Tai Ler Dirt Den

And I broke her heart with:

All the ways you wish you could be, that's me. I look like you wanna look, I fuck like you wanna fuck, I am smart, capable, and most importantly, I am free in all the ways that you are not.

To the dude who continously asks me when I'm gonna leave this organization:

You're not your job. You're not how much money you have in the bank. You're not the car you drive. You're not the contents of your wallet. You're not your fucking khakis. You're the all-singing, all-dancing crap of the world.

The misguided bloke who thinks he is happy where he is:

In the world I see - you are stalking elk through the damp canyon forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway

And then she said [almost verbatim, that made it all the more scarier]:

There are things about you that I like. You're smart, you're funny, you're spectacular in bed. But you're intolerable! You have very serious emotional problems. Deep seated problems for which you should seek professional help.

When in doubt, seek out Tyler Durden.

Adieu!

Paradigm Shifts

How do you shift paradigms? What the hell is a paradigm? Why do all the big fuck speeches always involve this phrase as if without saying it the speech wouldn't sound half as important?

A paradigm is simply a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them. Basically what you assume about what is over there, what you need to do when it is over there and what could be over here. Got it?

Now you shift it. All along till yesterday, you thought your uncle was Archangel Gabriel. Today it shifts to believing he could be a sex fiend preying on your pretty little ass and titties whenever he gives you that traditional hug-and-squeeze combo each time he comes over.

In my workplace, stuff like procedures, "the way we do things around here" and rules and regulations are so common place people take it for granted that it HAS to be there. So now and then, people do flag up stuff that they feel is totally redundant. Stuff that is done for aeons cos "this is the way things are done" that wastes time, energy and most of all the effective hours one spends at work. It's like what I do each night I stay over. Staying over AWAITING a crisis that has a 0.000001 chance of happening that night.

Perhaps the greatest barrier to a paradigm shift, in some cases, is the reality of paradigm paralysis, the inability to see beyond the current models of thinking

Of course, people bring it up from time to time. Only to be faced with the "oldies" who cite the "history" of why things are done this way. Yes, I'm aware too that some checks and balances come about with every new cock up by a human being over the years. Deal with it. Humans are naturally dumb. And the smarter ones will end up ruling the dumb ones. So shall we keep checking and restricting our way, narrowing it to just a pinhole with the vast darkness around it as a safety buffer just cos some prick managed to not think straight and logically in the 1980s? Move with the times woman! And no, it is not particularly helpful or even rewarding to you when you bitch like us and when we question "so how? can you do anything about it since you know the history and geography and the literature penned about this issue?" and you go: "This is not the time to rock the boat".

Roobs put out some fine lines on the matriarch. I've been meaning to KLKopykat them for ages. Here's my opportunity:

i don't think i've been endowed with the innate capacity to handle so many eff ups in the span of one day,nor play the smiley yes man to the matronly authoritative figure,but i guess thats why i'm not fit to the dimensions of a civil service scholarship,not like there are extensive private sector scholarships anyway.stifling bureaucracy is when unflexible old guard is still seen as old gold.this is not the ageist speaking,but the realist speaking out against authoritarianism that does not meet the needs of efficiency,a paradox since authoritarianism is supposed to breed efficiency and subservience to the old guard,something that the civil service is certainly not doing,look at the attrition rate.

Can I safely assume now that to shift paradigms you gotta wield power as a minimum start state? Can wee lil' matchstick heads actually burn your house down? To answer your question, Dear Y, on my apparent lack of ambition and waste of potential. I am in here still, in fact on the eve of my ding-dong duty onset, cos I think someone needs to put this right. I'm not gonna change it overnight. But I damn well can do what I can and it will make an impact. Don't forget, I operate by the power of the people. I don't need to hug trees or go fly out to the Dark Continent and give out condoms and medicines a la your way of doing something with your life. I don't need to be raking in the moolah now too, it channels in just fine by itself [but you fellas really gotta post the fuckin cheques quicker!] without me having to guide it.

This paradigm thing worries me only when you are realistic in realizing that all humans are averse to change. Change being such a voracious animal and humans will always play out the gazelle in "gazelle versus pride of lions". The first few weeks I spent here last November resulted in: "He ah, never does his work swee swee. But still wanna kan people when they fuck up". This be the resistance to change. When you throw out redundancy and actually bother to ask: "Why ARE we doing this? Isn't it a job that we DON'T have to do? Don't do it just cos you've been doing it for ages or were taught to. Go have a fink about it, you batti boy."

