Monday, August 29, 2005 -

Well.......This is probably gonna be one of my last few posts for the forseeable future....National Slavery awaits me ......two years of of waking up at 5.30 am and sleeping at 10.30 am.......truly an insomniac's worst fear come true...hahaha...Anyways.......been making the necessary arrangements...buying stuff,making new plastic specs......and so on..

Two weeks left.Getting used to the idea of my last day on the job as chief of Home security for my house.Not My idea.The Governments orders.National service they call it. I'm polishing my dvd player and getting myself used to the idea of saying goodbye to it.It and the twenty-odd years of sleeping and lazing and eating and Dvd-watching and more sleeping it represents.One loose end I haven't tied up.Nancy Callahan.Age eleven........OOPS.....hahaa.....ok I admit it I ripped off this whole chunk of word's From John Hartigan (Bruce Willis) in the Sin City movie........I also admit that the fact that I remember his dialogue word for word scares even me.......hahaha...go ahead Play the Dvd and match the dialogue....I dare ya!!

So anyhow.....in random but hopefully sequential order.....here's some of the more notable stuff I've done in the past few weeks up to this point.....

8th of August.My Mum's 50th birthday........ah the big five-0......its amazing how I like to think that my mum is in her 30's-40's....has so much time really passed?hahahha.........so on her 50th birthday we had a small gathering for my mum........my parents, My mum's eldest sister,Betsy and third sister,Amy and her husband: uncle Ben (REMEMBER HIM FOLKS??!!.....OOOOOOO....I BET YOU DO!!COS I SURE AS HELL DO!) went to the Swissotel at Clarke Quay for this intercontinental buffet dinner.....

The food was ok...ya know....Abalone,fresh salmon,Cray Fish,Crab,cream cheese cake,Creme brulee and other cheap foodstuff......ya know..the usual....hahahha......and thank the sweet lord that My uncle Ben was behaving himself that night. He only ate and made the necessary birthday well-wishes.No mention of fun topics like virgins.sex.Parents.Parents + Sex(!!!).Abstainence from sex. For that I am Eternally Grateful.....cos I've still been taking cold showers since my last encounter with him to wash away the shame I felt.....he made me feel.......unclean. For More information on that legendary event with My uncle Ben that previously happened, Please feel free to visit my previous blog.....http://apokolips.blogspot.com/.........Read the post untitled "Meet My Uncle Ben".........read dear readers and be thankful that your uncle is not named Benny.....hahaha...

So in addition to the peaceful tranquil dinner we had.....My Mum had a great birthday this year. She got lots of gifts.........An Expensive watch from my dad, a branded leather Bag from my aunty Amy, And a $400 diamond ring from a sterling silver,Crystal bracelet from me...........and for yerr info....she said she liked it alot!!!Yes she did.. and My mum would'nt lie to me.....Ever...............ok besides the time she said she was gonna take me to new zealand, that babies came out from the stomach, that the Thai Transvestite We saw on our cruise was a figment of my imagination, that she was gonna cook sheperd's pie in 1995 and...and....other stuff I can't remember.......other then those hundred odd times....she never lies to me!! Hell in fact my mum likes it so much that she wears it everyday.......haha.....and Nooooooo... I did'nt force her to do it!! Yup the necklace was good.....Worth Starving For.Worth buying for.Worth goin to Perlinis For.Amen...........there I go imitating Marv from Sin City again...hahha.....I just can't control myself!...GOLDIEEEEEEEEEE!!!..hahah

I'm glad she liked it. For a pauper like me that Perlini Necklace cost a whole lot. My allowance is $30 a week (FYI,this amount is roughly equal to what impoverished bangla workers earn in two days) and my old allowance in ploy was $50. So let's just say this necklace cost twice my current allowance and 1/3rd more then my old allowance.........sure it's not too expensive a gift,but I gave my mum the best I could afford.........hahha.....that's all that matters....skipped lunch for two weeks and went to the library to rent comicbooks cos I could'nt buy any comics to get the necklace...my mum asked me when am I gonna get her something wif diamonds.....hopefully by next year I can get her some ring or necklace with microscopic diamond dust with my army pay ......hahah....for the time being I can only afford crystal......but it ain't that bad.......cos If I had not skipped my lunch for two weeks......cubic zarconia would be all I could afford!!....or maybe some skull rings from Far East Plaza.....hahaha......

Also caught Charlie and the Chocolate Factory a week or so after My mum's birthday...........with Liang Jie,Felix,huiling,Wenjun and Ben.... and it was pretty okay.....I loved Tim Burton's very quirky Gothic Style and the haunting Danny Elfman scores in all his movies are always good........so anyway some of the stuff was downright bizarre and quirky but the visual style of the movie was great.......I'm sure that I would love this movie if I was a kid ...or.......an oompa loompa..

I remember loving Roald Dahl's stories when I was in Primary school.....he had a very distinctive and charming style of writing. A giant chocolate factory producing all kinds of candies , complete with its own edible gardens,chcocolate waterfalls,river of chocolate and other stuff is a fantasy only a child could imagine...heck it would be like the Ultimate fantasy for a child of 3-10yrs old.........but somehow Roald Dahl was able to tap into a child-like imagination and come up with a story like this, that is well-loved by kids for decades. I remember the book as being well-liked by Children and charming to even adults............the film was a pretty faithful adaptation and was interesting when combined with Tim Burton's own style....I'll rate it like 6.5 0r 7 out of 10.........oompa loompas are the bomb!!yo!!.....I wonder how they breed though....cos it'll be hell of a sad day if my suspicions that both male and female oompa loompas have the exact same features is true....imagine making out with yourself.......holy moley...

