Shades of Blue

It was a horrible Monday.

It's a long story that will bore all of you, cos no one will understand what I was feeling then. Suddenly, everyone seemed to think "hey, let's all arrow the intern with work at the same time!" I had work piled on me from a manager, 2 assistant managers, the administrator and an admin assistant. If I had showed myself to her, I bet even the coffee lady would have arrowed me with something.

I was angsty. That was the first time I felt that way since I joined the firm for my internship. That was the first time I wasn't just dragging my shoes, I wasn't just sporting droopy eyes, I wasn't just looking unkempt. That was the first time I was doing all of the above and more. I was throwing rubbish across the walkway, I left "balls" in the shredder. If I had the guts, I would have deleted the M drive.

And then I watched the Simpsons. Sometimes, Mondays aren't all that bad. -Jimmy

The Spoils of War

It is common knowledge that couples exchange gifts. These range from the simple yet thoughtful to the really extravagant showy gifts. H got a guitar from his “wifey” recently. (He calls her wifey, or “dear”, as in “Hey, dear.”) It was a thoughtful gift as they both love music and it was her first guitar, the one she trained on. Even an emotionally dead person like me could see that the gift’s value was far beyond the price of the guitar.

As I glanced at the guitar yesterday, a thought struck me.
“When a guy and a girl breaks up, and the guy gave the girl lots of expensive stuff (eg, a precious guitar), is the stuff the guy’s or the girl’s?”

“Girl’s,” H replied without batting an eyelid. “I’ve been through enough of those to tell you that with confidence.” And indeed he has. You see, even though he set up the “bachelor’s club” back in our JC ODAC, H was what you’d call a “buaya”. He even proudly proclaimed once: “Take any single digit number, and that’s the number of relationships I’ve been in. Find that number squared, and that’s the number of rejections I’ve had.”

“How about personal items? Stuff like clothes and shavers? You know, when you take showers at your girlfriend’s place, you sometimes leave some of your clothes with her just in case.”
“Still the girl’s.”
This was not entirely true, because I’ve heard of some of my friends going back to their ex’s place to collect their personal stuff. But I guess the jurisdiction lies with the girl whether she wants you to take your items or not, which means H’s answer was still right: It’s the girl’s but she can choose to return the items to you.

“Look, if I hadn’t had so many girlfriends, you think I’d be wearing the same clothes over and over again?” H joked. Along with that joke, came the old joke: the girls will say, “My money is my money. Your money is also my money.”

I’ll probably stay single for a long time for saying this, but relationships are an expensive investment. Your capital is not assured, some investments do not net dividend or interest yields and even parting with the investment brings with it costs. They’re worst off than unit trusts. In a way, it’s almost like gambling, like buying futures or forwards without a hedging option. (You could get a hedging option, but it’s risky if the investment finds out.)

“Oh, so what happens to all your underwear you leave behind? It’s not like she can use it right?”
Everyone fell silent. Of course she can use it. Rip it up and use them as rags maybe? Put it on her soft toys to create a zoo of boy-brief wearing animals?
“She could give it to her new boyfriend.”

Laughter all around.

Tf thinks that this problem probably occurs in an unclean break-up. I mean, if it was a clean split, what’s the point of holding onto something you find (mostly) no use for? However, in an unclean split, she suggests hanging it outside his door with hate-mail attached to it.

In conclusion, the two ways about it are:
1) Don’t leave clothes at your bf/gf’s place, or if you want to, just leave disposable underwear, or 2) Try for clean break-ups. Being a “swah-kuu” in this, I think all break-ups should be clean. I’m assuming we’re all rational, grown-up individuals who can still face their exes without spouting profanities. Okay, maybe give a month or two. The world has enough problems without petty quarrels between exes. At least that’s how I hope my break-ups to be, if I ever had to face one. -Jimmy

My Special Power

Remember how we’d want special powers when we were kids? I remember wishing that I was Superman, flying everywhere I wished. I even tried wearing my underwear on the outside on one occasion. Trust me, if you think red underwear on the outside is bad enough, try locking yourself in your room, wearing your cotton briefs on the outside of your pants and looking at yourself in the mirror.

