Hey, another long time with no blogs. Maybe it was because I was too busy, maybe I was too lazy, maybe I was too frustrated trying to get my microphone to work on the computer. No, it was probably laziness. The week previous I was very busy with work, last week too. What happened… The weekend of May 21, 22 was a long weekend, which was nice! But what did we do? I think… we went to Pasir Ris on Saturday the 21, Zen and I walked around and had a nice time. What happened after that was… I went back, Zen slept, I did some computer stuff. Forgot. Uhhh… We watched a movie, what was it… “Closer,” we saw that, and also one other. Maybe I’ll remember later. Sunday we hung out, went swimming, stuff like that. Sunday evening, and most of Monday I worked. Recently strange things have been happening – one day I’ll have 3 tasks, then I find out that I’ve been taken off one task, I’m down to 2, then I get to more and I’m up to four. Weird! Monday I got a call to go in to the TV station to do an interview. Oooh! So although it was a holiday, and I was already working on a bunch of stuff anyway, I added it to my list and I worked harder. Ouch! Oh yeah, the movie we saw is “the Aviator.” Not a bad flick. I guess there’s really no getting around it – Dicaprio really is a fantastic actor. Monday Tuesday Wednesday I forgot what I did specifically, I guess I tried to work on enewsletters and articles and conducted interviews. Hrmmm… Wednesday I stayed until 8, went home, ate, packed, put Zen to sleep. Zen is very sweet – he always wants me to give him a shower and read him to sleep if I am there, he doesn’t want Naoko to do this at all. He went to sleep so quickly, then I got a cab and went to the airport. Bought some mascara for Naoko in duty free, then onto the flight. Hung out with Charmaine a bit, saw ED on the flight, barely slept, got to Beijing and got a cab with a freaky guy whose meter was broken, then on off to check in to the hotel, hang out, eat breakfast at Starbucks, to the hotel room to sleep a bit, then off around the corner to eat a cheap lunch in a dank room on a sunny street with some indifferent Beijingers as I sucked on a Yanjing beer, then back to the hotel to see about some interviews or something. Nothing to do, Benny checked in to the room, we chatted, then I napped for a bit, then off to the exhibition space to hang out and meet people and do interviews and chat and help out with things, then much later we went off to eat a nice dinner of spicy fish in red hot chili pepper soup. Mmm… yummy. Nice place, but terribly stinky bathroom! Went back, did more work, then back home to sleep. Benny and I passed by a nice bunch of guys who were selling goat kebabs in the parking lot, so we had a few there. The goat was practically raw, but it sure was yummy barbecued on a kebab like that. Slept 5 hours, then off to the conference site to meet everyone else and get started. Nice, people came in, we got started on our great days, then off to the seminars, I’m helping out, looking for people to do spot interviews with, the day passed in a blur like that. Nice coffee break, my breakfast after that, then lunch, then more seminars, then a nice coffee break again, cool people, very cool retail banking heads, awesome proud happy friendly lovely individuals. Went for a beer and an interview with a banker from Taiwan, then upstairs and who do I see but another Taiwanese banker, so I do an interview with him too. Both of them great guys, obviously rivals, yet hanging out with each other both being Taiwanese guys in China. Very cool. Some people are getting changed into tuxedos, and there we are going in to the awards presentation. The service is OK, but the food is not so great. Met a lot of nice people, ate dinner with Charmaine and some people from an IT company, and a few reporters, and also some cool people from Taiwan and China. The night went on and on, lots of exciting awards to present, then the night ended and dessert hadn’t arrived yet, I was wisked away to a disco party. Lame music until midnight, then an explosion of techno sound. Not bad at all. First two work colleagues showed up, then four more, it was a lot of fun. But somehow the colleagues disappeared, then it was me alone with the bankers. Wow. Got home at 4, slept, up again at 8 for breakfast, then off to an exhibit, then back to the hotel room to pack. Lunch with the boss and the staff and time to hang out and do a post-mortem on the event to discuss it. Then off shopping with the girls and some good laughs. Got the the shopping place at 5, split up until 7. I bought a pearl necklace for Naoko, a scarf for her, a Spiderman watch for Zen, some Spiderman pajamas for him too, then some ties for me, pens for the people at work, and who knows what all else. Cool, fun. Jumped into a cab, went past Tiananmen to Hohai where we bought DVDs from mendicants, saw a strange tatooed ojisan make a fuss in the square, went for $10 beers (a bit pricy for China) and then in a cab to go off to the airport. Flew all night, got to Singapore on Sunday and took the cab home. Got there at 6:15, slept, Zen woke me up at 7:15 with a sweet “papa?” Heavenly. But too tired to enjoy it, went back to sleep and got up at 10. Hung out, did some work, watched movies, mostly brain-dead. Zen slept, I went cycling with him, then off on back, ate dinner, hung out, slept at 11:30 or so. Monday I was really tired, took the taxi to work, although it was late and I got there tardy, worked hard all morning, met the new writer who looks quite a lot like Ralph (?!?) and wrote an article, did an interview for the following following issue, so it is nice to be thinking that I am getting advance work done. Cool. Went home at 8, got to Clementi, saw that I had just missed a bus, so I jumped in a cab. Seems like the bus was just as fast as the cab!! Wow, I guess when the taxi takes a different route from the bus, and the bus gets the green lights and doesn’t have to stop to drop people off, it may happen. Hung out at night, wrote blog, yup.
DVD review – the Aviator: nice Martin Scorsese film about Howard Hughes, brought back all those memories of all those James Elroy books, weird guy, sort of like Tucker: A Man And His Dream, but a little stranger. The plane crashes were so scary!
DVD review – Closer: a stage adapation that is just like a stage adaption. Nathalie Portman’s acting is terrible… just when you want her to be good! Lots of stagey scenes, leaden lines, split second changes of heart, dumb ironies, and a funny-looking Julia Roberts. Check out the closing credits – only six actors in the whole film, and two of them are barely in the film at all.
Zen loves Spiderman just as much as he loves reading!