newest guilty pleasure

I love this show. I never understood Barney Stinson's obsession with suits, until I watched this drama and realised that a suit is a modern day superhero costume. It exudes power, confidence and money. Basically, this drama is about work in one of the top law firms in New York, with a fascinating backstory involving an associate with an eidetic memory that you should really find out for yourself.

That aside, this drama has probably some of the wittiest dialogue I've ever seen, like the example below.

Louis: So what, is this new cologne the scent of jealousy?
Harvey: You don't recognize your wife's perfume? I know, you're not married. Still funny.

The dialogue is snarky, filled with clever pop culture references, and you never know what to expect, except to find yourself constantly amazed at the quick turns of phrase and situations that turn up. I really like how watching dramas gives me an insight into different worlds, like Gossipgirl did, except that after awhile I started smashing my head into the wall at how one dimensional the characters in that show were. In other words, insecure, rich, ultimately boring.

And refreshingly, this show also has a cast of really strong women. By strong women, I mean hot women who are not flower vases, neither are they afraid to go toe to toe with the men, unlike so many other shows out there where they just play second fiddle. In this show, the women actually make their screen time count, and not only are they smarter than the men in some cases, they have other tricks up their sleeves which they use to get what they want. And most of all, they are not bitchy, which after watching Gossipgirl for awhile really made me want to give Blair one kick up the backside and ask her to grow up.

But of course words don't do the show justice. Here's a clip from the show featuring my two favourite characters Harvey and Donna.



No more boring MRT rides for another 2 weeks woohoo.

The Queen is back.

If you don't understand the shiny packaged music that is Kpop, this is not for you. Otherwise, fuck yeah. BoA is back, and in Kpop terms that is cataclysmic. Jpop fans would probably howl in protest, but I personally think she's more talented than Ayumi Hamasaki because Ayumi could never dance like that.

BoA started out early and achieved success in both the Korean and Japanese charts at the young age of 15, at a time when the Japanese and Korean markets were hostile to each other, having only recently opened to each other since World War 2 following the joint hosting of World Cup 2002. That gave the rising Korean wave all the impetus it needed to gain ascendancy and become mainstream, with the release of the ridiculously weepy Winter Sonata and the advent of the unstoppable pop sensation known as BoA forming a twin pincer attack to ensnare both the young and the old. As anyone who has encountered a pincer will know, it has one hell of a deathgrip.

For once, Japan had a 15-year old female idol who was actually cool and unafraid to show it, instead of one prancing around in a school uniform acting cute while selling her underwear in some vending machine elsewhere. Even the Japanese got sick of their own twisted shit that revolves around a fantasy of eternal adolescence. But old habits die hard. They have recently taken to another group that is called AKB48 that is exactly like that, only that there are literally hundreds of these nubile cutesy teenage girls in the same group. After all, it is like drug withdrawal, after awhile one girl won't do, you need one hundred to get that same twisted kick.

Well, going back to the queen of Kpop, how talented is BoA? She writes some of her songs, she dances extremely well, and her singing would put most of the current batch of Korean idols to shame. To put it succinctly, she is not only the predecessor of the current batch of Korean idols, she is also more talented than many of them put together, and on top of that, she achieved success by herself at an age when most of them were still training in Korea, and in the traditionally closeted and xenophobic Japanese market. That means she had to sing in Japanese, because there is no other way the Japanese will buy your albums, and she paved the way for all future Kpop groups in Japan.


She did this at 15. While I was 15 I didn't know jackshit. Even now this is still ridiculous for a 15 year old.

She then lost her way a little in trying to expand to the US, because no matter how hot or talented you are, Americans will not hit anything with small eyes, even if that thing is BoA, but they will hit rubbish like Paris Hilton and Justin Bieber.

But now she's back and I'm loving it, though I still hate McDonalds for charging 30 cents for curry sauce. Capitalist bastards.

I'm going to enjoy this while it lasts.

Feng Tianwei clinches Singapore's first Olympic table tennis singles medal

View Poll Results: Do you feel proud as a Singapore when FTW won the medal?
Yes		16	15.84%
No		85	84.16%
Voters: 101.