I was mentioning earlier that I have been borrowing comcicbook tpbs from Orchard Library and they have a pretty damn good selection.....read some comics I could have never afford to read like the $150 Green Lantern/Green Arrow Hardcover..............anyway I borrowed this book called "Understanding Comics" by Scott Mcloud and it was a real eye opener............great,great book that explains all the subtleties of the comic form.......even though I've come a long way in my artwork......I still learn new things everyday about this artform ........

I just don't get the bad rep tacked onto comicbooks......many perceive it to be a childish medium, that may be true in the 1930's to 1970's when comics was in its infancy.......but definietly not now,comic nowadays are written,drawn and priced for teenagers and adults......comics don't all feature supeheros......romance,war,supernatural,the occult,sci-fi,autobiographical life stories,crime,horror,humor genres are all available in different comics.........Hollywood is turning to the comics industry for ideas in fact. Constantine, American Splendor and even the oscar nominated Road to Perdition starring Jude Law and Tom hanks don't seem like kiddie stuff do they?Did you know all these adult-oriented films were based straight on comicbooks......in fact the content of the movies were toned down compared to the comicbooks........pick up any constantine comic and compare it with the movie........the movie seems like a sturday morning cartoon compared to the comics......

Comics is probably the most intimate form of entertainment that exists. More so then movies or television or radio because it is the only medium that requires you to fill in the blanks with your own imagination rather then having everything spelt out or shown to you. Like for eample in films, there are plot twists and stuff but everything is shown to you and all the creative choices are already taken by the makers of the film not by you..you watch a film but you don't make any contributions to the film itself.....this is not so with comics where certain panels require the reader themselves to imagine and shape scenes according to their own imaginations with what visual information is provided......yes I know....at these point I'm probably speaking Kryptonian to you.....lemme illustrate what I mean with a simple illustration......

Imagine this two panels on a page,one following another:

Panel 1: This panel features a drawing of a mustached man screaming, sweat dripping from his face and another tall man standing inches behind him with a knife raised high, smiling sinisterly...

Panel 2: This panel features a drawing of the exterior of a apartment building with the sound effects "AAAAAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!" coming out of a window of the apartment building.

If I ask ten people to intrepretate this scene. Ten out of ten will tell me that what happened in the span of this two panels was thatt the mustached man got stabbed or killed by the tall man........why do you say that? It's because you filled in the blanks with your imagination and made your conclusion based on what visual images was given on the page...........The artist did'nt show you a clear drawing of the man actually being stabbed by another man, did he? no...He drew you these two panels and you made your own conclusions based on what information you saw. For all we know the tall man might have tripped and fall and the scream came from him, for all we know the mustached man could have tackled the tall man,who screamed as he fell........it's possible cos nothing is shown visually that contradicts this possibilities.the artist did'nt exactly show what happened,rather he made you an intimate part of the process by letting you make your own creative choice about what happened based on what info he gave you............

Comic panels are static unmoving images,snapshots of certain moments in time arranged in a sequential order....these static images cannot show you every single detail like a tv show or movie can....so instead these static images require active partcipation from the readers , the gutters(the space between panels) between each panel/static image is where the reader can take part and intrepretate what happened from one panel to the next.....Panel 1: A man raising his fists at another man, panel two: an unconscious man on the floor...........take apart this two panels and they are completely unrelated,place them side by side and your mind feels in the blanks and intrepretate it as a man getting knocked out by another man even though no fists was shown being actually thrown......fascinating stuff...

The intimacy of this medium stems from the fact that it makes full use of the readers' imagination and also because comics is an entertianment medium that is so close to us, more attainable than tv or film..........any kid with a crayon,pen or pencil can fold sheets of papers,staple them together,draw, and produce their very own comicbook........you don't need a video camera,high tech equipment or a degree in film school.........you only need common everyday items.....and your imagination......... that's the whole appeal.

So now that the comic lesson is over and all of you are asleep or on the verge of slitting your wrists...let's go on to other stuff............recently I packed my entire room, threw out every single unecessary item that cluttered my room,arranged everything perfectly,categorized my comic tpbs (161 tpbs in my room alone,ranging from $20 - $90 per tpb) in alphabetical order and spent hours upon hours going through all my old stuff i've collected over my decade in the house......

My parents had called the air-con service people down to our house to check our air-con units.......so whenever there is people in the house,my mum makes sure its spick and span.........and so she told me to pack up my room........now my room itself is pretty tidy except for some tpbs and comics placed here and there.......but I decided to completely pack the whole room from top to bottom since I would be going army soon and I wan't my room to be preserved flawlessly.........You know I have what I would like to call A self-adjustment mechanism( Fun fact:International economics term from Poly year two!!)....whereby I know that certain things are not up to standards and I let it be until a certain point in time ,where my own self-adjustment mechanism kicks in and I pull a 360 degree change and completely eradicate each and every detail of the problem ..nothing is spared....hhaha.......like when my sec school maths was bad,some point in time I told myself that enough is enough and locked myself up in my room everyday for 3 months and study my maths until the problem is resolved............so when I am meticulous....I'm REALLY Meticulous....all sorts of interesting and random stuff i uncovered while clearing my room.....

I started by packing my comics in alphabetical order and sorting out my collection of art...........all my drawings from 1995 to 2005....you can imagine the amount of A4 paper drawings I have had ,since I seldom throw whatever stuff I drew in order to make comparisons and just reflect back on my early work......it was as thick as two and a half packs of printer paper (500 sheets per pack)..........10 years of drawings

I said artwork from 1995 to 2003 because I started drawing regularly from 1995......like every kid I had a passing interest in art since I was young.....but I did'nt show any exceptional artistic merits whatsoever....but in 1995, My dad started his bicycle business.......so for the next 6-7 years since 1995, I stayed in the shop 6 days a week....my family weekend outings were completely nil for these period of time........I had to find some ways to kill my boredom since I was at the shop 6 days a week......so I cycled,roller bladed,watched tv and I started to discover drawing..........

