Sigh.

Last time, I promise.

http://gt607.wordpress.com/

Running my own web space got old.

Besides, new year, new start (no, I’m not going to start a new blog every year).

¡NINININI!

My God… I can’t believe this video.

It’s hilarious, hilarious, hilarious.

But wait, let me show you another one first, before I show you the one that just cracked me up like mad.

Raúl Albiol meets Puyol in boxing training, gets called an imbecile for not doing anything right, behaves like little girl when the punching bag swings towards him, laughs when asked to look the trainer in the face (Puyol asks the trainer something like “how do you put up with this dumb shit”, I think), holds his composure long enough to give the “battle face” for a Nike ad.

Now for Real Madrid’s Christmas video. (Skipping over the bits with basketball players, except when they are sort of funny. Also skipping over Xabi Alonso, Granero and Drenthe, because I can’t understand them.)

Iker says, Hello. [something something] television, we want to give you… the… oops.

Cristiano laughs like mad while feeling up Kaká.

“¡SÍ NENE SÍ! SÍ nene…”

Benzema’s shirt and jacket. Benzema says no no. Okay. “Zí.”

Marcelo sounds like a little boy. “So? English [something something]“.

Cristiano and Kaká still laughing.

Garay has his arm around Higuaín while he says something I can’t understand.

Two basketball players. One says “Merry Christmas.” The other laughs.

Marcelo says, “Feliz Navidad y feliz an – año nuevo.” Throws his hands up, whimpers like little boy.

Two basketball players. “I start.” No one does.

Garay’s hand on Higuaín’s shoulder. If my eyes and ears aren’t playing tricks on me, I think it’s Higuaín who says, “No niño.”

“SÍ NENE SÍ”

Basketball player. “Y Feliz Navidad-es. No. Otra vez.”

Higuaín holds out finger sagely: “Feliz Na- no, stop, stop.” Garay’s hand still on Higuaín’s shoulder.

Basketball player. “and… [something something] no stop stop stop.”

Garay says something to Higuaín – I think it might be – no, I have no idea. Hand still on Higuaín’s shoulder.

“NI NI NI!”

Higuaín says to the cameraman, however you like it. The cameraman says, however I like it.

Basketball player. “Yes.” then something about Russian. “Russian.”

Higuaín says something too fast for me to understand but it’s something about Garay’s hand on his shoulder.

Jesus… Albiol. 1.9 metres of adorable. And Higuaín, too, both of them. What on earth was that?

Groggy

Uno
I slept 7 hours two nights ago. Woke up – not groggy, but just… you know how sometimes your eyelids just want to drop shut, you can’t help but yawn and stretch all the time, your eyes zone out and it’s hard to make proper eye contact with anyone, it feels impossible to focus? Yes, that. I slept 7 hours! Last night I slept 7 hours too, and woke up the same. Now I’ve been up 18 hours, and obviously I still feel the same. I have, over the last two days, on several bus services – 36, 195 and 518 – simply conked out.

Dos
I am typing out list numbers in Spanish as bold headers because MacJournal automatically converts a newline after “1.” to a list, like Microsoft Word.

Tres
I forgot to take my phone out with me today. Surprisingly enough, I didn’t miss it – I thought I would (I just typed “wood” instead of “would”. I need to sleep. It’s 6 AM. But it’s also Dec 29, and on Dec 31 I’ll probably be up all night anyway, so I might as well?) because I remember times when I’ve done that, forgotten my phone or my watch, and spent the day feeling cut off from civilisation. The only time I thought a phone would have been useful was when I was at a bus stop and wanted to check iris… but it didn’t matter too much. I think I might do this more often, especially if I have no appointments.

Cuatro
I went to the Esplanade, borrowed Casablanca, and went to the bus stop debating between going to Orchard or going to IKEA Alexandra. I could have gone to Tampines, of course, but there’s a shop I passed by once, just once, when Cheryl and I got lost trying to get to IKEA Alexandra, that sells Chrome bags. I’ve been thinking of getting a Chrome messenger bag for a long, long time, but this morning my mum said my fake Crumpler looked very fat and asked if I wanted a real Crumpler, heh, so I said I did want a new bag, but Chrome, not Crumpler. So I thought, hrmm, maybe I should go check that store out, and at least find out how much it is.

Turns out a Mini Metro is $199, and a Citizen is $219, which means I now know what I’m going to spend my ang pow money on. It was cheaper than I expected (my Dually backpack is 1000 cu. inches and cost $230, the Mini Metro is 1250 cu. inches and the Citizen is 1590 cu. inches).