Poll taken off hardwarezone forums

Singapore's Feng Tianwei celebrates winning a point during her table tennis women's bronze medal singles match against Japan's Kasumi Ishikawa for The London 2012 Olympic Games at The Excel Centre in London on Aug 1, 2012. -- PHOTO: AFP

As a Singaporean, I have mixed feelings about this victory, but the two feelings are very distinct. While I am happy for FTW (she has the initials FTW how awesome is that), her victory is very hollow for me as a local born and bred Singaporean.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying that she has put in a lot of hard work, and that her heart is very much with Singapore. She has demonstrated that countless times, and I feel that as a nation we really can't thank the brave ladies of the table tennis team enough. You have to salute the courage and audacity of this woman, to go to a stage like the Olympics consistently against higher ranked opponents and taking the game to them. But perhaps you could argue that was what she was brought here to do.

As a Singaporean who was born here, her victory will never resonate with me at the same level as one won by someone who is truly one of our own, who grew up in a HDB flat, eating nasi lemak and chicken rice and playing childhood games like chapteh and hopscotch. Sure, those days are a fast fading memory of a time when Singapore was a simpler place populated by our own, where everyone knew each other because we all grew up together. But those are the days that tie me to the land of my birth, the days when Singapore was well and truly my home, not the strange country that it has become these days, where I am more likely to run into a foreigner than a fellow Singaporean on the streets in some parts of the country.

I think the poll on hardwarezone forums pretty much demonstrates the level of national pride at the victory. You can say what you want about the denizens of that forum, but they do very much represent the young heartlanders of the Singaporean population.

It might also represent the general malaise that afflicts our sporting scene, where effectiveness and efficiency is prized over passion. Sports is all about passion, because only passion will drive sportsmen to the Olympian heights through all the hurdles of rigorous training, through the injuries, through the inevitable disappointments. I once read a news article about a swimmer, which went along these lines. "She got up at 4am every day, and hit the pool when it was still cold, swimming 50 laps before the sun was up. Every single day, come rain or shine, no matter how tired she was, no matter how much her body screamed at her wanting that extra bit of sleep." I know how painful and difficult it is to get up early in the mornings to train. I do it myself, and I don't succeed every time. That is the level of dedication it takes to become an Olympian. You sacrifice everything for a single goal.

But though it is pretty obvious that team sports like soccer and basketball are some of the great national passions, Singapore has chosen to place its faith in individual sports like swimming, sailing, bowling, shooting and table tennis, for the obvious reason that they have the chance for higher medal tallies, and not team sports like soccer, basketball or volleyball. But how many Singaporeans actually do these sports consistently? Do you notice that we have far more people populating our basketball courts and soccer courts than table tennis tables or shooting ranges? Even if I were to reduce each team of basketball or soccer players to count as one, I'm still pretty sure there are more soccer teams than table tennis players in Singapore.

Just because its easier to train athletes in hothouses for certain sports so you can try to manufacture success doesn't mean that it is the right way to do it. The heart of the athletic youth in our population is simply not in sports in table tennis or shooting. Try finding me 10 Singaporeans who can understand how shooting is scored, and I don't mean that you find me the school's air rifle team.

Funding for sports in Singapore is often limited, withdrawn the moment athletes fail. But failing is pretty much part and parcel of sport. No athlete wins all the time. But the athletes here are brought up in a culture where they cannot fail, and because of that, they fail. Because if you cannot fail, you cannot learn. I'm not advocating a blank cheque, but I am advocating more faith in local sportsmen. Rather than spend all that money bringing foreigners here, invest a little more in our own, give them that extra money to fail and try again. To try again till one day they succeed and we can truly call the victory our own. Give some more time to build a base of sporting talents, rather than parachuting in foreigners to try and fill the talent gap.

It is possible for small nations to feature at international team competitions like the World Cup. I will give you the example of Uruguay, with a population of 3.2 million, much less than that of Singapore, with a GDP that is nowhere near ours. If they can produce stars like Diego Forlan, and are currently ranked #2, yes I kid you not, they are just behind Spain, and ahead of traditional footballing powerhouses like Germany, Italy and Brazil, why not Singapore? I am arguing for soccer because it is without a doubt the biggest sport here. Just look at how many people follow the BPL.

I hope that within my lifetime, I will see a Singaporean born and bred here win an Olympic medal, or a Singaporean team make it to the World Cup.