Read at your own risk

I remember, not so long ago, the Chung Ling boys had a gathering in one of the hall canteens. There sat a very senior Chung Ling boy, brimming with success and achievements. That time, he was the only one who showed up and we were thankful that he even came as we deemed this modest place unfit for him. Like many uncles, he had many stories to tell and advices to give. One of the advices that stuck with me most clearly was the one about success. He said that, in the rat race, there is only one bungalow and one Ferrari. We must all try to overtake each other to reach the finish line and take the rewards. Since there is only one reward, the rest will be left with zilch. He also added that, only the selfish and ruthless could become the winner. Should you decide to express kindness and help others, you should do so only after reaching the finish line. What he meant was that it is a winner-takes-all society out there. It’s a dog eat dog world. It’s better to eat the other dogs to survive than being a dead dog. Being so eloquent and convincing in his speech, many resonated to his advice. Frankly, so did I. However, some recent changes of view have led me further and further away from agreement with his advice.

To him, success is a race. There is only one finish line and only one winner at a time. Friends are rivals competing for the same reward and thus should be entrusted as far as a rival. We’re all in the “survivors” television show and one by one we got voted off the island. I don’t mean to say he was wrong. In fact, he painted a picture so real that I find it tragic. “Survivors” wouldn’t be called a reality show if it wasn’t simulating one. He saw and understood the system which the majority of the society adheres to, and he played the game. He played it well, so he came out on top. This game is played very often especially in the animal kingdom, so that the fittest survives. However, evolution has molded a brain for us capable of comprehending that we aren’t just animals. We don’t need to play by the rules. We create our own rules. Humans are “the lord of this world” isn’t because only the fittest survives. It’s because even the less fit is helped to survive. Let’s see how these two different rules climb the evolutionary mountain.

For the first rule, everybody is racing upwards the snow-capped mountain against each other. Everyone carries his own tent, pick axe, rope, matches, food and water supply, torchlight, blanket and navigation guide. Since they hike separately, they’ll have to do everything individually. They’re extremely motivated as the “winner” gets to claim the glory of conquering the mountain as his own. As a result, many will fall out due to fatigue and disappointment as they notice the hurdle is much larger than what they can handle. If a group of climbers decide to band together instead, it changes everything. Now, only one guy needs to carry a moderately larger tent where everyone can sleep in. Cuddling together at night also generates additional warmth which everyone can share. Not so many torch lights are needed as everyone can see the illuminated area. If everyone is roped together, an individual who accidentally fell off a cliff would have his life spared and continue to contribute to the group. Should anyone feel that he can’t go on, the high spirited will provoke the will to persevere. If they were threatened by wild animals, the whole group can just grab their pick axes and torches and make dinner out of it. With that, the whole group will reach the apex share success. This is just one of the many analogies where grouping together isn’t an option, it is a requirement. The question is, why are we straying further away from this group behavior when it comes to achievement and success? Why is it such a utopia that success can be shared?

This is why I chose the mountain climbing over the rat race analogy. If you can get up that mountain by your own, you gain achievement. If you can get up there as a group, you gain achievement and fulfillment, which is what the meaning of life is all about. Tony Robbins once said that success is a science, but fulfillment is an art. We all have the need to grow and feel useful, by contributing to someone else’s life. Perhaps this need is hard-wired into our system, as humans have been living the nomadic life for millions of years. To survive, we need tribes and families. When one is sick or injured, food is provided to him. When one is aged and unable to eat, food is chewed into a cud and provided to him. When one died, the others buried him and mourned the loss. The sedentary lifestyle merely began about ten thousand years ago. By then, aristocrats worked the serfs and farmers to the maximum, but they were still dependent on each other. The prominent rise of individualism is even more recent. The supply chain grew so long that we thought our reliance on each other has been reduced to a bare minimum. Several millennia ago, we need others to survive literally; now, we think that we need others just to survive psychologically. Armed with this egocentric perception, we begin to think that we can do anything on our own.

On the more practical side of things, I like John Wooden’s definition of success best. He said that we shouldn’t compare success with others as each of us should have different yardsticks. Success is about making the best out of what’s available for us. No one is born equal or similar, so we should set our own standards of success. However, the truth is that not many seem to be doing that. We are all more or less influenced by what people achieved and anchor our standards to them. Most of us set our standards too high (as it is seen as an ambitious trait), neglecting the more important things in our lives, such as love, happiness and connectedness. It’s saddening we can no longer enjoy the growth and fulfillment that we are supposed to. All is not lost though, we just need to remember that when measuring success, we need only to look into ourselves and reflect, instead of looking up towards the others. Successful personalities that we encounter should merely be taken as our inspiration, not our target.

(with short narratives)

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With state-of-the-art facilities, you’ll be living in the future. Our residence has one of the most advanced fuzzy logic elevators in the South East Asia region. These techno-marvels will emit an audible (obnoxious) signal so that users are reminded not to hold up the elevators. Additionally, after a generous timeout of 20 seconds, the doors will force themselves shut regardless the situation (especially when someone’s body parts are in the way). Now that’s Artificial Intelligence at its best! Equipped with the latest Early Warning and Emergency Evacuation System (EWEES), you’ll be sure that you have a higher chance of survival should your life be endangered (probability is marginally larger than zero). The well designed and comfortably lit stairwells will ensure that occupants can evacuate the buildings in less than 3 hours, exceeding all national safety standards (in terms of elapsed time). So, relax and do have a cup of tea before you seek refuge. Besides, occupants living in high floors without elevator service can proceed to the nearest floors at most 3 floors away. For eco-friendly residents, we’d like to introduce to you our brand new Gravity-drive Rapid Waste Disposal System (GRaWDiS), garbage never fell so fast before©. With this system installed, users can dispose of their waste at an acceleration approaching 1g (9.81 ms^-2) through ultra-low friction garbage chutes. Besides, the smart chutes can handle up to a disposal rate of 6 m³ per second, now that’s high performance! Children however, are advised to refrain from sliding down the chutes for risk of severe injuries and possible death. Residents also need not worry about paying annual car park fees anymore. With the Centralised Multi-storey Garage (CMuG) just opposite the residence offering thousands of parking lots, users need only to scratch their coupons and place them in visible spots in their vehicles. Paying cash is yesterday©. Wait, there is even more! For those of you who are health conscious, here’s what you’ve all been craving for! Feel the power of our Full Fitness Trainer Plus (FFT+, not to be confused with Fast Fourier Transform) outdoor version. Situated at the heart of the HDB, this wonderful piece of equipment is sure to get the best out of you. Who needs indoor gyms when you can have an outdoor FFT+? Be sure to try them out.