My mum would give me an A4 size sheet of paper and I would just spent countless hours doodling away..........It was the first time I started drawing and learning the basics of drawing seriously.....I spent many an afternnoon just drawing for hours upon hours, I studied comicbooks and learned how they were put together and made my own crude mini- comicbooks (A4 paper folded in half).......and I self-taught myself how to draw the human body,muscles,sapceships,animals,faces,human expressions from trial and error.............I still have alot of artwork from that early period.........I cringe when I look at them.....those min-comics were drawn in freaking blue colored ballpoint pen for god's sake!!!...........I had raw enthusiams and energy but I lacked the skill and techniques.....

I got Much,much better in my secondary school days after years of drawing....I changed my drawing tools to more professional stuff cos now I pencilled my art and then inked it instead of drawing straight on the paper with a blue pen..... many of my friends loved my stuff and you could see me passing photocopied and stapled stacks of super hero pin-ups or my own a4 sized comicbooks around the class or drawing free tatoos in marker for my classmates back at my desk........I rememebered one comic I did in partcular: one of my friends in sec school had a crush on this girl from another class......so for the sheer heck of it,I drew this humorous 12 page comicbook complete with fake advertisements.....My friend was buck-tooth so I drew the comic with him as Mighty Mouse going after that girl he liked and it ended quite bizarrely if I remembered.......I think I married them and the story ended with them having a animal hybrid kid who looked like Pikachu from Pokemon(who was damn poupular back then)...yup it was bizarre.........the class loved it and my friend really liked it so I gave him a copy of the comic and I kept another one....I've lost the art to that particular story though...

So By sec 3, My drawing had become pretty professional looking,although some of the tools I used were still not very pro.........I did more reaserch and studied specific artists and their drawing styles and during my sec 3 dec holidays.......I decided to go all out in perfecting my art......I would draw in the still of the night, from 10 pm to 5am the next day and produced a complete page of penciled and inked comic page every day for 20 days until I finished drawing my comic..........It was a great learning experience and by sec 4 I wanted to do my most ambitious project.....My fav comic series was a 70's series called Jack Kirby's New Gods and it was cancelled before the creator could end his story....so I wrote,penciled,inked and lettered my own conclusion to the series......it would have been two parts, each consisting of 25 pages each............the first part was to set up the story and the second part was a 25 page fight of the proheized battle between the hero and his father in a coloseum filled with hundreds of my favorite comic characters and some cameos from my classmates,done in double splash pages for greater impact( double splash page is when a huge drawing is spread across two entire pages)......I managed to finish the first 25 page chapter the second chapter....I finished pencilling 8 pages (4 double splash pages) before i had to stop to concentrate on my o-levels....

I never finished it..........I gave copies of the first part to my friends and some of them still ask me when I'm gonna finish the entire thing till this day...........probably never since My drawing now looks so different from then that the stylistic change would be too jaring to reconcile......I have the complete inked artwork from the first 25 pages and the 8 pencilled pages I never inked....my very first work that I thought looked professional......I was looking through it when I packed my room and I was glad I did'nt ink the 8 pages then......cos my tools were all wrong and I gotta say the artwork still holds up quite well in my very critical eye.............its energetic and spontaneous...

It was an interesting experience looking back at 10 years worth of artwork and doodles and seeing how my drawings have changed over the years........every few years I seem to evolve......since I won't be drawing regularly for the next 2 years...it'll be intriguing to find out how my art will look after that.......currently I'm shifting from my usual hyper-detailed stuff to a more animated and fluid style........who knows wth my stuff will look in the future....

Anyhoo.......I also packed some of my cupboards and dug out all kinds of stuff I had forgotten........man I keep all sort of random stuff or junk that either I don't feel like throwing or stuff that I think may be nostalgic to me in the future.....gifts,photos,cards and other momentoes all stored in my special cupboard........

So here's some of the diverse range of bizarre stuff I realized I've been keeping in my drawer of oddities since I last did a massive repacking 5 years ago.......crazy stuff like Empty red packets from Two chinese New Years ago, dozen of IC photos from 1994 till now, My sec school yearbooks from 1997 to 2000, birthday cards from my parents since 1997 till now, cards from friends, birthday or valentine day's gifts from friends, a box of Straw Berry Flavored Body foam and lotion that I dunno wat to do with, A FERRARI!!.....the size of a matchbox, my badges and Name tag from the Boy's Brigade, CDs containing photos of friends or colleagues or video clips involving certain individuals dancing emabrassingly to Dragoste Tin Tei, my favorite action figure;Darkseid made in 1984 preserved in perfect condition, friendship bands from god knows when and God knows who, TONS of neoprints even though I hate taking neoprints, My very first Pay envelope for my first job I folded neatly( just the envelope....no cash of course!!), old baby pictures, important issues of comics from the 1970's like the first appearance of wolverine, Ra's Al Ghul and Teen Titans issue one, an original black and white photo of the cast of Star wars from 1979, a penguin keychain,some self-made bookmark from friends in the shape of that ice-cream stick thingy the doctor puts in your mouth , a heart shaped cushion, a tiny handmade paper bag with ribbons as handles with hershey kisses wrappers inside it(WTH?!!), christmas cards from friends and my secondary 4 leaving school certificate........

Here's the remarks from my leaving school certificate:

" He is respectful and obedient towards teachers and co-operative among classmates. He always puts on a smile, bringing joy to the class"

Respectful???Obedient?? Bring joy?! What kinda drugs has my Form teacher Mrs Ramu been taking? Wwhat frigging Planet is she from?? That bangla must have eaten too much stale curry!!......I am respectful and obedient towards her?? Hello Ramu!! you should see my spot-on impersonations of you............Puts on a smile?! This one is insane since I dun remember ever smiling since hmmmm.......I was born?Bring Joy to the class??!............I doubt my indian classmates will agree with you there Ramu........since I always left them in tears.......and It sure as hell ain't tears of joy!!