I guess we start little by little. I went to bed the other night in the bunk [10 beds long, 2 beds wide] and the stereo was switched on. I figured it wasn't going to affect me dreary self and I would soon be speaking to God [was afraid cos we haven't spoken so long] that I just pulled up the standard green blankie, set the alarm and slept. The next dude that comes in to sleep is my driver. So, he sees me asleep and the stereo on. Thinking that I WANTED the stereo on. He left it on, no matter that he is not a really a person who can sleep with music and tried his best to snooze. Another dude enters the fray. This be my assistant. Now he sees 2 blokes sleeping with the stereo on. Again, this assumption that we both needed the music on makes him try to sleep through a very uncomfortable night cos everytime there is a rock song played, at least 2 of us toss and turn to find a better position to shut out the fuckin music.

There you have it. A basic paradigm. Shift yours while you can. Not all artists are creative and not all writers can write. For that matter, not all idiots are truly stupid, and not all professors know it all.

I found a great powerpoint on how paradigms [and stupidity] are created. Download it off here.

“Our paradigm now seems to be: Something terrible happened to us on September 11, and that gives us the right to interpret all future events in a way that everyone else in the world must agree with us. And if they don't, they can go straight to hell.” - Bill Clinton [attempting to confuse the world into thinking that was NOT how the U.S. of A has been operating for the past 232 years]

Oyasuminasai.

Mile High Fart

Places to bonk in mid-air? Look no further. Our fine airlines traversing the globe have good worker's quarters [do not even think about some Kaki Bukit Bangla's hostel here] for you to chat up and shag up that sweet chica in expensive batik print. Try not to smudge the lipstick, it's a real bitch to put back on so thick.

SQ

KLM

Unfortunately, Air Asia is unable to provide "full" service. Enquire within 12,000 to 15,000 feet altitude to see if a BBBJ is on the cards.

Ja-ne.

Hilton's Shangri-La

USS Shangri-La. War machine named after mystical utopia.

Perhaps you'd be amused to know that the Annual Asia Security Summit dubbed the Shangri-La Dialogue was in fact hosted at the Shangri La Hotel Singapore. Wait, that was not amusing at all. Perhaps I should try harder. It wasn't mentioned in the mass media though, but the great security and movement of cars was too obvious not to be. So too, the ushers, caterers etc. You get the drift. Tokyo drift.

How ironic though that in the middle of discussions by Defence Ministers and high powered and ranking defence officials, nations are slaughtering, conquering, and wait get this: moving people out of relief centres because they don't want the penniless refugees to GET TOO COMFORTABLE. I was thinking, why don't they do this shit in Singapore. That will get the average apathetic to politics and socialitis citizen to friggin march to the streets and stone the culprits.

Shangri La like Atlantis is a fictional place. Many feel Timbuktu is also, but that's a myth busted mofo. I found it on the map.

Shangri-La is a fictional place described in the 1933 novel Lost Horizon by British author James Hilton. In the book, "Shangri-La" is a mystical, harmonious valley, gently guided from a lamasery, enclosed in the western end of the Kunlun Mountains. Shangri-La has become synonymous with any earthly paradise but particularly a mythical Himalayan utopia—a permanently happy land, isolated from the outside world. In the novel Lost Horizon, the people who live at Shangri-La are almost immortal, living years beyond the normal lifespan. The word also evokes the imagery of exoticism of the Orient. The story of Shangri-La is based on the concept of Shambhala, a mystical city in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition.

Will the Shangri-La dialogue ever be held at The Fairmont for example? [Oh wait, we REALLY don't appreciate so many name changes in such a short time to a real fuckin icon. Westin Stamford to Swissotel Stamford to The Fairmont. Do you even know that The Fairmont Group has a marjority stake in another Singapore icon, The Raffles Hotel and its stake was recently sold to a foreign investment group? How economically sound. Yet, how reflective of how we prostitute cultural icons.] Back to the original question. High chance. Especially since we all know how we snigger when we spot "Katong No.1 Laksa" in the middle of the West Coast [not L.A. but Teban]

Fo sho.

P.S. I am seeking anyone involved in the television industry. Anyone who understands the work processes and flows from conception of the idea to final shooting and airing. You shall be compensated in kind for this kind gift of education I seek.