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Interested buyers please fill up and submit Form 65A obtainable from HDB after submitting your CPF contribution Form 134a and IRA tax return Form J52c. Only then will you be able to view the available units and contact our undercover special agents. Please note that there is also a 6 to 9 months waiting period for processing applications. Failed applicants will not be notified and are advised to reapply next year. An additional SGD 125 will be charged for each application, which will be forfeit after a 7-day period. For enquiries and/or complaints, please contact our Customer Service Department at 1-800-WHO-CARES(?). Office hours are from 1500 to 1530 and 1700 to 1715, Wednesdays only.

Sometimes I hear people reminiscing about the good old times, the simplicity of life back then and how bleak our future would be. I for one, beg to differ. We are a generation of spoilt brats! We are born in the right place at the right time. I never experienced prolonged starvation, haven’t firsthandedly witnessed widespread oppression and most of my physical and mental needs are well taken care of. In retrospect, our forefathers were still fighting the Japanese army some 60 years ago. They served the colonial masters, wrestled for their own freedom and inherited a severely exploited wasteland. Come to think about it, what did we really suffer? Rotary telephones? Compared to many parts of the world, we are quite an affluent society and we know that. This is why sometimes we donate a fraction of our excess when we feel like it. We donate to various non-profitable organisations, join activist groups both physically and in the cyber space (a plethora of self-proclaimed activist groups can be found on various popular social networking platforms), we celebrate Earth Day, Earth Hour and whatnot. These minor convictions give us the rights to feel good, knowing that we’ve done our part to make this world a better place. Or, have we? The feel good part is gleefully tangible, but what differences have we made? We never think too much about it because if we do, the feel good factor vanishes.

The world is plagued with a myriad of problems: political conflicts, social unjusts, economic instabilities and the looming threat of a pandemic which could potentially wipe out human kind. This time however, I’d like to draw your attention to the problem that has plagued human kind since the beginning of human civilisation – hunger. In this age of globalisation and information technology, we have many feats under our belt. We can now travel around the world in about a day, we sent men to the moon and we created the internet. However, in view of the tens of thousands of children who die everyday because of hunger, we have failed in epic proportions too. Let’s do some reality check, and what better way to do so than flipping through news articles? Nowadays, we’re bombarded with the status quo of the global financial crisis, the countries affected by swine flu, pirate activities in Gulf of Aden and so on. Do you think the deaths of 16,000 children would make headlines? It wouldn’t, because 16,000 children are dying everyday due to hunger right now. No terrorism act, war or disease can kill so many people so fast. People talk about increasing awareness so that these people can be helped. I believe that this is only partially true. Who doesn’t know about the hunger problem? The problem is: who cares?

Fortunately, some people do care. However, most of them can’t comprehend the gravity of the situation and none of them knows how to solve the problem. That’s right, I can assure you that those people who guaranteed the elimination of hunger and poverty are grossly optimistic and they are prone to wishful thinking. Although Deng Xiaoping came pretty close to doing the impossible by lifting millions out of poverty and starvation through economic reforms, heroes like him are yet to be found. Let’s commit some thinking onto this question: what can we do to help? For those who put their will to help into action, congratulations! You’ve done your part to make this world a better place. This is by no means the remedy to the situation though, it merely alleviates some people’s sufferings. For those who donated, we’ll see where the money goes later. For those who forwarded e-mails of plea and joined online groups to champion the crusade against poverty and hunger, it’s time you started practising some reality-based thinking.

When faced with the hunger problem, most of us are tempted to suggest a highly obvious solution – feed the hungry people! In some impoverished nations, they’re everywhere. What about the elusive urban vagabonds who make a living out of scavenging? Some people or authorities don’t even acknowledge their existence, let alone feeding them. Don’t they deserve some food? Even imprisoned rapists, thieves and serial killers are fed. Aren’t the poor people out there even more justified to be fed? Dying of hunger is a very bad way to go, and no one, not even the worst psychopathic criminal in the world deserves to die this way. Back to the feeding programme, we all know that this is a short-term and unsustainable solution. Besides, humanitarian aids often get hijacked by evil regimes to feed their armies and further assert their influences. To create a more independent society, aids now have self-sustenance as the main objective. People are taught to farm, schools are built to teach living skills and some forms of trade are introduced gradually into the society to break the clinches of poverty and hunger. Nevertheless, these people are still oppressed, as long as the evil regimes and social unjusts remain. These people can farm all they want, but most of their crops will be confiscated by warring factions in the region. Of course, most of our world leaders know this and some of them took the effort to annex several governments. The situation eventually improved, until the other warlords took over the governments and then it’s back to square one. Some nations opt for the more controversial actions, such as trading with these martial governments and investing in their local businesses instead of barging into the countries with guns blazing. According to local sources, these actions actually helped but they’re plagued with ethical issues.

So what can we do? That’s the most compelling question. Politicians, sociologists and economists would suggest many complex solutions to this problem. In the mean time, why don’t we think of that question for a moment? We’re receiving too much information and doing too little thinking for our own good, so we might as well think of how to help people, starting with people around us. We should plant our feet into the ground and think realistically, instead of doing something like toasting for world peace at some social event, which is all for show. As a final word, I would really love to give a blanket assurance saying that the situation will improve and someday we’ll eliminate poverty, hunger and oppression altogether. Politicians are obliged to say something like that, but I’m not. Based on the current situation and historic trend, I don’t expect any radical improvement in the foreseeable future. If you want a practical and immediate solution to the hunger problem, go get yourself something to eat.

This is a guide that’ll boost your Word Challenge score to infinity… and beyond! These steps are by no means exhaustive and may not suit everyone. However, some of these strategies keep the player alive long enough to bust all of his friends’ scores. Anyway, one of my friends asked me, how do you get more than 600k score for Word Challenge? Do you use bots or cheat engines? Come on, you’re insulting my integrity and underestimating my abilities. It just takes a good brain, very fast fingers and some gaming time. There are only three main strategies arranged in order of priority, with several tactics under each one. Strategies are universal while tactics vary according to each person.