There were other powers I wish I had too, like mind-control, or self-heal, or owning some super-powered armoured suit that could beat the cr*p out of bullies.

I happened to have one of these “what power would you want now?” conversations with Tf and L on 2 separate occasions recently.

A few options we arrived with:
Time manipulation: Allows the user to move back time up to a degree of several minutes. Also allows users to pause time.
Tf and I agreed that this will be very helpful in getting out of sticky situations which you got yourself into in a matter of the past few minutes, like accidentally sending a sarcastic email meant for your peers to your boss. Also works best for dates:
Person: You look great today. I love how your low cutting emphasizes your breasts
Date: Excuse me?
[Time manipulation]
Person: You look great today. I love how your pretty dress with the plunging neckline shows off your umm…
Date: Excuse me?
[Time manipulation]
Person: You look great today. You have nice assets.
Date: Excuse me?
[Time manipulation]
Person: You look great today. Let’s enjoy the night.
Date beams at the compliment and they both enjoy a wonderful night.

Wall meld: Allows user to meld with the wall, choosing either to press himself flat against it or going through it to the other side.
Tf thinks this will appeal to the wallflower in everyone. Since you already look so good leaning against the wall with that fruit punch in your left hand, why not go one step further and make yourself totally camouflaged when pressed against the wall?
Also works well when trying to avoid the girl who dumped you, the girl you had a fling with and the big muscular jock you just made fun of.

Tf and I were looking at why these powers appealed to us. Apparently, we both didn’t want to be caught in situations where we won’t be comfortable. At large parties, we don’t expect to mingle well, so we prefer to stay at a quiet corner, thus the wall meld power. With that in mind, we came up with our greatest power:

Normalcy: User sends weak-form psychic signals up to the size of a room. Users will find even the most boring jobs normal. However, others will also see whatever the user is doing as the most exciting thing in the room.
Remember all those times when you felt silly tripping in public? Or you wish people hadn’t seen you when you knocked into a low-hanging lamp in Plaza Singapura’s KFC? Or the time you walked into a glass door without realizing that it was there? Or the time you tripped on a floor tile while running through a busy shopping centre and was sent flying through the air?
Instead of wishing you were invisible, or melding into a wall, or going back through time, why not make whatever you’re doing the coolest thing to the people in your immediate vicinity? People will be trying to trip themselves in order to look as cool as you flying through the air!

We wish for powers to get out of embarrassing situations. But like all normal people, we have to contend with sheepish grins and a very thick skin. -Jimmy

The Alternative Review for Transformers

The reviews slammed the show for having no plot whatsoever. They pointed out that it joins the ranks of summer blockbusters that kill grey matter by their sheer budget and amount of hot air.

Well, I caught Transformers nonetheless. I second the opinion that the plot is thinner than a Whisper Ultra-thin (with wings). I groan at the sight of the caricatures; the on-the-ball Secretary of Defence, the actioner Spec-Forces soldier, the smug I-know-more-than-thou secret service agent.

However, Michael Bay knows that he’s catering for the Fanboy/Action crowd, and he serves guilt-inducing portions of just what they want. Within 5 minutes of the show starting, Industrial Light and Magic works a magical transformation of a Pave Lowe. The robots aren’t the same clean, man-shaped ones seen in the cartoons. They look more like the menacing mechs in Mechwarrior, with extensive moving part detailing featured in Matrix Revolutions.

The show also showcases the fruits of USofA’s defense spending: V-22 Ospreys in full-motion glory, F-22 Raptors swooping through dense cityscapes. I might have been watching too many arthouse movies recently, but this is the first time I’ve seen these 2 weapons systems on the big screen, and man, do they look good. Throw into the fray an AC-130 Spectre gunship serving out huge platefuls of 40mm Bofors / 105mm howitzer shells and you have a military junkie’s wet dream.

Take note of the many asides that pay homage to Transformers origins as a cartoon, including a Bumblebee dangly hanging from the rearview mirror of – you guessed it – Bumblebee.

I have certain gripes about the show though. The “raw” look of the robots isn’t what most fanboys would expect. Also, as reviews pointed out, it’s pretty impossible for “a robot the size of a flatted factory to contort itself into a car”. Gone also are the old cars/planes that the Transformers used to mimic. No yellow Beetle. No flatnosed container tractor. No F-15. (At least Megatron looks cooler as a Cybertron jet than as a silly laser pistol.)

