tzlee.com/blog

Author: Justin Lee

  • Inspiration

    Time to find some arty farty inspiration back. I’ll start on a new musical arrangement for CO, but I will not set a deadline. Let’s see what I can come up with. 😀

  • Selfish Bastards

    Was having dinner at Qi Ji Tiong Bahru Plaza when a guy found the empty seat beside us and placed his bag to “chop” the seats.

    Mind you it was a table for six. Me and wife were seated across each other at one corner, so there was space for four. That guy placed his bag in the middle seat beside wife.

    --Me----**----**--
    [XXXX][XXXX][XXXX]
    -Wife--Bag----**--

    One boy came over and asked if the seat was taken, the man said no YES. (Edit: Sorry, he said YES, meaning the seat was taken.)

    Then he went to queue for food and came back. Guess what? Yes, he was alone. But the best part was he sat in the following seat labelled as Ass, leaving two empty unoccupied seats across him.

    --Me----**----**--
    [XXXX][XXXX][XXXX]
    -Wife--Bag---Ass--

    Then as he started on his laksa, he didn’t like the chilli, so he scooped it and poured it on the table top, leaving the mess behind so the next guy in line had to either wait for somebody to clean the table or avoid the seat.

    Mind you this guy was not some old grouchy uncle you may be thinking. He’s a young man, well dressed, well groomed, wearing that few thousand dollar watch Bvlgari watch.

    I was tempted to take a photo of him, but I didn’t. Me and wife decided to clear the place and grab a coffee instead.

    Such inconsiderate people exists.

  • Life is like a cuppa kopi

    A group of alumni, highly established in their careers, got together to visit their old university professor. Conversation soon turned into complaints about stress in work and life.

    Offering his guests coffee, the professor went to the kitchen and returned with a large pot of coffee and an assortment of cups – porcelain, plastic, glass, crystal, some plain looking, some expensive, some exquisite – telling them to help themselves to the coffee.

    When all the students had a cup of coffee in hand, the professor said: “If you noticed, all the nice looking expensive cups have been taken up, leaving behind the plain and cheap ones. While it is normal for you to want only the best for yourselves, that is the source of your problems and stress.

    Be assured that the cup itself adds no quality to the coffee. In most cases it is just more expensive and in some cases even hides what we drink. What all of you really wanted was coffee, not the cup, but you consciously went for the best cups… And then you began eyeing each other’s cups.

    Now consider this: Life is the coffee; the jobs, money and position in society are the cups. They are just tools to hold and contain Life, and the type of cup we have does not define, nor change the quality of life we live.

    Sometimes, by concentrating only on the cup, we fail to enjoy the coffee. Savor the coffee, not the cups! The happiest people don’t have the best of everything. They just make the best of everything. Live simply. Love generously. Care deeply. Speak kindly.

    Taken from: http://www.spiritual-short-stories.com/spiritual-short-story-106-Life+is+Like+a+Cup+of+Coffee.html

  • Image and Social Status

    I had a discussion with wifey while driving home from dinner today that no matter how we tell ourselves not to judge a book by its cover, it’s only human that we do. Afterall we have two eyes.

    (This is semi-related to my earlier post on the Chinese MTV.)

    We were at Marina Square and were window-browsing some watches. Not Swatch or Seiko – I’m talking about Tag Hauer, Longines, Rolex, etc. These watches easily cost $3,000 up to $100,000+. Then comes the question: Why do people wear such expensive watches?

    Back in the early days, a watch is a watch. It does one simple thing – tell time (and maybe day/date). Mechanical watch movements have been invented long, long ago. I don’t think it gets any more complicated these days. Digital watches can do miracles as well. Even back when I was in primary school some 20 years ago, I had Casio watches that could store phonebook entries of my entire class… and maybe some exam answers. Nowadays there’s even GPS watches accurate to the millisecond. Patek Philippe, beat that!

    Today’s watches are jewelry. They not only make you look better; they also convey a hidden message to people who “know” them, like how you’ll know that an auntie’s pasar malam LV bag is an obvious fake, or that a Lexus RX300 is actually a Toyota Harrier rebadged.

    At different “levels” of society, we use material items to communicate subtle messages related to ones’ wealth and social status. Why?

    When wealth catches up with us, it’s only natural that we spend some to improve our quality of life. Some of us buy a car or a bigger house, or go on a holiday in a more exquisite airline. Over time, we get used to our higher standards of living.

    But as with any living thing, humans are resistant to change. By change meaning anything – environment, wealth, people, comfort. We will try to keep things at our comfort level (and thus happiness), and that also means getting around people of the same comfort level. To do so, we establish a connection by using material items to send each other subtle messages: “Hi, I am as ho seh (well to do) as you are.”

    Just think about it for a moment. I’m not going to cite any examples here for racial/religious/social reasons but you get the idea.

    I know, it’s weird analogy of mine, but people spend tonnes of money to make themselves look good and feel confident. People go after branded goods for this very reason. Is a LV bag really worth $3,000? Is a Rolex really worth $8,000?

    But how much is enough? Wealth can buy happiness, but only up to a certain extent. Once you’ve gone over the threshold, things start to go downhill. Studies say it’s approximately $75,000 per year.

    To break this cycle we need to resist temptation to “level up” further. Some of us simply just move away from a city to a town where the pace of life becomes slower. Some of us just occupy ourselves with silly hobbies. But some of us are stuck in a rat race.

    I don’t really have a closure to this discussion yet, so I’ll think more about it and post an update. Meanwhile do drop a note if you have any thoughts…

  • Picnic

    Had a picnic with wifey, Francis and girlfriend last Saturday morning. I volunteered to prepare egg mayo (just the filling) since Francis would be getting melons, parma ham and bread.

    We arrived together at the Botanical Gardens at 9.30AM, found a spot under a tree and started munching away at the delicious food.

    Stan who had initially turned down the picnic decided to tag along rather last minute. He called Francis and offered to bring hotdogs.

    And this was how he arrived:

    Those were the only hotdogs he brought along.

    Anyway while we were halfway through our food, some people with dogs jogged past us and Stan’s dogs started barking.

    We turned around and saw two beautifully groomed Pomeranians and their gay owners.

    Then when Stan’s dogs jumped up and started running towards the two Pomeranians, Stan held the leash back and made a classic statement…

    “Hey! 不可以! That one is different class one.”

    Different class? LOL! Poor dogs…

  • 没车没房？

    Very low class song, but also very true about girls nowadays.

    Here’s the best part… sing with alternate lyrics. I didn’t make this up BTW, my chinese not so powerful. Got this off one of the comments.

    If you can’t stand the singing from the YouTube video, I’ve created a minus-one midi here.

    走在馬路上 ,一個個孤單女郎,
    總以為比男人強, 卻要男人養!

    找男人還要求,要有車又有房,
    你憑什麼要這麼多樣!

    你又沒有乳房, 更別說有長相,
    我爸爸他也勸你, 快點回家鄉!

    假如你沒乳房, 假如你也沒長相,
    趕緊回鄉幫阿伯打槍!

    我有把槍, 一公尺長, 但不想破你的痔瘡!
    你就算在臉上化上了濃妝, 做雞也只能當媽媽桑!

    你沒乳房, 也沒有長相, 休想哥我跟你上床!
    我他媽寧願捐到精子銀行, 也不願意射在你們的臉上!