Ok ok,

I have met a couple of people in life who have no friends. No “chronic” friends circles that is. And most of them seem very contended and self sufficient. I have always wondered how they manage to occupy the pockets of free time when just need to do something. A good example would be my friend, Tok. He once famously remarked, “It’s ok, i don’t need anything or anyone around, i can be perfect being all alone”.

I dedicate this article to his line.

Its not until a couple of Teh-Gajah on the rocks and mint-apple flavoured Sheesha smoking with these people with no friends, that you realise, they are actually very lonely people, totally inept socially and the only wisdom you can derive from them would be platitudes. Their lives would be filled with single oriented activities like solo movie marathons, a motorbike with one seat, a marathon with one participant and etc.

So to these people here’s a newsflash.

Friends are the DNA of society. They are the basic building blocks of life. If you have a couple of good ones, treasure them like gold. There’s nothing better. Ever look at those social message driven advertisements where they have, “Friends and Family”? Who do they mention first? Your friends help you carry the big weight in life. That big burden we’ve all got called, “What the hell am I doing?”. It’s a fine line to walk i suppose, keeping the good ones and weeding out the not so good ones.

But like all of life’s dual personae, there are certain friends in your life that you don’t really need but who are always your friends and you just have to accept it. You see them even though you don’t really want to see them. You don’t call them, they call you. You don’t call back, they call again. You’re late, they wait. You don’t show up, they’re not upset. You try and stab them, they understand. You poison them, they have an antidote ready. You ask them for 10 bucks they give you 20. They are the unwanted friends. If they are so good, why don’t we all try to be like them? I think the biggest difference between everything else and humans is this. Humans have unwanted friends. Everything else doesn’t.

Recently i tried to be an unwanted friend to someone. I was trying to force likeability i think. Like many of you may know, my brain is a scary being, which has its own personality. It’s a strong supporter of Ronald Regan, on and off screen. It’s crazily frightful and very intelligent. It pulls all the strings to my existence and keeps me on a leash. A tight leash, that often chokes me and puts me on my knees. I think my brain detected i was becoming a unwanted friend and made me write this article to jolt me back to reality.

Well, I’m back here again and not going anywhere for a while.

Cheers.
ps: More on my brain here.

Ok ok,

Cheers.
ps: For those who are counting, the dark existed well before the formation of light.

Ok ok,

It has come to my attention that most people have no good stories. If you ask people to tell their best stories, you get blank stares and then something along the lines of “Well, once I lost my wallet.” or “Kumar is funny at 3 Monkeys, you should go.”

This has long puzzled me because I’m full of stories. How could I have so many, and other people have so few?

A friend recently made the same observation recently. Like me, she has plenty of stories that would make your jaw drop. And she noticed that other people seem to have none. One theory for this apparent discrepancy is that everyone’s life includes plenty of fascinating events but few people organize them in their memories as stories.

I have the same facility for jokes, which are essentially little stories. If I hear a joke once, I own it forever. Usually I’ll remember some seed of the joke – a key word or concept, and I can reproduce the rest of it by understanding how jokes are constructed. Apparently I have a story-oriented brain. That’s why my Chuck Norris joke variants are such a hit with people (I think it’s a hit, they usually laugh).

Now I suppose I owe you a story. Fair enough. I’ll pull one from the bag.

Several years ago, I thought of a patentable idea. It might be my best idea ever. The idea combines electronic calendars, such as Outlook, with advertising. So if, for example, you scheduled on your calendar “organise a dinner party” that information would be sent anonymously to a service where food outlets that do delivery could offer themselves. The vendors – food outlets in this example – wouldn’t know who you are. All they would know is that someone in your postal plans to have a party on a particular date.

Outlets would respond through the system with rates and other information about their service. Most important, they would only respond if they were available to do the work on that day. None of their advertisements would appear on your computer until you clicked to view them. It’s the ultimate form of advertisement: It applies to you specifically, and you don’t need to see it unless you want to.

The system would check your calendar for all sorts of key words, from “holiday” to “painting” to “graduation,” and match them with vendors that might be of interest. And of course you would have to check a box to “publish” your calendar entry. Nothing personal would be sent to the system.