Haiz how I accumulated so much stuff I don't know.....I dun even remember owning some stuff I had or even know who some of the stuff came from............ah well.......no harm keeping some keepsakes.....who knows when I go through those stuff ten years down the road, I may have fond memories from some of them.....hell....when I start feeling nostalgic over the stuff it means I'm really getting old.....hahaha

Well besides Repacking............I also have been living at an accelerated pace for this week....cos I am living on borrowed time!!haha.....Felix told me to enjoy myself as much as I can before NS......so I've been like trying to watch as many movies and read as many trade paper backs as I can every day.........been renting VCDs regulalry from a vcd rental shop at Bukit Panjang Plaza.......or buying some TVB boxed sets...I finished watching loads of movies: Legend Of Zu,Troublesome nights 3 and 4, Alien VS predator, Elf, Daredevil Director's cut,Kung Fu Mahjong, A Karena Lam/Ekin Cheng romantic comedy (She's sooooo Cute!!), Women are from Mars and a 30 episode TVB series called Detective investigation Files IV and other movies I can't remember............plus Me and my accomplice in crime,Huiling just ordered sixty bucks worth of pirated movies.........so I'll be just about done after watching my Seinfeld Season 1 and 2 boxed set....my favorite all-time comedy series EVER...

Also My dad finally installed SCV at home after more then a decade of deciding against it...........so Hopefully I can completely immerse myself in 24 hrs worth of HBO,Star movies and Cartoon Network until my retina's burst........haiz just when I'm about to enter NS, suddenly my home has become so much better.....new air-con, plasma television and SCV...........wow....I'm gonna miss them.........err....my parents I mean......haha....

Speaking about My parents.....they've been behaving a little weird lately.....My dad is getting so techo-savvy nowadays, he reads Stuff magazine religiously,carries the latest PDA/Hp and walks everywhere looking like a bookie with this portable DVD player under his arm that came free from our SCV Subscription........hell when I went for dinner with them lately, I was stunned when i Realized that My dad had Techno cds in his car,he was listening to some crazy English dance remix of Jolin Tsai's 72 bian and grooving to the music......oh lord......

As forMy mum, she is kinda listless and sad looking nowadays especially when she sees young kids playing she looks sad........yup she's gonna miss me....hahaha.........even when My brother went army my mum felt very weird for months......I'm much closer to my mum so she's gonna be even more lonely........suddenly she dun have anyone to nag at,watch tv with,go for lunch with or to accompany her to bukit panjang central..........it'll be difficult for her to adjust.........plus recently she has had some serious back problems where she was in complete pain for an entire week ,unable to lift stuff or even walk properly....luckily she's recovered......haiz....i'm going NS and my brother is always home late or sometimes not all all....so my folks are gonna be a little lonely for the time being..........they're already making plans to go overseas and take up courses to help them pass time.......well they have to adapt to changes and so will I..........in the mean time before I go in, I'll try to spend as much time with them as possible.......

Well that's about it for this post..............two more weeks....excited yet kinda sian at the same time........hahhahha.... hopefully I'll be able to squueeze in one last post before My date of enlistment........in the mean time all the junk from this post will keep you occupied for at least a week.....hahha.....September 10th me hearties.....The countdown begins.....

8:06 AM


Friday, August 05, 2005 -




"Goldie.Worth dying for.Worth killing For.Worth going to hell for.Amen" - Marv from Sin City


I'm Back with another HUGE post chock full of updates,recollections and random crap.......recently I was inspired by a post from one of the messageboards I frequent to think back and try to remember some of my oldest childhood fears.....so a small chunk of this post will be dedicated to a new,one-time feature of my blog :my personal lists of weird,bizarre characters that used to scare the crap outta me when I was young.....all this plus the usual updates,reviews,thoughts and other junk I can fit into this blog....
Now....last week I finally met up with my old sec school buddies Zul and Taufiq (not Batisah)...hahha.....and Caught my favorite Comicbook movie of the year on the Big Screen.......Sin City.....
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The thing that bugs me about Singapore's censorship board is that although now the board is super-lenient compared to the past where they would NEVER release a film like Sin City or cut it up so much that there won't be anything left.........they still do dumb stuff to more racy,edgy and controversial films like Sin City.......first they slapped an R-21 rating on the movie and then they release the film three whole months after it was released in the US so all the hype is gone and the film will open quietly and die a slow death.........haiz......the R-21 ratings would have made it damn near impossible for me to buy the tickets to the film myself....but lucky thing all my sec school friends are 21 already...hahhahaa
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anyways....I know I already seen this flick....but I watched it in a low-resolution,pixelated bootleg I downloaded off the net...so I've been waiting some time to catch this flick on the big screen.....and I gotta say watching the movie in a theatre with other people was a totally different experience....the film looks a million times better on the big screen.....all the CGI backgrounds look so damn clear and vivid and the characters' internal narration sounded so damn good with Dolby surround........especially Marv's low,deep,gravelly voice booming from the sound systems........hahaha.....excellent stuff....
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This film was done exactly like Sky Captain where every damn thing is completely CGI......all the dark alleys,the cars,the farms,the dinosaur statues,even the wolf in the movie were completely CGI....the actors basically worked with green screens for the whole movie......and the most amazing thing is......although many of the actors had scenes together in the movie....they never in met each other in reality.......so if you see Jessica Alba's character interacting with Mickey Rourke's character Marv or you see Mickey Rourke killing the cardinal with his bare hands......all of those scenes were added to each other in post production...Jessica Alba filmed her scenes...Mickey Rourke filmed his scenes and they just edited both of them together......and you'll never know cos the editing is smooth and flawless...
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Anyway I absolutely loved the film.....hahaha......so damn faithful to the comicbooks ....hahaha.... it warmed my heart to see Frank Miller's sin city comicbooks translated literally panel for panel on the big screen........the director just cut up the comicbooks and used them for storyboards and he kept all the dialogue in the comics.....word for word......pick up any of the stories featured in the movie in the comicbook form and you'll see what I mean....... and he even Made Sin City's writer/artist Frank Miller the co-director of the film (since he said" miller had already directed this stories perfectly in his comicbooks).....hell Frank Miller even got a cameo as the priest in the confesssional who got shot in the head by Marv........
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To my surprise though.....the audience loved the movie too.....my two friends thought that the movie was great.....cos they got like 3 movies for the price for one and they loved the violence......and surprisingly the women at the back of my row were clapping...laughing and really enjoying themselves too........hell.. the whole theatre burst out in laughter when after Marv got strapped in the electric chair and got electrocuted ...he looked at the guards and said "Is that the best you can do...you pansies?!" and puked out a mouthful of blood...hahhaha....
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Damn... I could go on about Frank Miller all day ....cos he's my favorite all-time writer/artist and biggest artistic influence EVER........but i Won't!!!.......his chiaroscuro styled artwork in sin city is gorgeous......he makes everything look like Photo negatives.....here are some examples of his artwork....sexy,sensual and graphically stunning.....
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Alright now that the obligatory comic-booky stuff in this post is outta way......we can get down to other important topics.......two surprising and kinda bizarre things happened to me recently.......kinda shocked by both actually...I'll talk about one first and another one at a later part of the post....