The shop is run by some people who, eh, don’t come across as typical, shall we say – but they seem nice, and the stuff they carry is good, good, good. In particular, I am almost tempted by Alchemy Goods – I very, very, very nearly thought of getting an Ag bag instead of a Chrome one after New Year’s, but two things put me off – according to the FAQ, rubber dust will come off on clothes under extremely hot and humid conditions, and I read a review somewhere that mentioned that the inner tube rubber tore, and when it was finally brought back to Ag it was deemed unrescuable – but the person got a free replacement. I didn’t ask how much the Ag bag cost, but Chrome quotes their Citizen price (I just typed “prize”… for God’s sake (I mistyped that at first too) go to sleep) as US$140 while Ag quotes their bag price as US$168, so – I’m just saying it to make myself feel better about not getting that one bag. I will eventually. (Oh, and their zippers are made from tyre valves.)

Though somehow, the fact that Ag describes one benefit of the rubber material as developing a texture similar to “fine Italian leather” over time – that really tickles me. Heh!

Cinco
I now have a reading light clamped to my bed. I am also now seeing double, for about five seconds there I thought I typed “lightt”. Thanks, IKEA. (The IKEA manual actually says not to clamp it above your bed… to be precise, the picture says not to clamp it on your headboard. So I stuck a plastic muji bookend (yes, like the one I gave some of you for Christmas) on one bedpost and to the wall and clamped it there instead. Now I can read in bed. Hah!

Seis
I don’t know how this happened, but I find now I can no longer work outside. I no longer get any work done when I’m outdoors, it’s simply impossible. It might have something to do with the fact I can’t stand fast food any more, or that when I’m working on short films I feel a constant unease about someone walking by and glancing at things that are not worth reading – what you see that makes it onto the screen, into a book, onto the stage, whatever, is maybe 10% of everything that the writer has tried (not necessarily in execution, but in conception) – if the writer is lucky. The rest is complete and utter nonsense, and I get jittery about writing complete and utter nonsense anywhere someone else can read it before it gets unnonsensified.

Siete
I wanted to say something. What was it? I forgot.

Ocho
Oh, I remember now. I’m surprised I never noticed this before, and after I typed it down (how else do you explain Shovebox). I was clearing out my Shovebox and found this odd note: “diary – diario – daily”. You could probably find this on Wikipedia, but well – one day it occurred to me that “diario”, diary, has “día”, day, as its root word (at least I assume it does). “Diario”, then, sort of means “some daily thing”.

Two nights before Christmas

Hi people, I have your presents. Be warned that they are extremely cheap – a little amateurish, almost – but seeing as I am not a present-giving person they will doubtless be an improvement over the previous few years’ (i.e. nothing).

I think that’s all for now.

A joke for the season

From Sid Lowe’s column:

… Marchena spends his spare time cooking, painting, reading about the Renaissance and tending to his collection of bonsai trees.

I’m not sure which is worst: cooking, painting, reading about the Renaissance or tending to his collection of bonsai trees.

Placeholder

Updating… with news on the Champions League draw.

This is rigged, this is rigged… Stuttgart – Barcelona?

But never mind about that.

Inter vs Chelsea?
Milan vs Man Utd?
Lyon vs Real Madrid?

Really?

In fact, if Juande Ramos hadn’t gotten himself sacked from CSKA, CSKA vs Sevilla would have been very interesting as well.

And didn’t Bayern and Fiorentina play each other in the group stages last season? I don’t know if Hleb can play against Barcelona (since he’s technically still a Barcelona player) but Lehmann has history with Barcelona in the Champions League anyway.

So the only vaguely “uneventful” matchups are Olympiakos – Bordeaux, CSKA vs Sevilla and Porto vs Arsenal.

On the other hand, good to see Bordeaux got an easy draw. That team is growing on me.

Europa League draw is done as well… it surprises me, now that I look at it, how many good teams there are in the Europa League, and how many of these matchups could equally have been in the Champions League. Panathinaikos – Roma: both CL last 16 last season. Atlético – Galatasaray? That is just funny. Ajax vs Juventus (a few seasons ago, that would have been a big, big match). Hamburg vs PSV. Villarreal vs Wolfsburg.

Eh, and of course, Liverpool vs Unirea Urziceni. That is especially funny when you realise Unirea Urziceni was seeded ahead of Liverpool.

=====

This is a quick placeholder post, which I will update at a later time if I’m any good at running a blog, to say that the existence of ergative-absolutive languages makes my head spin.