Strategy 1: Survive by buying time

Forget about the mouse

Gluing both hands to the keyboard is one of the best ways to reduce time wastage. Use all shortcut keys available to save precious time! By shifting your right hand to the mouse, positioning the cursor, clicking, shifting back your right hand to the keyboard, and positioning your index finger at the alphabet “j” you would’ve already wasted too much time and focus. Also, if you were to use the mouse to enter the letters, you’re only utilizing one finger. By using the keyboard, you’re using eight of them (the two thumbs are used for space bar). Which one is faster?

The four-letter words

Four-letter words are life-savers. They’re short enough to type within two seconds, and they give a time extension of three seconds. Besides, there are usually plenty of four-letter words (compared to five or six, which give time extensions as well). Therefore, if the majority of words you nailed down are four-letters, theoretically you should be able to stay alive forever as the remaining time keeps being increased. Nevertheless we all know that’s not the case as we move on to the next tactic.

Skip the barren lands

If you’ve played enough you would’ve realized that chances are you’ll run into a set of letters where it’s just impossible to make familiar words. This is especially when the letters Scrabble players love come out to screw you (Q,V,J,Z,X). To make matters worse, they might come with very little vocals. In this case, usually there’ll be many three-letter words. My suggestion is to get as many as you can, fill up the “ABC” box and skip that disaster once and for all. These are the bad cases where you won’t score many points and waste a lot of time. This is why mitigation of damage is important, get the hell out of there! It’s best if you can figure out the six-letter word to skip that round instantly.

Time to pullout

Some people like to spend long periods of time on one round. This will net many points, but it’ll kill you. This is because, as you exhaust most of the available words, it’ll take increasingly more time to figure out the remaining words. My advice is to do what smart investors do. Set a limit, and pullout decisively when it’s reached. In other words, I would set let’s say, three seconds for a round. If I’ve spent around three seconds without figuring out a single word then I’ll leave the round for good. This will avoid wasting more time to bag words that couldn’t save me, hence avoiding the gambler’s fallacy.

To switch or not to switch?

Pressing the space bar would randomly rearrange the letters. This might provide the player with a new view and probably a chance to unscramble a few more words. I don’t usually rearrange them unless it’s necessary. Again, this is due to the time factor. While rearranging, letters take time to move from one place to another. Besides, when you’re accustomed to the initial arrangement, you know where the letters are. It takes another few seconds to get accustomed to the new arrangement, which is undesirable. If you’re hoping to rearrange them so that the six-letter words appears ordered in front of you, you’re a person who believes in lottery and you should quit dreaming.

Strategy 2: Score boosting

Round dwelling

Alright, if you’ve managed to stay alive and have time to spare, then it’s time to buckle up and hit the sky. The best way to do so is to dwell on a particular round. Due to the arithmetic progression scoring mode, one has the best chance of accumulating points by entering as many words as possible in a round. Yes, including three-letter words. Although this consumes some precious time, it’s a fairly good trade-off. However, round dwelling should only be done when there’s time to spare and when you’re confident that you can nail down more than 15 words. This tactic should be used with extreme care as greed will consume you!

Bonus rounds as freebies

Never try to memorize all your friends’ names for that is one stupid thing to do unless you’re a recluse and you have less than ten friends. The game actually takes in around dozens of names only and reuse them over and over again. After playing the game for a while, you’ll know who gets repeated often. Besides, never underestimate these bonus rounds. They’re a good place to pick up points, especially if you can identify your friend’s name fast enough.

Vocabulary range

I usually don’t look through the answers when the game is over, unless it’s one of the screw up rounds where there’s very little available words. Note that by playing this game, my vocabulary did not expand, I just manage to make out many words with great speed. I would utilize existing vocabulary to do so, which is much faster than trying to recall some new words I’ve just learnt a few days ago. Also, I usually press enter when I mistyped some short words. Sometimes, it turns out to be a valid word! These accidents are rare, but it allows you to learn new words and saves some time (instead of pressing backspace two to three times, you only press the enter button once). This is doable as the game doesn’t deduct points for incorrect words.

Strategy 3: Stamina training

Bonus rounds as pit stops

After mastering the two strategies above, you should be able to bust most of your friends’ arses. Now it’s time to take the fight to the podium for the first prize. Initially, bonus rounds are used to net easy points. As you get better, you’ll get to play much longer (especially if you’ve mastered how to survive). These bonus rounds become pit stops where you can relax for a while. Once I got over a few hundred thousand points, one game might last up till an hour plus. Constant unscrambling and rapid typing will take their toll on your brain, eyes and fingers. You’ll begin to tire as you feel stressed up all the time. These are chances to look at something else, wriggle your fingers, yawn and whatever… Better take some time off instead of netting those few hundred points (which by now should be peanuts to you).

Consistency and will

Also, some people like to give up when there’s only a few seconds left and call it off. I always take the fight till the end. There’s been numerous occasions when I have only less than 5 seconds left and played on for dozens of rounds more. There’s even some times when I managed to pull myself out of the danger zone to obtain a remaining time of more than 30 seconds afterwards. I noticed that whenever I go into these danger zones and try to survive, my unscrambling speed increases. Besides, most of the time when I make it out of the danger zone, it’ll usually be another high score…

Another less important thing to do is, always remember to taunt your friends when you’ve beaten them! Those who challenged you, and those who say “my friend got 180k,” or “I know someone who got 400k”. I’ve got more than 652,000 reasons to mock them now. LOL.

Recently, there were many events happening around NTU that piqued my interest in reading one of the campus magazines. To my somewhat twisted amusement, I found out that some of the comments given by students in the magazine were nonsensical. We are studying in a freaking tertiary education institute. The cream of the crop and elite thinkers should all congregate in this sanctuary of knowledge. Instead, I find that this is actually embarrassingly overestimated. Students here are no brighter than an average bloke on the street. It’s just that we are more educated. Whether or not they convert education into knowledge and wisdom is an entirely different matter, as the cliché goes, “garbage in, garbage out”. Nevertheless, some lecturers do depart food for thought to their fortunate students. Some students, instead of retaining knowledge, treated the term “food for thought” more literally. They ate it, partially digested it and passed it out as feces. There is no right or wrong answer in an opinion. But the content, usually rich in subjectivity (or occasionally the lack of it) gives a panoramic view of the speaker’s insight (yet again, or the lack of it).