First of all.......I got up tuesday morning last week and read a new sms on my phone.......it was from one of my Primary school classmates.....she smsed me to inform me that My Primary 6 form teacher Mrs Raja,who was in her seventies had died from cancer in June.....

Now Mr Raja Singham( which literally translated to "Lion King" in english) was my form teacher and the fiercest and most widely feared teacher in the whole of Bukit Panjang primary school.......seriously........I seen my classmates literally jump for joy and dance in the corridors when she was on sick leave.....now...she was a large woman,(not fat ....just very well-built and solid) who practiced the use of excessive force on any students who disobeyed her....haahah.....not that she was bad mind you....she just had one goal in mind when teaching: she has never had anything less then 100% passing rate for all the primary 6 form classes she tutored,in all her 40 years of teaching and she did'nt want her record broken......and she always told us.....that she will be strict and fierce throughout the term but once the PSLE is over we can start having all the fun we want............yup this was one lady who believed that discipline and tough love was what students needed to succeed ....not praises and pleasant comments and crap...

Now personally..........I was a pretty good student back then,did all my work,brought all my books....but even I felt her wrath on many occasions throughout my time in primary 6.......hahaha.....I still remember this one incident during one of my compulsary mathematics suplementary lessons........everyone who has had wrong answers in their maths workbook had to do their corrections and line up to show her the corrections one by one.......

so I was one of the last few......and I stood in line in complete and utter fear.......as I watched many who came before me get slapped,pounded on their back, had their maths workbook thrown on the floor,etc........I even remembered what happened to my classmate Najip,who was the biggest guy in class(weighing like 80kg).....he did some stuff wrong and Mrs Raja grabbed him by his uniform,shook him vigorously and shoved him onto the wall behind her............I distinctly remembered that I was amazed that a woman in her late 60's could shove a 80kg guy off his feet in one sweeping motion....I also vaguely recall the sound of warm piss trickling down my pants.....hahahhaha.......when it was my turn...i placed my maths workbook in front of her,stood to the side and kept damn quiet........anyway my work was quite messy(she made us re-do our corrections over and over again if we still got them wrong) and i saw her looking around the page to find my latest corrections.......so being the kind soul I am.....I pointed it out to her.........and next thing I knew.......she gave me one tight slap and shouted:" DO YOU THINK I'M BLIND??!".............and I just stood there comepletely frozen and speechless....hahhaha.....damn was that traumatizing.....hahaha

A lot of people hated her in class....but I did'nt.........she wasn't my favorite teacher by any means but her methods however tough they were... worked......everyone passed their PSLE in my class.....and at the end of the day that's all that counts......I also remember she was really really nice during the weeks after my PSLE.......personally I like to remember people for all the good things they've done rather then the bad things........because it's pointless to just focus on the negative while ignoring the positive.........Mrs Raja was an influential figure in my primary school life and one of the more memorable teachers I've met........so I would like to offer my sincerest condolences to her family and just ay RIP Mrs Raja Singham........

Alright!!! Now lets get on with the SPOOKY part of the post...........let's talk about childhood fears,crazed clowns,sentient dolls and other eerie things that go bump in the night.........

Now ever since I was young ....I've been exposed to horror movies,ghost stories and stuff like that..........my mum was a big fan of horror movies and stories and at a very young age.......she had already introduced me to the more sophisticated and classic horror movies like "Psycho" with Norman Bates and "The Exorcist"......I could watch any horror films I wanted if I did so under her guidance and promised her that I would'nt get too afraid and start letting my imagination run wild......

So by the time I was in primary 3 or 4.....seeing stuff like Freddy Krueger (A Nightmare on Elm street) ,Jason Vorhees (Friday the 13th),Micheal Myers( Halloween), Jeff Goldblum's the fly, The Exorcist, Stephen King's Carrie, Stephen King's Pet cemetery and stuff like that did'nt scare me at all........I watched them a dozen times and they went from mildly frightening to becoming mildly amusing with each viewing or sequel that floowed them......

