Hey ho, another long weekend, wee hee. Unfortunately, after Monday August 9th, there are only 2 more public holidays in the year, both in October. Yoiks, not even Christmas and New Year, which fall on Saturdays this year (although I think our company honours the Saturday holiday with a real day off of our chosing, which is nice).
What did I do this week? Besides watching the Third Man again, on DVD, over three nights… not much. Friday, at least, was an interesting day in a way – put out an e-newsletter, then met my boss and we decided that it would be good to put out a second e-newsletter the same day to cover for the missing holiday Monday e-newsletter, so more work for me. It wouldn’t have been so much work, but tweaking the appearance of it took up 95% of the time. Went out at 4 for coffee with a company associate, which was good, learned a lot there and had some yummy Orange Julius orange juice (not coffee). Ha ha. Got done around 7:30, then went with five 5 colleagues and the boss to eat Indian vegetarian food in Little India in a comfortable little shop that has a diner-like atmosphere. Ate 4 different types of Indian bread/pancakes that I have never had before. Great, great, great. Lots of talk and laughs. At the end a group of gorgeous Indian ladies with their kids came in, everybody dressed in magnificent gold-thread embroidered saris, the kids with earrings and everything. Wow. Being in Little India is not like being in Singapore at all, and being there in the evenings is double the fun. After that we went to play pool near Doby Ghaut MRT station, my old stomping grounds from the days I was staying at the YMCA right around there. A room full of tables, lots of cool young Singaporeans hanging around playing, nobody smoking or drinking alcohol, everybody clean and not-dangerous-looking, a comfortable environment, nice. Played for over an hour, the bill came to 10 bucks – cheap fun on a Friday night. Boss went off to party, my friends went home, and I got on the 171 bus home. Picked up a beer at the 7-11, got home after midnight an of course everybody was sleeping… Oh well. Drank beer, watched a bit of Cave of Silk Thread, the Monkey King DVD I had bought that afternoon. Played guitar. Wild, wanky fun. Slept. Saturday we woke up late-ish, then headed into town to buy a camera for Ralph. Our destination – Sim Lim Tower in Bugis, one of the very cool shopping parts of town. Much better/different from Orchard Road, the brand capital of Singapore. Small t-shirt and souvenir shops, local eateries, and then a tower of geekdom, full of audio-visual and computer crap. Priced cameras in nearly every shop we went to, trying to suss out how low the vendors will bargain down, but everybody sticking with their first offers. Offers dropped with every shop we went to, until 100 bucks was whittled away. Met a few assholes. The second-last guy seemed nice, he was going to sell us the camera for 465 with a 16 MB chip. We went up a level, to the 4th floor, where there were barely any camera shops anymore since it seemed like a computer store. But one shop gave us a better price – 440. So we agreed to take it. As he was showing us the goods that came with it, we spotted a 64 MB chip included. Wow – cheaper AND a better chip. Glad we shopped around a bit, it sure was worth it. Went to Long John Silver’s for fish and chips. Our first time there, it was pretty good. Then took the train home. Zen fell asleep in the train, so we got a cab from Clementi to home, great, Zen slept from 2 to 5, giving us some time to relax and do sometihng for ourselves. Zen woke up, we went swimming, had dinner, then went for a walk. Naoko had an appointment to see her friends, so it was Zen and I. Folded a big pile of laundry, gave Zen a bath, then read him to sleep. From 10:30, I watched the Once Upon A Time In The West VCD and played guitar, drank beer, slept at 1:45. Naoko came home bat 4. Then Zen woke us up at 6:30. AAAAH. I rested with him a bit, then made his breakfast, read the paper, did some small errands, played, fun stuff. Yay – long weekends!
DVD review – The Third Man: One of the best movies ever made, with incredible character studies by Joseph Cotten and a thoroughly loathsome Orson Welles. The mystery is compelling, and unfolds magnificently over 90 minutes. Classic carousel ride and Switzerland speech, not to mention the grand finale in the cavernous sewers of Vienna. Go to Vienna and take a Third Man tour if you can. The Cotton/Welles relationship milked somewhat in the underrated Killing Zoe film, by the way. One small complaint – the quaint Viennese music, some famous theme, becomes a bit irritating through over-use in the soundtrack of the first two thirds of the film. Oh well, nobody’s perfect, not even Carol Reed, the film’s director.
DVD review – Once Upon A Time in the West: There are four movies. Once Upon A Time In America, China, the West, and Mexico. In descending order of excellence, with a huge gap between the third and fourth. …the West is OK, but …Mexico is just terrible!! …America and …the West are both by Sergio Leone, but …America is an incredible work of art, starring DeNiro and James Woods and a whole bunch more. …the West has great death scenes, and a memorable Henry Fonda role where he out-of-character plays a merciless killer, but Charles Bronson is no Clint Eastwood when it comes to playing spagthetti Western protagonists. Some plot about a family being wiped out, a train line being built, a young wido, and some other stuff. But does the plot really matter? This film reeks style and nearly nothing else.