Comment I: “hall spirit will be affected because many of us will be moving out”

The approaching Youth Olympic Games displaced thousands of students. Local students will be evicted while international students who have no business here during the holidays will be “deported”. This is to retro-fit the halls with appropriate facilities so that this will give a long-lasting impression for the foreign athletes. Never has such an exodus occurred before, and many people are still trying to get a place to stay during the holidays. Besides, the increase in student intake will escalate the competition for rooms even further come next semester. Consequently, many people will be forced to stay outside of campus, paying around double rent. This is certainly an option for locals, an undesirable choice for foreign students and a major disaster for financially challenged foreign students. Yet, in an interview with a business student, his comment on student displacements was “hall spirit will be affected because many of us will be moving out”. Hall spirit. People are struggling to allocate their loan reimbursements while facing potentially double rental fees and all the concerns he managed to muster was hall spirit. What an empathic fine young bloke. I reckon he’ll make an excellent candidate for an animal rights activist in Somalia. I really think that is a good idea. That way, he could stop people who are starving from committing cruelty against animals, like slaughtering them for dinner.

As a university student, has he no sense of priority? That is truly pathetic. To most of us here, “hall spirit” is yet another excuse to cause obnoxious commotions whenever and wherever they see fit, usually in my proximity. Ok, maybe I’m quick to jump to conclusions. Maybe he didn’t really mean that. Maybe he said so just to please the editors and administrators as a whole. Well, if that’s the case, then he probably is genuinely empathic. But he’s a sycophant, a moronic suck-up. If we need students to polish apples, the editorial team might as well fabricate interviews. This saves time and resources. Ok, maybe he did air some concerns about the displacements of students and that somehow got censored by the editors. Then he should complain about it and expose the ugly truth. Apparently, it was all peace and quiet. That goes to show that both of them agreed on the topic, and it’s a dog eat dog world out there.

Comment II: “For the benefits of future generations, I would eliminate all the computer games on the face of the earth. Kids should go out and play, get hurt.”

One of the students holding the top position in some sports club said that, “For the benefits of future generations, I would eliminate all the computer games on the face of the earth. Kids should go out and play, get hurt.” Whoa, now this is what I call self-explanatory. He just revealed what he knows about computer games – zilch. Did this guy come to earth recently? Or, did he spend his entire life with some aborigines in a cave? I thought that, being at the top, this guy must belong to the upper echelons of sophists. Apparently, I couldn’t be any further from the truth. He didn’t even have a clue on how his peers are thinking.

Let us look at the role computer games are playing in teenagers’ (and increasingly, adults’ too) lives. Basically, they are past-times. Activities that people engage in just to kill excess time. Teenagers have a penchant for self-destructive activities when it comes to past-times. They’ve always been like this, and they will remain the same in the foreseeable future. Why? Because if it doesn’t hurt, it ain’t the least bit cool. Being obsessed with computer games is slightly different. It’s self-destructive, but it isn’t cool in reality. However, it sure looks damn cool in the virtual world, especially with a badass character with fully upgraded armored suits and weapons that are as large the character. Logic aside, do you really think that eliminating computer games would make these junkies grab a ball and head into the fields; or pick up a good book to read? Only some naïve twat would think “yes”. In reality, they’d just engaged in some other substitute destructive activities like illegal racing, picking fights, smoking, peddling drugs or gangsterism just to name a few. I’d rather all gamers risk being mentally wasted than physically destroyed. If they want to act like mafia dons, let them play MMORPG’s; if they want to fight the police, kill some prostitutes and lay waste on the streets of popular cities, let them have GTA. Let them rule in their virtual worlds as they try to make sense what’s happening around them. Sure, there’ll be complications, but ending up in a counseling room beats ending up in jail, hospital or even the morgue. A couple of Asian teens collapsed and died after playing long hours of computer games and the news got blown all over the media. What about the thousands of teens who died from illegal racings, gang feuds and drug abuse? They no longer report them because people are “desensitized” about these matters that claim more lives. That’s how you use the word, instead of “teenagers nowadays are ‘desensitized’ about violence because of playing too much computer games”. If desensitized people are more predisposed towards violence, then the police should storm every slaughterhouse and arrest every butcher. This way, violent crimes would be a thing in the past. Some people might think that killing human on a screen has much more effect than slaughtering an animal, but that’s absolute crap. A computer game junky kills with a click, he sees blood and hears some scream. On the other hand, a butcher will stick a knife into the heart of a pig, watch the pig die while blood pours all over the place creating a horrific stench, the pig gives its last throes before surrendering to death. Touch, sight, hearing and smell. Who’s more desensitized?

Next, let’s discuss about the feasibility of “eliminating” computer games. First, add two eggs, a hundred grams of butter, some sugar and churn them up using tissue paper. Next, place a metal bracket on the mixture and solder them with a tin-lead alloy. Voila! There you go, a beautiful world without computer games. These instructions sound screwed up, but not nearly as screwed up as the mind of our brilliant commenter. If he really possessed the power to do the impossible, Nvidia would’ve hired assassins to eliminate him, AMD would’ve hired the cleanup crew to remove incriminating evidences and Intel would’ve bought up the whole police force so no one would poke their noses around. These actions will be agreed upon unanimously due to corporate interests and believe me, he won’t be missed. Computer games is an industry, and they catalyze the rapid development of electronic products. Without it, who needs a one-gigabyte graphic card, four gigabytes of RAM and Intel quad processor except for a handful of designers? Major corporations don’t earn their big bucks because of a handful of designers; they got so big because gamers keep playing games that demand increasingly powerful hardware. In other words, computer games drive technology advancements! Don’t kill the goose, just take the golden egg and leave it alone! Besides, if we really want devote our time towards eliminating detrimental industries, why not try illegal drugs, arms trade, human trafficking or sex tourism? These things destroy lives and do not benefit human kind in any way. Shouldn’t those be the target instead?

Comment III: “I’m not conservative, but I can’t stand couples smooching in the public.”

