the kitchen table. well the kitchen table is in front of my father's table in the previous photo. no not that brown foldable thing. it's under my father's table.









a load of plastic on the cupboards, on the stove and covering the kitchen sink.









more plastic goodness over the washing machine and more cupboards. and yes the refrigerator. the refrigerator is all wrapped up. i feel cut off from it. i can't enter the kitchen without opening the refrigerator. and now...i can't.









this is how to really lose weight. i can't begin to fully describe the agony this photo holds for me. the fridge with all the food. the cupboards next to it with noodles and booze. the upright shelves that the upturned stool is on with more food. and booze.



elvis give me strength to last ten days eating and drinking and trying to pass time outside.

hey like what the fuck.



so like i'm feeling tired and listless and i think i'm going to fall ill and this guy walks into my room and says hey like what the fuck.



and i'm like yeah i know.



and then we both agree that waking at 6am is not very good because of the chairs being at the tables when there's no one sitting at the table or on the chairs and it makes the air really crisp.



so then i pop another chocolate ball into my mouth and the guy says i like hearing loud screeching laughter so i pass him a chocolate ball and he's really happy only that it isn't much of a ball now that i've chewed it some but he's happy so hey like what the fuck as long as he's happy.



then he leaves and i'm all like hi thanks for coming over but he doesn't hear me cos he already left and i start to get up to go brush my teeth and then i broke the kitchen window into three equal pieces so that i would have three windows and now it's not so draughty unless i rub my eye because it's mine to keep.



yeah so hey like what the fuck.

man oh man tonight's match was so fucking fantastic. totally the best match in recent years. i had so much goddamn fun. a whole malay family sat behind. like extended family. they were fucking hilarious and fun to be with and i fucking shouted like a madman all kinds of shit and whatever and that kind of endeared me to them. i joined in their cheers and they joined me for a chorus of 'pee por pee por' when the myanmar player was down and the stretcher was brought in. i fucking love going 'pee por pee por' at live matches. god that is like my favourite cheer/jeer. if you still are not getting what 'pee por pee por' suggests, it's the sound of an ambulance siren.



i feel damn happy and quite sad for elaine cos this is her first time going to see a live football match at the stadium. happy cos this is one fuckentastic match, and sad cos every other match after this one is probably not going to match up. hm that's a lot of 'match's.



i'm like gushing cos i'm still in the mood. i rushed back after supper to catch the last bits of the delayed telecast on tv. on that bit - delayed telecast of the semi-final on channel 5? wtf mediacorp? do you really have to rely on external pressure and sponsors to telecast live matches of our NATIONAL team?



this match had everything. the low - trailing 2-0 for most of the match, the high - finally equalising, agony - indra sahdan missing the last minute penalty which would have won the match for singapore, the bad and ugly - myanmar's total lack of sportsmanship with regards to both the team on the field for their incredibly aggressive play and their feigning of injury and their tossing of water bottles, and the fans in the stands who jumped over the barrier onto the field and started fights and threw rubbish bins about.



still the best bit was sitting with the malay family. man the kids were so vocal and unabashed in their support and opinions. and the makciks who were too vocal and totally enjoying themselves.



man i'm still buzzing from it. at the end fights started breaking out at the myanmar fans section and it really looked like something crazy was going to happen so me, ted, yaowei and elaine just beat it quick. something started happening outside the stadium at the main gate but i wasn't too keen on staying around to find out what was going on so i shooed yaowei and elaine from behind. all i know is that i saw the following vehicles around the area headed for the stadium - riot police buses, police cars, and i think fire engines or something. i can't wait to see what the newspapers will have to say about tonight's happenings tomorrow.



oh yeah i have to wake at 6am tomorrow cos a bunch of us old boys are going to SAS to check out the first day of school at the new school building at potong pasir. 6am. man i haven't gotten up at 6am for months. hope i don't oversleep.

more tsunami links:



[+] scientific background.

[+] media critique.

[+] more animal news.

[+] how to be politically incorrect and insensitive.