My idea would have been a “process patent,” involving the system that keeps users anonymous and negotiates which vendors get through the filter. I imagined that vendors would pay to be part of the service. Anyway, I hired a patent lawyer, searched to make sure no one already had the patent, and submitted my idea. I looked forward to selling the patent to Microsoft for a billion dollars.

A few days later, I was at a seminar. I made small talk with some guy in attendance because of the awful boredom that seminars really are. Eventually he introduced himself. He also shared his grand schemes when all I said was, “How you doing.” A few sentences into his description, I interrupted him. “Hold on,” I said. “I have to stop you there because the service you’re describing – and you won’t believe this – I just submitted for a patent.”

“What?” he asked.

Somehow, in the most ridiculous coincidence of my entire life, we were both working on the same idea at the same time, and ended up talking about it at a seminar at the International Plaza. When I described my patent application, he confirmed that it was essentially the same idea as his. Sadly for me, his patent application was in the mail a month or so before mine. Talk about your “oh shit” moments.

A few years later, I got my response from the patent office. They found an existing patent, about five years old, that they thought covered my idea. In my view, the existing patent had no resemblance to my idea, and didn’t explain the service that my patent was designed to accommodate. But the existing patent was so broad it could be construed that way. So I didn’t get my patent, and, I assume, neither did the guy I met at the seminar. But knowing him, he probably submitted a new one and got that one.

Cheers.
ps: Life is 10% effort and 90% lucky timing.

Ok ok,

In a few hours, we’ll all be done with 2011. If there’s anything memorable about it, it will be remembered as the year of really disappointing turnout in the political arena and really shoddy quality of service by those in charge. Every single day, you woke up wondering what the hell was going to be next.

While people who live in other geographically challenged locations are contemplating on what flood is going to hit next and spoil the crops, I am wondering which basement car park is going to flood next. If there was nothing in the papers, I usually spend ten minutes mouthing prayers to God.

Today I was browsing through the ST and I can’t help but wonder if ST was actually written and published in an alternate dimension where nothing bad ever happens to Singapore. The Singapore that is written about in the pages of the ST sure as hell don’t seem like the Singapore that I am living in. Their year in review basically contains glowing articles about the wonderful economy, increasing capita and how every Singaporean is lying on a bed filled with money.

Meanwhile in the real world, everyone and their grandmother is struggling to deal with the soaring inflation, decreasing quality of service. Happens when you happen to be living in one of Asia’s most expensive cities. Just about the only people who have something to smile about are the Jedi masters who are employing their cheap mind tricks on us.

The poor transportation and “ponding” issues remain unanswered as they resemble a 400Kg gay gorilla sitting in your living room making lewd gestures at you that no one dares to talk about. It’s there, but the Jedi circle is seemingly oblivious to it. I shudder to think what’s coming in 2012. Remember folks, it is still just year 1 of 5.

I pity those who actually voted in favour of the Jedi counsel. I guess you must be feeling pretty foolish by now. Not only do you have the emotional maturity of goldfish, but you have just damned yourself and your grandmother to eternal damnation. The racial misquote might be forgiven as an oversight but the capability of someone who can make such a mistake must be seriously doubted.

It’s a given of course, prices were all going to jump after the swearing in of the Jedi Council, but not even the smartest and most clairvoyant of us expected this. The dark side of the force seems sweeter for some reason. Whatever official figures they give us, double it and that’s the real figure you get for inflation. Can’t wait to see what 2012 brings to the forsaken red dot.

Some Highlights:
- Casinos causing more suicides and members of law enforcement accepting bribes.
- Increased occurrences of ponding at many areas.
- Shortages for car parks at older estates might cause price hike (Universal Solution to all problems)
- Lack of affordable housing for the every day man.
- Trains going bonkers
- COE pricing that cost more than the Hubble Space telescope
- More Pinoy television serials
- The Jedi council back in power. I sense a great distortion in the force.
- More FTrash

Cheers.
ps: Seriously, it is just going to get worse.