“I’m not conservative, but I can’t stand couples smooching in the public.” If you’re not conservative, who else is? What on earth do you have to do to be conservative then? Wrap up every inch of skin so that none of it gets exposed? If we could rationally define conservatism, it means the act (or way of thinking) of keeping things at their status quo, or making things as they were in the past. Obviously, things are changing. People now have a penchant for public display of affection as compared to, let’s say five years ago. If you oppose the change, you’re a conservative. Why is it so hard to admit that you’re a conservative? It’s because libertarianism is the “in” thing now, as it has always been. Nevertheless, admitting that you’re not conservative (while you are) doesn’t make you a liberal, it only makes a hypocrite out of you. It’s funny to see how many people think that they’re liberal here (yea, like you can protest – with a permit; you can eat chewing gum, but you can’t acquire them legally; you can choose not to insure yourself – as someone already did that for you), when they dare not even speak out against the conservative authorities that have kept them that way – not even in a private conversation. Yes, apparently anyone could be a stool pigeon. Come on, what is this Gestapo crap all about?

Back to the topic, a couple was being caught being a bit “too passionate” with each other in a tutorial room. The photo of them kissing and fondling each other was on the freaking front page of the magazine. Nice job, paparazzi, you really have no respect for other people. To me, those are some conservative folks, they selected a nice and quiet tutorial room to meet up at night, when nobody’s snooping around (except for cockroaches, and paparazzi… ah, what’s the difference). If they’re really so open about it, they could’ve done it in a crowded lecture theatre.

Money, is the one thing that we keep acquiring, spending and can never seem to have enough of. Isn’t it fascinating to know how difficult it is to acquire it and how easy it is to spend it? (I’m arguing from the perspective of the middle class as money seems to be magically attracted to wealthy people) Most of us work our asses off to earn a few honest dollars, but when it comes to spending it, working our asses off is apparently not enough. What do we have to do? Sell our souls to the devil? Even then, he might not be able to give us enough money. Come to think about it, a simple question popped up in my mind, what is money?

Interestingly, money is not unlike a kaleidoscope. If you look at it from different angles, you’ll see different colourful patterns.

To a worker, money is the fruit growing from the tree watered by his own blood, sweat and tears.

To an entrepreneur, money is a bacterium – being able to reproduce itself rapidly under the right conditions.

To a spendthrift, money is football. He runs to it like a madman, only to kick it away when he gets to it for the sake of… well, kicking it.

To a miser, money is some form of collectible, requiring constant protection.

To an economist trained in law, money can be defined with a 129-word sentence that contains 67 jargons.

To a tycoon, money is just a number – one with many digits.

To Billy the goat, money is a bland tasting hybrid of paper, cloth and occasionally polymer.

To a bum, money is philosophy. That’s because he had so little of it he couldn’t find anything less tangible to associate with it.

As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter how you look at it. You can make money your ass wipes and no one can do anything about it. Oh wait, paper notes are actually government properties. Destroying or even defacing them is an offense, but if nobody knows, then nobody cares. In short, we own the idea, but we don’t own the note. Hence, we own a promise which is made by whoever printed that note. Both of them certainly seem independent at this point.However, here’s a catch. If you happen to burn a note, the promise goes up in flames as well. What do you do then? You put in effort (work) to exchange for more promises (earn money). On the other hand, all the government has to do is keep making promises. Here’s a second catch, we live in a world where the promisor determines how many promises to keep. More specifically, money can flood a market and make itself worthless in the process. A dollar note without the value it represents is just paper. In this case, promisees have no say whatsoever. What if someone decides not to keep the promise? The answer is simple, the system will fail.

Let’s see how we can circumvent this problem… buy gold instead? Just like the olden days…

Not bad, it has stable prices, it won’t rot and it’s easily available on the market. The trick here is, gold is always wanted by someone. If this promisor couldn’t keep up his end of the deal, I’ll just look for someone else who could.

Wrong answer.

Massive stockpiling of gold is prohibited. In fact, stockpiling anything that is easily liquidated invariably requires a license. And what is a license? It’s the promisor’s permission! Back to square one.

How about… US dollar? It is always wanted.

Stupidest thing ever. It represents more debt than value, and the world economy is so saturated with it you might as well stockpile sand in Sahara. Unless you have a penchant for ridiculously decorative empty promises, this idea is utterly a no-no.

So, people say that their lives are shackled by money (or rather the lack of it). I say our lives are shackled by the very people who control it. Blame not the smoking gun, blame the freaking gunman!

Speaking of which, leads money to another scene. This time, it stands in the defendant’s cage as it’s being accused of hideous, shocking and despicable crimes. What crimes? All crimes! Money is the root of all evil!… Or, is it? We don’t need another statement like this to make it more important than it already is.

Allow me to illustrate with some tragic events. Let’s say, a girl was being sexually assaulted by a rapist who was a friend of hers. A passerby saw this happening but did nothing. Instead, he chose to walk on by. The girl went home, traumatised, ashamed and disgusted told her father about the incident. The father was filled with blind rage, went to the rapist, and brutally murdered him as revenge. Incidents like this are all too common on the news, but what was the root cause, money? Did the rapist rape the girl for profit? No amount of money could satisfy his savage sadism. Did the passerby ignore them because he could bag a few dollars? Money can’t cure indifference. It is an ailment which people choose to suffer, because they suffer more when helping out others. The principle is: my problem, no matter how small is infinitely more important than yours. Lastly, the father committed murder for his revenge. Certainly some might think that the perpetrator deserved to die, but killing him is ironically immoral as well. So, the question here is, how much could you pay the father to not seek revenge, and just forget about the incident? Or, worse still, forgive the perpetrator? Only a saint would do so, and anyone could imagine the hell that would be for the daughter. Look at Edmond Dantes, Count of Monte Cristo. He had everything, but nothing could replace vengeance. Here we see that material possession is like a fish out of water, being totally powerless.

Nevertheless, money is guilty of one charge. It is the ultimate dream killer, at least in the region where I live. I remember when we’re young, our minds were unadulterated. We were often asked what we want to be in the future. Astronauts, doctors, policemen, firemen, sportsmen, teachers and rocket scientists. Oh, how breathtaking would it be to take a glance of earth from space; how noble would it be to save lives; how glorious would it be to stand on top of the podium in the eyes of the world… We dreamt. Then, we came to learn about acquiring wealth, what money can do (which encompasses almost everything) and “poof!” goes our dreams into thin air. Our dreams now revolve around being an oil tycoon, successful entrepreneur, highly sought-after lawyer, CEO of a conglomerate, stock brokers etc.. We became lost as anything that rakes in huge fortunes become our dreams. Right now, the main purpose of life is to win the rat race. Get ahead of the others with any means necessary, even though it may cost you your family, your friendships, your dreams and occasionally, your life. We all have a price tag on us now, and they show us how much money we can make. We are all valued by that, and not what we have accomplished.