Seeing as English and Chinese (well, technically) are my first and second languages, grasping the idea of a nominative-accusative language took, oh, only about a couple of years…

I am quite literally clutching my head trying to figure out Basque. No, not Basque, more like some Wikisurfing landed me at Ergative-absolutive language and I knew it was an ergative language, but I had no idea what it meant… until now. Wait, I take that back. I still don’t.

Good night. Uh, good morning.

PVDM

The Spanish version of FML is online. Somehow things are more hilarious here.

http://www.putavidademierda.com/

Today, for months I’ve been trying to lose weight. Finally, I’ve cut my dreadlocks. I’ve lost 1.5 kg. FML

Today, my 16-year old daughter announced to us that she’s pregnant. My husband asked her who the father is. “No idea”, she responded, and then added, “Noooooooo that was a joke… I know who the father is.” FML

Today, and since forever, I am allergic to rice. I’m Chinese. FML

Oh, this is silly…

Today, I attended a class about the difference between private law and public law. When I got home, I realised that I had used “P.L.” as an abbreviation over the six pages of notes. FML

Today, I was talking to my girlfriend on MSN, and her roommate replied, “Sorry, Maria’s at her boyfriend’s house.” I’ve looked several times. She’s not here. FML

Today, the kids decided to make a snowman in the garden. After twenty minutes, they came to look for me to ask for a carrot and two clementines. But they didn’t put them in the places I thought they would. FML

And I think this is my favourite so far:

Today, a child pointed at me and said to his mother, “Look, mom, it’s Zapatero.” FML

Clowns

“Clown!”
“Son of a bitch!”

So Iker goes round the back of his goal and shouts at the Valencia fans who’re jeering him:
“One thing: get some manners! That’s all you have to do: get some manners, you ten year old!”

To which they reply:
“Bitch!” and then, “Clown! Gypsy! Jerk! Go there and tell off the Ultra Sur! Moron! You’ve got no balls! You’re a third-rate pimp!” (I think I got that one right…) “You’re a fucking monkey!”

I think he kept his cool pretty well, all things considered, hey.

If you want to know what he shouts when Higuaín scores, it’s a lot more eloquent: “Fuck! Hell yeah!”

Which reminds me, there’s a book at Times at Marina Square called Uglier Than A Monkey’s Armpit, which is in fact a Spanish insult (más fea que la axila de un mono), and it’s a short compilation of insults in all sorts of languages. Singlish has a single contribution: “eye-power”, and if I remember correctly everyone’s favourite Hokkien insult is not there (though its Mandarin and Cantonese equivalents are, I think). According to the book, in China, 公共汽车 is sometimes used to refer to a slut. That’s quite funny.

Feeling like jelly

It’s 5 AM, but I wanted to say something and I didn’t want to broadcast it all over Facebook, so:

The first draft of my currently unnamed screenplay is done! (My working title for it is “Cheesecake”, even though it has nothing to do with cheese, cake or cheesecake.)

/sense of accomplishment.

It’s pretty set, I probably don’t need to make drastic changes, just adding and cutting some bits. So tomorrow (umm, Dec 15, which is really today) is a day off for me, though I’ll be working on something else, at least as important, instead.

Someone rang the doorbell today, and when I didn’t answer, he knocked on the door rather loudly. I looked out the peephole and it was this slightly crazy-looking person I didn’t recognise, but when he knocked on the door again I decided it couldn’t hurt. Turns out it was UPS Extremely Urgent delivery, and it took some time for it to sink in – NYU sent me another admission package, like they said they would.

It’s so close I can feel it.

Hubert Selby Jr.’s language could probably spawn its own grammar, with verbs conjugating differently based on their indirect object pronouns, like so -

infinitive: to give.
present tense root: giv-
past tense root: gave-
present participle root: givin-
past participle: given-

me: -me
you: -ya
him: -im
her: -er
it: -it
us: -us
you (plural): -yall
them: -em

I give you = I givya
I gave him = I gaveim
I’m giving her = Im giviner
I’ve given you all = Ive givenyall
we’ve given them = weve givenem

Any bored linguist wants to give it a try?It can’t be worse than Turkish.

I seem to have cut the inside of my right shin by accident, I’m not sure how that happened… it’ll be gone by the time I wake up tomorrow (i.e. today).

I haven’t blogged for almost a week, says my MacJournal calendar. Okay. Going to bed. Good morning.

Too busy to post

which is a really good sign.