It's even worse nowadays......the english horror films today are a joke........someone tell the people at Hollywood that CGI blood,violence,corpse and monsters are not even the least bit scary....cos everything is so damn fake-looking..........I think the korean and Japanese horror films are much better then the American ones this days.........I seriously wanna watch a solid horror movie that can frighten or disturb me for a while......it's been a long time since I sene one like that........it's no use ....recently I 've watched some of the new American and Hong Kong horror movies at home, at 2-3 am,with just one single light source turned on..........but it just ain't working......just dun have that weird,scary and exhilirating feeling that makes you afraid to go and pee in the middle of the night in fear that something will appear in the reflection of the mirror or some monstrous hand will pull your ass down while your on the toiletbowl....hahhaha

But back then when I was like in Kindergarten or primary 1-2........there used to be some characters that really disturbed me......frightened me......and they're the kinda things that you can easily see around you in your normal day life but twisted into something indrediby dark and taken to a horrific degree.......and I dug deep into the recesses of my memory to recollect who this charcters were....so without further ado here is a small list of the only characters that I was Ever scared of........


1.) The Clown Pennywise from Stephen King's IT....

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Now that is one Muthaf*cking scary ass Clown...........Pennywise Appeared in a two part TV movie adapting Stephen King's book "IT"......and he was actually a demon who preyed on young children in the guise of a clown.........the clown was some sort of flesh suit tha contained his normal form I think..

So anyways he goes around this town killing kids and then there was this small group of kids who banded together......went into Pennywise's sewer hideout and managed to take him down (If I remembered correctly...Pennywise's one weakness was to metal) and then decades later......when all this children are now middle-aged adults........they start dying one by one......and they slowly find out that pennywise is back and out for revenge against all of them...

I still remembered the opening scene of this movie......it is literally burned in my head.......hahahah......the movie begins at this small town....the kind with nice picket fences and clothesline hanging all over the backyard.........and with small girls skipping (a horror movie cliche) and kids running around playing......then as the camera pans to the backyard...we catch a brief glimpse of this clown-like figure partially obscured by the clothes on the clothes line that's blowing in the wind.......and a second later...he's gone........in the next scene...I can't specifically remember......there's this kid playing ball or something and the ball rolls near the gutter of the pavement.........so the kid bends over to pick the ball and he sees Pennywise eye-shadow covered eyes staring back from him from inside the gutter........the clown talks to the kid briefly and the next moment....he pulls this kid down the sewers throuh that tiny-ass gutter in the pavement..........that's some scary shit when Your 6-7 years old......hahhaha

I never ever understood who the hell thought that clowns would appeal to kids.....does middle-aged men in white make-up,eyeshadow and lipstick,fake hair and frilly costumes seem like the sort of thing that will appeal to a kid?...hahaha...I really hated clowns back then....pasty-faced weirdos...hahaha

2.) Chucky from Child's Play

Ok,Ok.......I know......Chucky is one big Joke right now.......he hasn't been scary since like Child's play 3 and the last two sequels "The Bride of Chucky' and "seed of Chucky"....he's a shadow of his former self and nowadays you'll laugh at him rather then get frightened by him.......but back then he was one scary-ass doll......




This Image above? That was the first time I ever saw Chucky.......I still remembered I was in Kinderaten......and I went to visit my grandmother in Bukit Merah......and there was this video rental shop across my Grand Mother's block......after visting, me and my parents took the lift down......and then this Malay guy came into the lift.......he was clutching a video tape of Child's Play 1 featuring that exact same image above on his chest...........and for the duration of the trip in the lift...I could'nt take my eyes off that picture.......it was one of the scariest thing I ever seen at that point......where they made an innocent,common play-thing for children like a doll into something so damn scary-looking.....

The image stuck with me for a pretty long time.......until I finally watched Child's play one.....I recall being scared,yet excited as I watched that flick for the first time....it was good,scary an entertaining......the next two sequels were'nt as good but actually chucky was still one scary sonnuvab*tch.........then "Brice of chucky" and "seed of Chunky" came out and the whole franchise went to hell........Chucky became a parody of himself.....nothing scary at all...

I recently watched "Seed of chucky" and its not a horror movie now.....its a freaking comedy!! Watched it at 3am...and laughed throughout the movie....at how dumb it was....Chucky and tiffany had a kid........this kid looks like Gollum in an orange wig,has an english accent ,thinks he's japanese cos he has a "Made in Japan" word stamped on his wrist....and he has sexual identity problem since he did'nt know he was a guy or a girl cos he's a doll and they ain't make private parts for dolls........oh and he hates killing!!...in the end he embraces his destiny as a killer doll and burns this woman while dressed as a blonde woman........oh and in the end he kicks Chucky's ass Bruce Lee-style with some generic ,Huang Fei Hong music playing the the background......many of my brain-cells died watching this flick...

The producers don't get it lar.....Chucky is scarier when he looks like a normal doll we can see off the shelves of Toy's R us.....they tried to make him scarier by giving him bulging eyes and titching up his face and instead it loses that psychological element that is scary......cos you can't see ugly dolls like the current chucky being sold to kids.....but when you see a normal looking doll like the chucky in the first few movies that you can identify with.......and to see this harmless play-thing that all little girls have ..perverted into a pyshotic killing machine controlled by the soul of a murderer cum satanist...that's scary..........the small pitter-patter of little feet as chucky runs around the room......slashing people's knee caps or suddenly coming to life without batteries in him and biting a woman's ear......that's what I'm talking about!!

Haiz....so sad that my favorite killer doll is such a wuss nowadays.......I even used to have nightmares about Chucky coming after me and my family once a year...from k2 to primary 2 I believe......on those days I awoke from this dreams, I was always on my best behaviour cos I was so thankful that Chucky did'nt get me....hahaha......now those days are long gone....strange...cos now my dreams seem to involve only Japanese nurse and strippers....

3) Dolly Dearest

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Dolly Dearest is the last horror movie I've seen that really scared me........it's about this family who bought over this doll-making factory and this land that the factory is built on is inhabited by an evil prsence cos the bones of satan were buried in that piece of land......and a whole factory of dolls come alive and start going on an all-you-can-kill buffet ....basically if you thought chucky was bad.......this movie is like Chucky x 100!!