Before you so hastily abandon your dreams, there is one question which remains to be answered. Will you be happier doing the things that you like? Or, the things that brings wealth? Many people think that both of the answers are “yes”, but majority of them are lying. And, people who lie to themselves go nowhere. Those who are honest will belong to the top 10% of the world’s population holding 90% of the world’s wealth.

Certainly, there are means to train someone into thinking that it is everyone’s responsibility to strengthen their financial prowess to take on the capitalist world. In fact, the world is flooded with advices, books, seminars, workshops and courses on that. However, living one’s dream is entirely a different ball game. Let’s shed some light in the sports world. Singapore achieved some stunning results in the recent Olympic game by winning a silver medal, but the player was imported from China years ago. Even the coach was imported. What? We couldn’t find any real talent amidst 4 million Singaporeans? Jamaica has barely 3 million people, and yet they bagged 11 medals, 6 of them gold. They were born to run, some say. I believe that living a dream is much more motivating than the “carrot and stick” strategy, as so many are deeply engrained with. With this, they ran towards the podium faster than everyone. On the other end of the spectrum, China has more than a billion people, and they can’t pick 11 people to play as good as the Brazilians (they could dance Samba while playing and it’s still like shooting fish in a barrel).

Sports aside, what about the other fields? Let us look at science. There used to be an age of thinkers, where the likes of Einstein, Max Planck, Niels Bohr captivated the world with their mind-blowing theories. These people were dreamers. And, they are unfortunately a thing in the past now. The only place dreams are going these days is somewhere six feet under. Dreamers are an endangered species, but they’re worse off than their non-human counterparts. At least, animals get the attention of activists around the world. Dreamers face oblivion, alone and armed with nothing but a ray of hope. A hope so strong that would one day inspire the world and change the way we think.

Some things are better off dead. Unfortunately, some of them possess mind-boggling resilience, that death itself isn’t as certain as taxes. We always think that humans are at the pinnacle of the food chain, the masterpiece of evolution and the lord of this world. Then, Hubris meets Nemesis. They come crawling, swimming and flying into our nightmares; they infest our most private sanctuaries; and a swarm in the air would cast total darkness even at the brightest time of day. Alright, maybe it can never rival one of the biblical plagues, but the cockroach’s presence could certainly invoke extreme disgust. For me, at least.

When I was in Hall 5, a.k.a. Alcatraz, cockroach encounters are daily affairs. They’re part of the hall, and what makes it so special. There are even mating seasons, when all of them will come out at the same time to make you feel like you’re living in a sewer. When they do, the only way not to see one is to close your eyes (and pray that the one near your feet won’t crawl into your shoe). Don’t bother about pest control. You’re fighting a raging forest fire with a fire extinguisher. Eventually, I left the hopelessly infested past behind me and moved into a new hall. A hall which Aeron assured me there’s no encounters of the likes before. Well, for once I was optimistic that there are some regions on this island where periplanetta americana can’t reach. I was right! At least, for several hours. I thought I could evade this all-encompassing creature here, but it only took them several hours to relocate me and launch an assault. At night fall, a mini kamikaze pilot flew into my room making only the slightest of noise. However, my trained, counter-stealth senses are especially sensitive to small, fast moving objects. When I turned my head towards the intruder, I saw that the kamikaze has landed on my property without permission. I got off my seat and prepared to help the kamikaze accomplish its mission – die honorably.  As I was reaching for my katana, I found out that it was missing because someone has borrowed it to chop up a few lecturers. So, I resorted to using my trusty mathematics textbook this time. It killed a few of my friends, so I guess it’ll do the trick. Once I got hold of my murder weapon, the kamikaze gave a vicious strike at the back of my neck, hoping to render me unconscious. However, size does matter and its attempt was futile. It did disgust me a lot though. I swept it away violently and struck the edge of the door in the process. The kamikaze landed on the floor again, dejected that it cannot cause any serious harm. I sympathized this fallen warrior, so I wielded a broom and played golf with it. This is inverse golf though, I do the putts before I gave a final massive swing to drive it far, far away. “Fore!” I yelled.

After the dramatic episode, I kept recalling Aeron telling me that he never saw a cockroach here before. I guess, I should reciprocate by telling him I’ve never been struck by a lightning before either. Nevertheless, days passed and the lightning bolt was no where to be seen. Aeron, although conductive, is still relatively safe from a shocking treat. A little more than a month later, the regiment of horror sent another agent of terror to instill fear. This time, it was a ninja. Before it came, it used its clairvoyance ability to locate me. However, its clairvoyance detection has disrupted my inner psyche and my external energy flow. So, I went to Aeron’s room to restore my balance. As the restoration neared its completion, I exited the room only to find that the ninja was clinging onto the beam, edging towards striking distance. I retreated into a blind corner to prevent it from using shurikens, and it realized that it was being discovered. Left without option, the ninja took into the sky and homed in on my head with blinding speed. Subsequently, I activated my bullet-time warp and dodge the projectile by bending down, albeit in slow motion. It missed me but got caught up with Aeron. I heard a horrifying shriek and quickly exited the room to reach for my neighbor’s halberd. This halberd bears mystical properties, as it is able to stand upright as if some fallen warrior spirits are holding it in place. In the hands of common people (like me), you can only feel the powerful aura seeping into your skin, energizing you. But as I passed the enchanted weapon to Aeron, he became the Shogun! “Enough is enough!” said the Shogun, “Tonight I will rid my palace of this shameless assassins!” The ninja has one more skill up its sleeves though. Using its nin-jitsu skills, it hid into unreachable crevasses, hoping to avoid a deadly confrontation with the Shogun. However, the Shogun swept away all the furniture concealing the ninja in one clean, effortless move. The exposed ninja panicked, knowing that death was imminent. It scurried around the palace to escape the clutch of the Shogun, but to no avail. “Strike thee with such an honorable weapon in mine palace I will not for thou do not deserve it.” said the Shogun. Then he swept the ninja outwards from his palace, lifted his mighty foot and crushed the ninja with his wooden sandals with one big “Clap!” And it was all over. The Shogun relinquishes his sacred weapon and transformed back to Aeron again, while I gingerly return the halberd back to its altar.

