Random MSN

Funniest thing I've heard all day ..

[17:23] j: im gettng desert
[17:23] d: you're getting a large body of sand?

Lame-chop

Saw a couple of good movies recently thanks to my good friend Jason.

Now they're not movies I normally go out to see - so I was quite impressed by how refreshingly amusing they were.

Couple of Fridays ago we went to watch at the International Film Festival at the outdoor theatre in Tamar. Astounded by the size of the huge blow-up screen and blow up castles (there was actually a blow-up Shaolin Soccer field), the Asian in me quickly jumped to the conclusion we could easily avoid going paying to enter the outdoor theatre altogether and watch it clearly from the bridge outside of the cinema. In fact, several other like-minded cheapskates had already leapt to the same conclusion and were happily indulging in a free presentation of "My Neighbour Totoro" from the opposite skyway.

Alas, we had already bought tickets (just kidding guys, I'm not that tight), and went to watch I Not Stupid 2.To be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect - having not seen I Not Stupid 1. The movie is about a bunch of kids in "Singapore's regimented education system ... that and their parents just don't understand lah!" Hilariously funny (though some of us seemed to think it was a tad preachy?), my favourite quote went something like this:

Dad and son are eating dinner. Dad tries to be cool, as dads generally do.

"Waiter, could you get me a laaaame-chop?"
"Oh, waiter? Could you please move this laame?" (points to a lamp)

Kid groans and mutters, "... so lame."


You know what else I've realised? Honkies have a twisted sense of humour. They'll happily laugh away at the troubles of others - and they love to bitch and gossip. In one particular scene where on of the main character's father dies (dies!) from a major head trauma ... and the next thing you see a picture of his coffin, and the entire audience decides it's an appropriate time to piss themselves.

So you'd think - of course, there must have been something somewhat amusing about his death right? No, he dies from a major head trauma. Falling down stairs after getting beaten up by three guys whilst trying to save his teenage son. Coming out of a coma, whilst crying and pleading to the headmaster of the school to give his boy another chance with his studies ... anyway its a sad moment - I'm actually am in the middle of wiping my eyes (yeah real men cry too yer know?) whilst the two girls sitting behind me are in laughing so much you'd think rice is going to come out of their nose.

Last week we also went and watched The Heavenly Kings. To be honest, I'm not too sure how I'm going to go about describing this flick. It's a documentary (I think mock-umentary is the correct word?) that follows a Honky boyband named "Alive" from its humble roots to stardom. Now I know that's not much to go by - but trust me, it was funny as hell (lucky I didn't eat rice) and it was extremely well-made. My mate was actually passing by whilst they took the photo above Watch it if you ever get the chance!

Almost as funny as what's on tv right now - they're advertising for vibrating tummy-exercising machines.

Motherland

Noticed this recently:

Number of mass protests in China:
2004: 79,000
2005: 80,000

An interesting thing about those numbers is this - public protesting is completely forbidden in China. Last year, a group of Chinese who had their homes forcibly demolished by the Government (in preparation for the upcoming Olympics) were banned from any kind of public outcry at all. An 80-year old man who was had his shelter torn down - without any form of compensation - was taken into custody for merely refusing to move out of the house that he and the other 4 families were crammed into.

Everyone outside of China knows about the abuse of human rights that go on. I live in Hong Kong, a city taken back over from the motherland less than a decade ago. One important factor regarding the takeover was that Hong Kong would exist for "50 years without change". Yet change is present everywhere; a spread of newspapers and other media have coincidentally become pro-China, while any propostions for democratical rights for Hong Kong are often met by egg-throwing and abusive words.

The public police and hospitals in China is so poorly-staffed and corrupt that those who venture into the mainland carry specially-made "insurance cards". That way, if you happen to be stabbed or injured in the streets of China, and someone happens to take you into hospital (after others had stripped you of anything of value of course) the hospital staff will find it "profitable" for them to treat you. Police will only help you with burglaries or murders if you have the money to make it a worthwhile venture for them.

I am not exaggerating on any level here. There are those in China who are content with their way of life - I believe this is heavily influenced by the control the government holds upon the access of information. While there are still people in China who have never heard of SARs or avarian disease, the recent clean-up of the Songhua river was heavily publicised by all the national newspapers. Yet the only reason the government decided to release any information at all is because the Songhua river flows into the waterways of Russia.