Haiz...watched this when I was primary 2.........saw some advertisements for the film and was looking forward to it.......but my mum was damn sleepy and tired for that day....so she went to sleep first and she asked me if I dared and wanted to watch the film by myself.....I said "Yes".......me and my dumb mouth.....

After the film finished at 12am.......I sat there stoned....walked into my room......and basically lay on my bed for hours having what I would describe as a fever dream.....where you're not really sleeping but sorta having hallucinations of killer dolls coming after you....after lying on my bed hallucinating and in cold sweat...I got up from my bed at 4 am I remebered ...walked into my parent's room and told my mum I was sick...hahhaha.......had a high fever for the next day and my mum did'nt let me watch any horror films for months after that...

I can't remember much of this movie...only that it was damn scary at the time........I think that high fever killed some of my brain cells that night and surpressed many lingering memories of the flick.......but I could remeber this scene where the caretaker of the doll factory was alone in the factory and he starts trying to be funny...he tosses his house keys to one of the finished dolls on the work bench and says"You know...maybe after this...you and I could have some fun back at my room".........he goes on to pick up his keys and the next thing he knows...the dolls stabs him and starts darting around the place.....then the whole factory full of dolls come alive and basically rip him aprt....they stab him...they sewed his flesh with the sewing machine.....and other things that I have surpressed in my mind..hahah

I really want to watch IT and Dolly dearest again.....to see if they're still as scary as I remebered...haha...would be fun......back then clowns and dolls seemed so damn freaky.......nowadays though,like me...my fears are more practical.......fear of failing exams, fear of the unknown as to what the future holds,fear of ending up as a brain-dead corporate wage slave for the next 3 decades of my life......hahah.......being afraid of killer clowns and dolls seem soooooo much better comparing to the kinda fears that I have nowadays.........cos the fears now are so much closer to reality and thus much,much scarier......

Anyways you know earlier on,in this post...I mentioned that there were two bizarre things that happened and one of them was the Passing of my prmary 6 teacher.......the other was that I just found out last sunday that my sec school friend Sulaiman got married.....A Shotgun marriage......as it were...

Haiz.....we had a gathering last sunday and there were like 8 of us and I think all of us unanomously agreed that if there as one person among us that was crazy enough to do something crazy like that........it would be Sulaiman....

Now Sulaiman is one of those infamously memorable friends in you life that you can never forget.....cos of the crazy-ass stuff he has done......probably the crudest and funniest person I ever met....the only person to make me laugh out loud on a regular basis back then.....you know nowadays I'm so much more mellow and toned down then back in my secondary school days.......nowadays my jokes and stuff are like only M-18 at most while back then they were edgier,cruder,spontaneous M-21 or R stuff....but even back then my brand of humor could'nt hold a candle to the kinda crazy,over-the-top stuff Sulaiman used to do...seriously .....he is the MASTER of crude humor....

There were like 30 over guys in my sec 3 /4 class back then...Everyone had a niche or specific brand of humor they were good at....some were good at making fun of teachers, some did great physical comedy, one guy who watched too many Jean Claude Van damme flicks used to do hilarious impressions of Animal-styled Kung Fu (he would do snake-style kungfu on monday...monkey-style on tuesday, tiger-style on wed...so on)....

For me? My speciality was Impersonations and rascist jokes....I used to do this spontaneous stand-up impersonations of my principal and teachers.....a group of 10-15 guys will be sitting around me.....and I'll start coming up wif this spontaneous on-the spot parodies involving me doing 2-3 different voices of different teachers having a bizarre conversation (kinda like Who's line is it?) and I'm proud to say....I told the best Indian Jokes BAR none.......seriously I have a degree in Rascist jokes specializng in the mocking of indians back then.....

but like I said.....all of it was done in good fun...for entertainment purposes only.....nothing hurtful...some of best friends back then were indians...we did everything together...eat,study,play.......truant....hahahah.....but you know I really love indians now........heonestly...I mean they are so important to Singapore......without them who will be there to clear our rubbish,scrub our toilets,collect our dirty dishes,work in construction sites for minimum wage?....yup they're a unique bunch......do you know how much money they save the army in Camouflage cream alone? My goodness......all they have to do is take off all their clothes during night missions and they're completely invisible to the naked eye...hell they'll make perfect soldiers.......cos no way is the enemy gonna see them in the night without the help of infra-red goggles or heat detectors........freaking ninjas I tell ya!!!...oh...and their sweet coconut oil-flavored scents...oooh dun get me started!!.......hahaha...sorry old habits die hard...

So anyway......despite all the crap....me and the other guys always knew when to joke and what was appropriate.......we could be serious when we wanted to, we made sure that we don't make fun of anybody's personal stuff, we did'nt do anything that was in bad taste,nasty or just plain mean to anyone.......we knew when to stop or when to go futher with a joke.....usually when we disturb people we don't laugh AT them rather we get them to laugh WITH us....but Sulaiman was on an entire level above us...hahahha.......he specialized in Over-the-top crazy stunts, crude and sometimes more tastless humor...no one was safe from his mockery.....his friends,his sis,his own mum....hahhahah.......truly a classic charcter...

Seriously some of the stuff he's done is so crude yet twistedly funny that I still remember them vividly......off the top of my head...here's a small list of crazy and (possibly distasteful)stuff he's pulled back in our sec school days......in no particular order

1.) There was once.........sulaiman came into the class.....tearing up.........his eyes were red...and he went over to his desk and he just laid down on his desk sobbing.......

Some some of us went over and asked him what had happened.

He replied" My Mum.........she has cancer....the doctor says she has only two weeks left to live"

Then he continued sobbing and the rest of us gave the usual comforting speeches.....a few weeks later, he informed us that his mum had passed away......flashforward months later to Hari Raya......and he invited us all to his house.....

