Some thoughts...

... before I disappear for the next four days on the Shooting Home 2004 workshop.


I got my first Amazon shipment today. The box containing the books Neverwhere (Neil Gaiman), Ishmael (Daniel Quinn), Lost in Translation (Nicole Mones) and the NGE: Reborn DVD actually arrived yesterday but since I was out at Yio Chu Kang Stadium for a shoot, I wasn't home to receive it.

Which brings me to gripe numbers one and two:

1. When I got home yesterday at about 4 pm, I found the 'failed delivery' notice jammed in the grilles of the main gate. Of course I was excited about it. So, at 6 pm, just before I was to meet Dan and Sprite, Alvin and Lucinda and the wife for dinner, I took a detour to the Postal Centre near Paya Lebar MRT station.


Now, it's the Postal Centre. Not a mere Post Office. It's supposed to handle all the mail and packages meant for the East of Singapore, and then some. Thankfully there wasn't a line, but when I got to the counter, the guy behind it says, "This came today? Or then we don't have it here yet. It's at the other centre..."

Other centre?

Isn't the point of having ONE. BIG. CENTRE. so that everything gets handled there? Why this nonsense about 'other centres'?

So, obviously I wasn't happy. I just kinda took out my frustrations on two morons who happened to cut across my path while I was still on the warpath. Don't you people hate this as well? You're walking, you're in the groove, you've got rhythm going and then some idiot decides to cut you across your path, force you to slow down or even jump to avoid running into them? That happened to me. So bad luck for them.

The first got the slipper on her left foot ripped off because I stepped onto the part that was flopping about as she walked. It was one of those colourful faux-chic ones (read: Ah Lian) that may or may not have cost her too much. I ignored her cries of outrage as I resumed my pace and got to the MRT station, where I met Moron #2: This one bumped into me, so obviously her radar wasn't working and her vectors were completely off. So I, very loudly and embarrassingly, yelled, "OY!"

And I swear, this must be the week to piss me off while walking around me. Today, when I was at the Orchard MRT Station, some woman bumped me on my left flank, not once, not TWICE, but three times.

??? (OK, I did check my wallet... can't be too careful nowadays.)

The first time should have clued you in that there was an inmovable object in your path. Smart people adjust and move away. This is what the Hokkien would call, "long bia!" (hitting the wall). What's up with that?

2. The second gripe is for Amazon. They sent me the books, they're fine. But the DVD, it just happens to be the second of a two-DVD set of the Director's Cut to the NGE series. Not very helpful there. It means it'll be gathering dust on my shelves until the first of the series arrives and I can watch both in the order that was intended.


The third gripe is from today.

On the MRT, I saw the new-ish ads for the Singapore Red Cross (or if there's a dedicated organisation for blood donations in Singapore, it would be it). Can't say I'm impressed. I'm just wondering what idiot advertising executive and the equally idiotic liaison from the Red Cross signed off their approval on it.

If you haven't seen it, it's the one where two boxers are squaring off in the ring. One's cocky, and probably OUT OF THE WEIGHT CLASS of the other boxer. The other one is dark and really, really huge. So there's Improbability #1. Then the fight begins, the skinnier guy gets a couple of jabs in, he's feeling awfully cocky. Then BAM! The other guy clocks him one under the chin and the follows-up with a haymaker with his left hand. Cocky, skinny man goes down, bleeding from the nose and mouth. And here we have Improbability #2: WHERE THE HELL IS COCKY GUY'S MOUTH GUARD? Then the tagline appears and says, "Why not donate blood where it will be better used?" (or something like that -- by then I was looking at it with a red mist.)

Yes, you want your ad to be funny, maybe even touch a raw nerve or something, but this is a pathetic and meaningless ad. It's full of things that won't occur in real-life (and they aren't advertising a product, which most people would probably not need in real-life, but something that is VERY real and not that frivolous either).

And the tagline? Don't get me started on that. OK, I will. Cocky man? NOT donating blood. That's it. In one fragment of a sentence, the ad just got flushed down the toilet.

Mea-ning-less.

***

Addendum:

So, apparently, last week when my mother and brother were in Genting Highlands for a short break, they had a close encounter of the eerie kind in their hotel room. Now, she's insisting that I wear a charm of some sort if I were to go ahead with my plans to go to Bangkok for the Songkran festival.

Oh well.