Billions of Chinese live in abject poverty. During my last trip to the mainland, I was confronted by a group of 8-year olds begging me for the equivalent of US$0.10. Pointing to their worn-out feet, they said they just wanted this money just buy sandals for the 16km return-walk to school every day. While this kind of poverty is prevalent both in the cities and countryside - it is far more noticeable once you decide to step a few kilometres away from the tourist strips. Yes, China is growing and advancing into a potential future superpower. But the rich are getting disgustingly rich, while the poor are ignored and deprived of basic human rights.

Yet the government deems it still important to spend the taxpayers' precious yuan to send a manned-rocket into space.

Undercover Hidden Dragon

My girlfriend and I just watched a Honky movie tonight, called Undercover Hidden Dragon. I think it was meant to be some sort of a parody of 'Infernal Affairs' and 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon' (both popular Chinese movies). Suffice to say, it was retarded. Yet it still got me laughing.

Watch this clip and I think you'll see what I mean.

Gummy bears ... bouncing here and there and everywhere ...

Say theres a lot of little teddy bears.

One day, an evil goblin king enslaved these poor teddy bears, and put these evil magical headbands on their heads. Then he sent the bears to go work in the mountains.

Now these magical headbands are cursed, so the bears aren''t able to take them off by any means. Each headband is also either black or white. As the bears cannot take off their headbands, each bear is unable to tell the colour of his or her own headband. Due to the cursed headbands, each bear is not able to inform other bears what colour headband they have. So simply put - there is no way of observing what colour headband a bear wears himself, and due to the evil power of the headbands (and because teddy bears can't talk) there is no way of alerting a fellow bear what colour headband he or she is wearing.

After one particularly tiring day of working in the mountains, the bears trudged down from the mountain, and stood side-by-side in a line-up ... as they do every evening at the stroke of midnight . The goblin king normally takes this short period of time to count them all (though there is little need to - the bears have no way of escaping anyway). However, this night was different. The evil goblin king eyed them all with his evil eyes, and boomed,

"I AM GIVING YOU ALL A CHANCE FOR FREEDOM!
IF EACH OF YOU MANAGE TO FIGURE OUT THE COLOUR OF THE HEADBAND ON YOUR HEADS, I WILL SET YOU ALL FREE!
HOWEVER, IF EVEN JUST ONE OF YOU, GUESSES WRONG ...

YOU WILL ALL ... DIE."

And so the evil goblin king cackled, evilly.

Each bear glanced at one other and nervously gulped. Now the bears knew that they had a chance to escape, but they must do so without any kind of communication with each other. In fact this is not a trick question at all, it works on the assumption that all the bears are quite brainy (they like playing these kind of problems too!).

Every evening, the bears line up as usual at the stroke of midnight and are given a short period of time to try. As the bears cannot speak, the bears with the black headbands should take one step forward, while the bears with the white headbands should remain where they are. They are not allowed to do anything else (they cannot gesture, or even interact with one other - due to the evil power of the headband). Once all the bears with the black headbands have taken a step forward, then all the bears will be set free. However, as the goblin king mentioned - if just one bear with a white headband steps forward, then they will all be killed (and turned into fluffy pillows).

I repeat, the only thing that the cursed power of the headbands lets them do, during the entire course of the day, is to let them either stay where they are during the line-up, or to take that one step forward. The cursed headbands also forbid them from communicating with each other.

But the bears know two things that should help them - that there is at least one bear with a white headband, and there is at least one bear with a black headband. They know that somehow, this will help them solve this problem. Thankfully, the goblin king didn't set a time-limit, so they can take as long as they want with this (that is, they can use as many line-ups as they wish)

How do the bears solve this? (remember, there is absolutely no way they can communicate/interact with one other, and theres no way they can observe the colour of their own headband either - ie. no glancing into reflective streams etc.)

This one's a bit tricky so the winner gets a beer.

And I repeat, this is not a trick question. Post any questions in the comments - have fun and no cheating!

Update: solution posted up in comments section.

Bored

I was so bored today, that I did some work.

But afterwards I felt guilty ... so I blogged.

;)

Half-baked

SECURITY cameras at Sydney airport have been sabotaged, raising fears over drug cases and terrorism. Sydney Labor MP John Murphy claimed the security breach cast fresh doubt on the guilt of convicted drug trafficker Schapelle Corby.