When we went to his house....we saw this lady cooking Mee siam in the kitchen and I asked Sulaiman:"Who's that?".....he said"Oh...It's my mum."........then all of us looked at him,stunned and I said "I thought your mum had cancer?"....

He looked at all of us and burst out laughing:"Wah Lau....You all believe Ar?!BWAHAHHAHA!!

Damn man...only he would do this kinda stuff.........using his own mum as the punch line of his prank on the class...haha.......unbelievable....

2.) Some of my classmates had printed out an A4 sized "I'M AN ASS" Sign and started pasting them on the backs of fellow clasmates......so after school Sulaiman and a few of us were just playing around with the sign right outside the principal's office.....there was this super geeky sec 1 kid that walked pass us and Sulaiman took the sign and pasted it on his back...

The Boy took off the sign from his back...looked at it and headed straight to the Principal's office.......

Sulaiman ran after him......went straight into the principal office and he was pulling the sign away from the kid.......and from outside the office all of us could see him.....it was damn bizarrely funny....he was in the principla office grabbing the boy by the collar and shouting:"Kanina you wanna give it back or not?!"......and he struggled with the boy until the sign was torn into pieces....

Then the indian cleaner lady who was inside the office shouted at them:" AYE HELLO......THIS IS THE PRINCIPAL OFFICE FOR GOD'S SAKE LAR DEH!!".....and all of us burst out laughing.....hahahhaha...he would have been dead if the principal or even the freaking vie-principal was in the office...

3.) It was Teacher's day and there was a concert for all students.........singing,skits,dances the usual........so my class,4E3 sat right at the front of the stage........and there was this particular performnce on stage...

It was a chinese dance performance...with the female dancers......twirling this sticks with long ribbons on them.....throwing them up and catching them and other stuff..........so Sulaiman was wight in front of the stage.......there was this female dancer that was right in front of his view...he waited for the part where they thre the sticks high up in the air and at the moment he shouted loudly...."OI CHIO BU!!"

The girl was distracted and turned and she could'nt catch the stick in time...so it fell on the stage floor...and sulaiman and the whole hall of students burst out laughing at her......hahha

yup.....and here you thought I was mean......HAH!

4.) Sulaiman had been absent the day before and when he came back to school the following day, my form teacher, Mrs Ramu called him to her desk demanded a reason...he said he was sick....so she asked him to produce a letter from his parents or an MC to her ....

He walked straight to the back of the class where I was sitting.....sat beside me......and he began digging in the waste paper basket behind me........he took out this crumpled piece of foolscap paper....and spread it out on the table......one side of the foolscap even had stuff written on it!....he borrowed a pen from me and wrote "Dear Mrs Ramu....My son was sick yesterday and cannot attend school" and he passed me the letter and said"Aye Barry.......sign for me as my father.".........at the stage I burst out laughing at the sheer craziness of what he was doing....

After I signed he took that crumpled piece of Foolscap ,walked to the front of the class and handed it to Mrs Ramu, telling her that it was a letter from his parents.....she took one look at the damn foolscap crushed it and shouted at him:"YOU THINK I'M SOME KIND OF IDIOT?!"........one look at her expression and Sulaiman burst out laughing (for an example of how his laughter sounded imagine the Joker's laugh from the Batman animated series).......and the whole class just erupted in laughter at his completely insane antics....

Seriously I still laugh at this incident whenever I think of it......classic sulaiman..

5.)This incident happened during Hari Raya......a group of us went visting our friends houses....and so we were taking a train.... anway Sulaiman turned and saw this Malay teenager with different colored socks.....

He turned to us and loudly exclaimed:"Aye Guys.....You wanna see Clown or not??"

Then he turned and pointed straight at the girl and burst out laughing.......the girl just looked at all of us stunned and left the train at the next immediate stop.....hahhaa......now u understand what I mean when I said that Sulaiman is THE MASTER.....hahhaa..he does many distastful and kinda mean spirited stuff that none of us would ever contemplate of doing.....

So I thought he was crazy.....but really I did'nt know he was THIS CRAZY as to get a girl pregnant and get married..........but seriously all of us were taken aback by the news........

Personally i think.......that the saddest thing is to bring a child into this world and not have the capability and resources to properly provide for him.......I think all parents spent decades slogging is so that their kids will have a better life then theirs.....get opportunities they never got,get to do things they could not do.........cos I'm sure EVERY parent would want their child to have a better life then theirs..............I've always thought that before you bring a child to this world...you had better be damn well prepared for the added responsibility, the sacrifices you have to make and make the neecessary savings.........so that your child will be well-provided for and get all the opportunities you never had.......otherwise that kid will just suffer.....

Now in Sulaiman's case......I seriously dunno what to think....I was talking about him with my friend Sakthi.....Sulaiman has an ITE cert so after he passes out of army, he still has like 6 long years to go before he can get a degree and find a better job.......he'll be almost 30 then.....the alternative is to start working after NS but then he won't get any decent paying job..........plus Sulaiman himself is a big kid at heart so.........we both don't think he's father material.......but he's a good pal and we wish him nothing but the best.....cos his life and how he lives it is pretty much outta our hands.........I just hope when I see him years down the road the situation would have worked itself out for the better.....who knows maybe having a kid will teach him greater responsibility and stuff.........hahaha.......sure as hell hope so....

Well Enough Rambling.......I got my own life to lead........from the date of this post...it will be exactly one month before I enter NS on september the 10th..........all my sec school friends have already been inside for a year and will be passing out when I only reach the halfway Mark for my tenure in the army...what a depressing thought....hhahaha.............but I think I'm just about ready for NS.........looking forward to getting it over with!!!!!Time to serve my nation!!Time to become a man!!........time to...watch my DVDS now!!.....hahahha........ until next time......


10:12 AM