In order to deter this flying menace in the future, I’ve ordered three 88mm flak cannons to be installed on the parapet in front of my doorstep. With the state-of-the-art targeting system, it will exterminate all flying intruders with extreme prejudice. Besides, it is programmable to rain searing confetti onto noisemakers in the middle of the night. In the mean time, I’m still wondering what the Shogun would be like when lightning strikes him.

I remembered when I was 13 years old, my high school teacher told us an interesting point about a newspaper. He said, “This newspaper,” as he took out a copy from his briefcase, “contains the most information for the money you paid for it.” It was true, considering the fact that we only paid RM1 for a stack of printed pages. If it were a magazine, it’ll cost around 10 times the price; if it were a book, then it’ll be roughly 3,645 times the price; if you’re using internet… Alright, online newspaper wasn’t the thing back then. We all love our newspapers, we read it while we’re having breakfast, waiting for the bus and while relieving ourselves in the toilet. In the mean time, its mind-boggling, colossal size usually means that you can cover up your face while reading it. Consequently, you can avoid looking at the things you don’t want to see, or you can look at something without being too conspicuous. Also, wait… Cockroach! Kill it! Kill it now!!! (My friend conveniently picks up a newspaper, rolled it up and WHAM!) Enough said, the only good cockroach is a dead cockroach. That’s just another use for this wonderful piece of paper – getting rid of pest; cockroach, ants, mosquitoes, flies and centipedes alike. I’m still waiting to see if anyone had used it on mice. Oh ya, I almost forgot, you get to read news, some attention-deficient writers’ articles, comics and ads. Mostly ads.

Contrary to popular beliefs, the ease of access to unfathomable amounts of information does not make us wiser. It actually serves as an effective tool for the powerful to further darken the minds of dimwits. Have mercy, o great one, tell us not merely what’s happening today, but tell us what we should know! Ah… Finally, some points to ponder. What do we want to know? How many chicks did Ronaldinho banged yesterday night? What’s the nationality of Angelina Jolie’s next adopted child? The never ending list of celebrities who posed nude with Edison? If the answers are all “yes”, then one thing is proved. There is no account for taste. If you are as disgusted as I am about all those saucy, racy, scandalous, hanky-panky hoo-hah, then it is time you looked at newspaper with a new view. Newspaper: the cornerstone of the civilized world, the once undisputed embodiment of vox populi, the speaker of truth… is history as we know it. I believe in change, but this is downright disgraceful to something with such glorious past.
Next question, what should we know? Some conspiracy theories about a politician who blew a model into a million pieces? America’s condemnation on everything it doesn’t like but won’t lay finger on? Or, perhaps, the pope’s peculiar fashion sense? All these spark endless debates which waste precious time and energy. These are also misdirections, the beautiful magician’s assistant. While we’re trying to look at Mona Lisa’s smile, they give us a magnifying glass, pointed at her cleavage. They will give us: the truth, the microscopic truth, and nothing relevant to the whole truth. When will we learn to care about the really important things in this world? Perhaps when it’s written down in history textbooks?
When AIDS ravages humanity, we depend on condoms. What would defend us from this relentless plague which devours the unwary minds? O, enlightenment! I seek for thee!

Anyway, had anyone even consider the term “newspaper” a misnomer? Try something apt like “adpaper”. Nowadays, I spend as much time reading the news as rifling through crappy advertisements. One day, I’d find an article like “Cure for cancer found!” occupying 10% of a page, while the rest are “Lose 10 kilos in 10 days”, “Lowest interest rate in town”, “Carrefour mega sale” and “Talk as long as you like”. Tragic. I’m an understanding person, and I know that there can’t be news without ads, much like a car without fuel. But I certainly like a newspaper which lumps all the ads together and place it at the back. Sorry, sports fans, but people who read from the back ought to be punished.  Things like e-commerce, e-banking, e-learning keeps popping out of nowhere. Not to mention other evil spawns of species like x-pax, x-factor, x-this, x-that, u-mobile, u-toilet, u-dumbass. Duh, there are 26 alphabets in English. There’s also another breed of names trying to be creative by using inappropriate caps like uZap, iRock, iSuck, inEeDtoRelEarnpRimAryScHOolENglish. Not all ads are bad though, there are good ones. They’re just unfortunately rare… The last time I seen one is… Oh heck, I can’t remember. Wait… That’s the point! Good ads entertain you a while and leave you alone; bad ads get stuck in your head. This is especially true with catchy phrases like “I’m lovin’ it” or “Finger lickin’ good”. They try so hard to get air time so that these messages got pumped into our fragile minds. If I’d patent a phrase or a word, I’d take the 4 letter “F” word a.k.a. “one quarter fish, three quarters duck”.  Hollywood’s going to make me filthy, filthy rich.
I personally dislike articles regarding Asian entertainment industry. Wait, maybe I should just drop “…articles regarding…” The reason behind this is that popular Asian celebrities are girls who look like angels and guys who look like girls. Whatever happened to normal? Whatever happened to ballads which aren’t sang like guys hyped up on estrogen? I’d basically skip the whole entertainment section. Here’s why. Hollywood is running out of ideas, so reviewers are writing about stupefying sequels like Spiderman 7, Aliens vs. Predators 5 and the 29th Harry Potter installment. Asian films are growing into Hollywood style despite enthusiastic denials by many big-shots. Here’s what I think, if you have money before movie, effects before story and safety before originality, you’re one of them. It turns out that the most entertaining of all, is the uncanny satire found in comic strips, and the ever frustrating puzzles.

Mamak stalls aren’t vying with each other for strategic locations, nor are they fighting for more customers.  In fact, they co-exist in a peaceful yet competitive atmosphere.  However, it’s the shallow customers who are stirring the storm here.  To illustrate my point further, it’s shallow customers (dummies) vs. mamak stalls.  Not long ago, a mamak vendor was fined tens of thousands of ringgit for allegedly over-pricing a cup of hot Milo (I think is around 50 cents) served to a customer.  What does this tell us?  Firstly, the dummy is really dumb.  More worryingly, the government authorities are also run by dummies like these. 