"Intelligence from other law enforcement agencies suggests some Asian-recruited Qantas crew may be involved in narcotics," the report found.

Sure, blame us fobs again.

Does anybody else think this whole Corby thing is a bit of a joke? Like - let's ignore the fact that three of Corby's family members have been convicted on drug charges and the fourth is currently facing drug charges. Disregard the fact her father, Michael Corby has been fined in Australia for possessing cannabis but was not convicted (not to mention he's best mates with a hydroponics dealer himself). Lets even ignore that she her whole case centers upon these evil, drug-smuggling Asian bag-handlers in Brisbane who've just decided to put the cannabis in her bag without her knowledge - mind you, without a single dustmite of proof.

The fact of the matter is - you cannot possibly pick up a bag (a bag containing her boogie board, the size and weight of which she should be quite comfortable and familiar with) and not notice it being 4.1 kilograms heavier. Now, 4.1kg ain't an insubstantial amount of weight. It's heavier than two of those 2-litre milk jugs you get at supermarkets. It's about the equivalent of standard medicine ball - the average person would probably find lifting a 4kg dumbbell with one hand fairly straining. In fact, her boogie board probably weighs less than 4kg itself (imagine the sheer volume of it all as well - 4 kilograms of pot is a helluva lot of dried grass).

Simply put, you cannot possibly lift a bag that has increased in weight by over 4kg and not realise it.

Hutz: Thank you, Dr. Hibbert. I rest my case.
Judge: You rest your case?
Hutz: What? Oh no, I thought that was just a figure of speech.

(Lionel Hutz, that funny lawyer guy in The Simpsons)

Be a Man!

This video's been out for a while, but I've just put it here for the benefit of those who have to constantly put up with me and Derek reciting random quotes from his act every single time we are out - and having absolutely no idea what we're going on about.

Basically, he's a Indian/Canadian comedian who does a fantastic job of poking fun at Honkies, Indians and other races. What's also amazing is the number of people I've bumped into who absolutely love this guy - I think one of the last times was when I shared a table with old Indian couple at a Chinese restaurant, in London (Oh wait, no .. it was when I was out with Derek and we were reciting random quotes from his act).

(I think you can actually just click play below to watch it)

What is fob la?

I had an amusing time at work the other day trying to explain what a fob was one of my fellow honky co-workers. Have you ever had to describe what a fob is ... to a fob?

Let that thought settle in for a moment ...

How do you even begin?

"Um ... theres er.. a boat you see. Well, theres quite a few of them, a long time ago. And asians used to go on them to get away from their own country. But they don't really do the boat thing anymore - but thats kind of beside the point - its more like they spoke funny and now you're stuck with this label. So we kind of call those asians ... er, fresh off the boat ... yeah fresh - no, no not like vegetables ..."

So the conversation getting confusing already, and no doubt slightly offensive - that is if they've understood what you mean so far.

Then I got to the stage where I had to describe these so-called fobs.

"The older male species of the fob tends to adorn himself in characteristically light blue jeans, tennis shoes, and a white polo shirt. The younger types ... like they wear tight stuff. Especially the guys. And tight tops. Yeah, kinda like the top you're wearing. Oh, and really colourful stuff too - especially if they're Honky. And they kinda talk like ... Why harlo my lame is Circle and it was so very good to be meeting you today on this fine morning and I love to eat watemelon. When the man on the street turn green you can go-go-go! How many peepo?"

Before the person in front of me had any idea what I was crappin on about, I quickly changed topics and managed to convince them that everyone in Australia wears opals and drinks Fosters.

Incidentally, Wikipedia defines a fob as this,

Fresh off the boat (often abbreviated as F.O.B., FOB or freshie, or fobbie) is a slang phrase applied to people of foreign nationality, who have arrived in an English-speaking nation as tourists or, most commonly, as work permit applicants.

Derivative adjective forms of FOB include fobby, fobbish and fobulous, a portmanteau of fob and fabulous.


How fobulous.

Something to tickle that thinking thing in your head

Here's a neat little IQ puzzle I read the other day. See if you can figure it out. First person to post the correct answer + solution to this (you gotta say why your answer is correct) receives $0.50.

"... fifty cent a lot of money!"

So there's a bear.

He decides to amble around ... he goes:

• 1km south
• 1km west
• 1km north

And he ends up right back where he started.

What colour is this bear?