While the battle scenes drip with excitement, the action is captured from unusual camera angles and snaps from one camera to another. Most of the time, you only see metal hulks slamming into one another, if you even figure out where the camera was pointed.

As mentioned, the plot is wafer thin, a fact that is not helped by the giant leaps of logic. If Megatron was chasing the Allspark and they both presumably landed near the arctic circle, and Megatron recorded such information right after his crash landing, how could Optimus know that they have both been moved away by reading such outdated information? Or, how could the Autobots learn English from the World-Wide Web if they just crash-landed that same night?

Despite all its shortcomings, Transformers serves up the correct dishes for its main target audience. Girlfriends will probably just be accommodating to their boyfriends and laugh at the silly moments. But boyfriends will go home after the movie and dig up their old toys and sing out, “Transformers! Robots in disguise!” –Jimmy

Paintball

I don’t remember when I first heard of paintball. The first time I played it, I already knew that the game (or sport) featured guns that fired little paint-filled pellets.

My very first attempt at the game was at Orchid country club, in far-off Yishun. TAG paintball offered pretty decent guns (called “markers” within the paintball circle) in the Tippmann Pro Carbine. The objective was a combination target elimination/capture the flag mission, and opposing forces are not allowed to cross into enemy territory.

Amongst the six of us who played, N was probably the most vocal. He was shouting, “Cover fire! Bridge off!” to his team-mates. The mix of dodging fire, suppressive fire and firing from cover brought with it an adrenaline rush not many other sports have.

The next day, I woke up with aching legs. All the sprinting for cover brought along one huge draw for paintball. Here was a game where you have to sprint to stay in the game. In a game like soccer, you could choose how fast you want to chase the ball, or how fast you want to run to steal the ball away from the opponent. However, in paintball, you don’t have a choice; you run or are gunned.

The price tag for paintball was quite hefty. We paid about 60 dollars for just over half an hour of actual game time. Much of the cost comes from the paintball pellets. Imagine thinking to yourself, “50 cents!” every time you pull the trigger. And because of that, I dismissed paintball, putting it on my list of “done once, good enough” activities (like skydiving).

N was much more hyped over it. He introduced me to several paintball websites and showed me some videos of paintball matches. Paintball, it dawned on me, was more than just shooting your friends with coloured balls. In countries like the US and Malaysia, there are tournaments for teams to showcase their gun-slinging prowess and tight co-ordination. The two main types of competitions are tactical paintball or speedball.

Tactical paintball simulates actual warfare in that matches are normally played out in classic battlefields like forests and bunkers. It also features military-like objectives such as assassination, defensive operations or capture the flag. Just think of the multiplayer mode in games like Unreal Tournament and you get the picture. Competitive teams in the US take their tactical paintball seriously. Where game rules allow, they trick out their markers with mods such as the Tippmann Flatline barrel. Each member has a well-defined role in the team, and buys equipment based on that role. The chain of command is similar to any military unit; squad leaders respond to situations on the ground and communicate with platoon commanders. Platoon commanders take note of the changing enemy positions and place their squads in the best position to capture the objective or repel a flanking move.

Speedball features a large patch of grass with obstacles littered across as the playing field. Opposing teams rush out at each other and eliminate their opponents. Match organizers are more inclined to provide less cover to force teams to be more aggressive. More aggression means more excitement for spectators.

Over the weekend, the Kroo went over to KL for a paintball shootout. There was shopping, silly MagBlast games and eating, but the highlight for me was just the paintball. Donning that mask, carrying that marker, pressing myself against cover, dodging fire, returning fire, sprinting in for a flanking move, marking people with paint, feeling the sharp sting of a paintball hit all provided me some much-needed escape from the dreary office life that I’ve had over the past weeks.

Perhaps, by some stroke of luck, Woody allows a paintball CCA, and we’d train with the Red Sevens. Perhaps, if people don’t see the violence linked to firing a gun but instead see the stress relief and the teamwork. Perhaps one day, I’d be able to pick up my marker, shout “Heavy suppression, cover me!” and sprint out from cover. -Jimmy