So, just some quick ones:

uno
I borrowed Kramer vs Kramer from the Esplanade library and I absolutely loved it. I loved it! So I went back and borrowed the screenplay from the Esplanade library and I absolutely hated it.

There are too many possible reasons and factors at play, and in the end people watch films, so no one really cares what the third draft of the screenplay is like as long as the film is good, and I’m not qualified to criticise Robert Benton, but anyway (no screenplay format, too much work for something that’ll be read by about 15 people):

Joanna: Ted, when we got married it was because I was twenty-seven years old and I thought I should get married and… when I had Billy it was because I thought I should have a baby… and I guess all I did was mess up my life and your life and -

Ted: Joanna, what the hell is -

Joanna (urgent): Please… Please don’t stop me. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do…

On Ted – struck by the urgency in her voice.

Joanna: After I left… when I was in California, I began to think, what kind of mother was I that I could walk out on my own child. It got to where I couldn’t tell anybody about Billy – I couldn’t stand that look in their faces when I said that he wasn’t living with me. Finally it seemed like the most important thing in the world to come back here and prove to Billy and to me and to the world how much I loved him… And I did… And I won. Only… it was just another “should.” (she begins to break down) … sitting in that courtroom. Hearing everything you did, everything you went through… something happened. I guess it doesn’t matter how much I love him, or how much you love him. I guess it’s like you said, the only thing that counts is what’s best for Billy. I don’t know, maybe that’s all love is anyway… Ted, I think Billy should stay with you…

Ted (stunned): What?

Joanna (she reaches out, takes his hand): He’s already got one mother, he doesn’t need two… He’s yours… (her last ounce of reserve crumbles) I won’t fight you for him any more. He’s yours…

Ted: Oh, God… Oh, my God…

Joanna: Only can I still see him?

Ted: No more waiting in coffee shops… I promise.

Joanna’s last ounce of reserve crumbles, she begins to sob. Ted puts his arms around her and holds her. They do not kiss. Then after a few moments she steps back.

Joanna (chin high): Okay, I think I’ll go talk to my son now. (wiping her eyes) How do I look?

Ted: Beautiful.

You’ll notice, of course, that Joanna’s “last ounce of reserve crumbles” twice.

I was surprised to see the “How do I look” bit in the screenplay, since I seem to recall from the making-of feature that Meryl Streep didn’t know the cameras were already rolling and her makeup was running, hence the question. But anyway – it’s not a bad section, it’s just so unsubtle and squarely on the nose it looks really, really bad compared to what actually ended up on screen:

What I really like about how it ended up is that – the final monologue in the third draft is still really about Joanna, not Billy. In the film, though, it’s 100% Billy.

I wonder if I’d read the screenplay first I would still have found it so troubling.

dos
I was at Royal Sporting House at Tampines Mall yesterday when someone set off the anti-theft alarm. I turned to look, and it was Charlotte’s mum!

tres
At the Esplanade shop, I saw a shot glass with some metal plating over it in the shape of the Singapore skyline, except Changi Airport was right behind the Esplanade, and connected to the Merlion via cable car.

cuatro
Tom yam feels about as explosive as a nuclear reaction, and even comes with toxic waste.

cinco
I’m a little apprehensive about classical musicians who get the rock star treatment, because I’m always a little afraid that the publicity ratchets up my expectations to a point where they’re impossible to meet.

I found this horrorgem while looking online for a decent rendition of Liebesträume No. 3. I’m not that familiar with most currently active pianists, so I hopped onto Wikipedia and looked up Lang Lang, and it said his Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2 had a poor critical reception, so I listened to it – or rather, I tried to. Twice.

Maksim, on the other hand, is right up there on the apprehension meter for me – he’s about as rock star as classical pianists get – but I have yet to be disappointed by him, ever. Just watch this – so amazing.

Does he somehow remind anyone else of Gigi Buffon?

seis
Some Youtube videos I kept meaning to post:

This is brilliant, brilliant, brilliant; if you are a football fan, do not skip it over just because it’s Girondins Bordeaux (and no one I know really cares about them) – anyway, it’s Chamakh and Gourcuff, who you should know anyway, Bordeaux or not. This is one of the best one-twos you will ever, ever see.

siete

ocho
I can now count to 100 in Spanish. I can probably make 1000, but I’m not too sure.

Speaking of which, mil is Spanish for “thousand”, and -ón is a Spanish augmentative, so millón literally means, well, there’s no real English equivalent (besides “million”) – it sort of means “über-thousand”.

nueve
The film I’m working on is good. It’s going to be good. Some of you are going to be hearing from me soon; I want some feedback when I finish it.