Let us contemplate, why would the mamak vendor raise his price “unreasonably”?  The answer is simple and straightforward: because he can.  He can charge you whatever price he see fit, but the choice is yours, as you can always choose not to patronise his outlet.  If you’re not so moralistic, you can even spread bad words on it, it’s your right.  So, why on earth would someone order a cup of Milo and complain about the price?  It’s because he thinks that the value of that cup of Milo is not merely enough to compensate for the cost inflicted upon him (in this case, it’s around RM2).  If you don’t like it here, go somewhere else.  If you want really cheap Milo, perhaps you should go home and DIY.  If the last alternative is also too expensive for you, perhaps you should quit Milo and opt for sky juice instead.  In technical terms, if price doesn’t seem right, look for the competitors.  If even that doesn’t solve the problem, look for substitutes.

The main point is that the vendor has the right to set whatever price he sees fit.  He can even charge you RM10 for a lousy cup of Milo, and after you drank it, you’ll still need to pay.  The rule of the game is: will he lose customers?  Most mamak stalls are positioned near residential area to provide convenience and cheap food round the clock (most of them do).  If only a few mamak stalls venture into uncharted territories, we expect very little competition and hence prices are somewhat inelastic.  It’s justifiable for a profit maximising mamak stall to adjust the price for maximum revenue.  Therefore, prices are higher in remote areas.  See?  Logic.  If he were to increase the price “unreasonably”, customers would’ve fleed and the stall wouldn’t be sustainable.  However, if he can still survive or even thrive by raising prices, it means a lot of rational people still find that the prices match their values.  In other words, if prices were altered unnaturally, all we have to do is sit back, relax and let the invisible market force do the job.  Equilibrium will be restored when supplies meet demand.  Then, the economy will be efficient and everybody’s happy.

We can forgive customers for not knowing how the economy works, we can also forgive that they feel cheated and having to vent their frustrations to the authorities.  However, our government agencies obviously haven’t send any of their officers to study introductory economics.  Now this is unforgivable.  I would really like to ask the agencies, do you have the manpower to go around the country “enforcing” the “reasonable” price?  Even if you do, how on earth are you going to set the “reasonable” price?  Get real!  Malaysia is not a socialist state and mamak stalls don’t accept food coupons.  Maybe you can set up highly inefficient, government owned mamak stalls run by the Internal Ministry (For more inefficiency, try the Public Works Ministry.  Watch out for the roof though, it doesn’t perform very well during rainy seasons).  If that’s the case, you can standardise whatever price you want throughout the nation.  You can even come up with a table stating how much roti kosong, roti telur, roti bawang, roti cheese, roti planta, roti tisu, roti helicopter, roti bom, roti hong kong, roti u.s.a. or a murtabak should cost.

On the other hand, Starbucks is selling a cup of coffee at RM10.  Seen anyone complaining?  Should the government sue the capitalist suckers?  In fact, it’s selling faster than you can say fra-pu-cci-no.  It’s all about price and perceived value.  If it matches, it’s a marriage made in heaven.  If perceived value is more than price, you’ll feel better than being in heaven.  Otherwise, it sucks and there’s nothing you can do.  You can’t just sue them (Well, unless you happen to be in Malaysia, now you can actually sue them).  Inevitably, some will argue that it’s the quality that matters.  Let’s see:

We take 2 burgers, one from McD and one from Ramly.  Firstly, let’s consider the all-too-hyped-up prices.  An average burger from McD will cost around RM2.50, while a Ramly burger will be around RM2 (50 cents more for additional cheese or egg).  I can conduct a survey and I can assure you that most of the people will find Ramly with better taste.  Also, looking at the quality, you can see the Malay dude squeezing large portions of lettuce with tonnes of mayonnaise and ketchup, not to mention the slow grill and fresh eggs.  In comparison, what McD gives you is a piece of machined chicken paddie, an overcooked-till-blackened lettuce, a foul-tasting slice of pickle.  Nevertheless, McD has the upper hand just for being McD.

This goes to show that no matter the price, people will still choose what they think is most worthwhile.  Besides, it leads me to think what would happen to our dummie if happens to end up in a private hospital.  “Don’t overcharge me, or I’ll sue you and give you a hefty fine.”  “Sure.”  Said the doctor, “Over your dead body, literally.”

Shao Hong says it looks like an aquarium, Tailou says it looks like a factory, Ah Chai says it looks avant-garde (what the hell?), but I think it looks like Alcatraz.  Of course, my views would be much more accurate as I stayed in Hall 5 for a year now.  Just look at the canteen design.  First, there’s no glass at all.  The doors resemble steel fences, and the furniture is all plastic and steel.  I reckon that they fear us using shattered glass as weapon in case a riot broke out.  Next, there are narrow hallways above the canteen.  These hallways can be used to quickly deploy officers and allow them to fire tear gas or water cannons from up above (talking about strategy). 

In addition, the layout of the blocks is truly dumbfounding.  It’s designed exactly like a correctional facility, with rooms facing each other and a narrow, long, open space at the centre.  Perhaps this feature is built to facilitate head counting or conducting shake downs.  In addition, it’s cleverly located far from any academic complexes or facilities (just like Alcatraz which is located on an island).  Well, at least we get to frequent the mamak stall outside the campus which is relatively near. 

Did I mention about pest?  This place is also known as United States of Mosquitoes, Kingdom of Rats, Federation of Geckos and Cockroach Republic. Even though they prey on each other sometimes, but when humans threaten to eliminate their existence, they unite.  Together they form a formidable alliance, bent on disturbance, promising the two-legged intruders a miserable life.  We do have pest control here, which consists of primitive kerosene fogging.  Although everyone hates to admit this, we’re fighting a losing battle. 

On the other hand, we sometimes do receive some unintentional “fogging” from our friendly neighbours.  We have one from the chocolate factory near Boon Lay and another one down south (which happens annually).  The one which happens annually affects the whole South East Asia region and hazardous to health.  Willy Wonka is responsible for the other one.  It’s not “fogging” exactly as visibility is not affected.  It’s just the smell of chocolate.  Not just any type of chocolate.  The ingenious Mr. Wonka has created such a smell that it’s barely recognisable by some.  Intriguingly, the “missmelled” products include rubber, durian, burnt wood and canned mackerel (that’s me).  So, whenever Mr. Wonka decides to go O.T., we’re in for a really special treat (golden tickets not included).

Nevertheless, it’s still a nice place to stay.  Don’t you think?

Ps.: To emphasize my point, the hall committee named the recent orientation camp "Impri5onment".  The theme?  "Havoc".  How appropriate.