void of existence

I was just browsing youtube and saw this.

This is a very good advertisment.  Her voice is soothing…..

English is my preferred language.  It takes a lot more effort on my part to read Mandarin.  When it comes to radio station, I used to listen to Class95.  I prefer to listen to news in English.  At least, I will be able to figure out who, what, when and where.  Mandarin news will translate names into Mandarin.  Sometimes, they used phonetics.  Other times, they use the meanings.  Its too confusing for me.  Try finding out the Mandarin names of soccer teams of EPL.  It will give you enough of a headache.

I listen to the radio when I am driving.  I seldom play my own songs.  The main reason is that I want to listen to traffic news.  Recently, I decided to listen more of Y.E.S933.  I was very finally pissed out enough with the Morning Express of Class95.  They have good traffic updates.  But because they are a big station (with a big audience), they get many info-mercials.  Advertisement disguised as a topic between the DJs.  Secondly, they tend to throw out a topic and will only ‘tell you about it later’ to hook the audience to stay with them.  Humans are curious creatures.  But I hate the suspense especially when they announce something (seemingly interesting) and I cannot wait til later coz I have reached my desination and radio is no longer available.  Thirdly, all the female DJs on Class95 irritates me for reasons that are unknown (even to myself).  They just irritates me.  I am sure that they are nice people.. but they wun get my vote on being a popular DJ.

So those are the likes and dislikes for me.

Since I have been listening to 933 quite a bit in the past month.  I have been hearing a lot of buzz about the 15th Singapore Hit Awards.  Its an annual award show.  Some popular singers, local and overseas, are invited to attend, receive awards and perform.

With popular names in the Mandaring pop culture, I would imagine that it is quite a major thing.  But it seems that the media in Singapore is a tough cookie.  What is interesting to them?  In the Entertainment section of Saturday, I found no reference to this award show at all.  Maybe coz I am reading the wrong newspapers as well.

Now this is an interesting band.  And they have been around for quite some time too.  So success is not an overnight thing for them.  

BARCELONA (Reuters) – A company behind plans to open the first hotel in space says it is on target to accept its first paying guests in 2012 despite critics questioning the investment and time frame for the multi-billion dollar project. The Barcelona-based architects of The Galactic Suite Space Resort say it will cost 3 million euro ($4.4 million) for a three-night stay at the hotel, with this price including an eight-week training course on a tropical island.

During their stay, guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and travel around the world every 80 minutes. They would wear velcro suits so they can crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Galactic Suite Ltd’s CEO Xavier Claramunt, a former aerospace engineer, said the project will put his company (http://www.galacticsuite.com) at the forefront of an infant industry with a huge future ahead of it, and forecast space travel will become common in the future. “It’s very normal to think that your children, possibly within 15 years, could spend a weekend in space,” he told Reuters Television. A nascent space tourism industry is beginning to take shape with construction underway in New Mexico of Spaceport America, the world’s first facility built specifically for space-bound commercial customers and fee-paying passengers.

British tycoon Richard Branson’s space tours firm, Virgin Galactic, will use the facility to propel tourists into suborbital space at a cost of $200,000 a ride. Galactic Suite Ltd, set up in 2007, hopes to start its project with a single pod in orbit 450 km (280 miles) above the earth, traveling at 30,000 km per hour, with the capacity to hold four guests and two astronaut-pilots. It will take a day and a half to reach the pod – which Claramunt compared to a mountain retreat, with no staff to greet the traveler. “When the passengers arrive in the rocket, they will join it for 3 days, rocket and capsule. With this we create in the tourist a confidence that he hasn’t been abandoned. After 3 days the passenger returns to the transport rocket and returns to earth,” he said.

More than 200 people have expressed an interest in traveling to the space hotel and at least 43 people have already reserved. The numbers are similar for Virgin Galactic with 300 people already paid or signed up for the trip but unlike Branson, Galactic Suite say they will use Russian rockets to transport their guests into space from a spaceport to be built on an island in the Caribbean. But critics have questioned the project, saying the time frame is unreasonable and also where the money is coming from to finance the project. Claramunt said an anonymous billionaire space enthusiast has granted $3 billion to finance the project.

—-End of Article—-

House keeping is going to be a pain.

In the past week, I have had Nasi Lemak for one of the meals in each day.  I have no idea why.  I guess I am just too lazy to decide what to eat.

I decided to try this hawker centre near home today.  Most of the stalls are closed.  In fact, my wife and I always wonder how the place survive coz most of the stalls are closed throughout the day.  In any case, I went to a stall and ordered Mee Rubus.

It is one of the worst…no, wait….It is the WORST Mee Rubus that I have EVER tasted.  After 3 mouthful, I felt like I have a half decomposed goat in my mouth.    That place is so ban.

If you are into prata, forget Jalan Kayu.  Why drive all the way there for a crap piece of flour that is selling because of yesterday fame?  Just across the street where my place is….the BEST ever roti prata that I have had for a long time.  They are actually crispy and served with two different type of curry, fish and mutton.  I am never a fan of Egg Prata, but this stall’s Egg Prata is out of the world.

In the same coffee shop, there is also a prawn mee stall.  It is great too.  However, a word of caution that they use a lot of seasoning for their soup base.  I am always thirsty for the rest of the day after eating a bowl.

Recently, there have been a lot of reports on wet markets.  It started out when a supermarket chain wanted to buy over the lease rights from a wet market operator.  They even served eviction notice to the current tenants before they got the approval from the relevant authorities for the change of use.

Then there were much clarifications from the authorities and the final word is that there will be no changes to the wet markets.  In fact, as long as the wet markets can substain operationally, they will be allocated with a space.

After that, a journalist by the name of Jessica Sim….or is it Lim?… stirred up some pretty bad shit by saying how outdated those wet markets are and that they should be abolished (along side with all outdated culture practices) so as to be replaced by modern, clean, air-con supermarket.

In reaction, many defended how wet markets provide for what supermarket cannot.  Be it culture, freshness, etc etc.  The reasons why wet markets are in the conditions that they are in, etc etc.

Thats roughly what happened.  Here’s my opinion.

I agree with the following:

-  Wet markets are getting outdated.

-  Wet markets will die out with the older generation.

-  Wet markets need to be freshen up.

-  Wet markets are NOT a cultural assets.

-  Wet markets can be a community focus point.

But I do not believe that we should just phased out wet markets in a blink of an eye, like what our good friend Ms Jessica Sim/Lim wrote.  There are implications to simply phasing them out.  To name the most obvious, what will become of the stallholders, who have probably been doing this for a good part of their lives and probably have little skills in any other areas.

We should perhaps re-train them to cater to a more value added service orientated kind of wet markets.  But before that, let’s look at the setup of wet markets themselves.

Wet markets are like our Budget Terminal at the Airport.  It is crude box with bare necessities.  Supermarkets and Hypermarkets are more like the main terminals at the Airport.  The setup  of the place has a problem in itself.  Wet markets are dimly lit.  Most have bad drainage.  Cheap tiles that get very slippery when wet and take forever to dry.  The list goes on and on.  The point is that if you build a dump, it will be a dump.

Thats why the architect of such places need to wake up before they cause the wet market to become irrelevant.  Send these designers and decision makers to Granville Island.  Look at THAT market there.  Granted that the climate is different, but we should make stalls bigger and with a work area at the back (NOT THE FRONT).

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There are some things that even I cannot deny. Baby X resembles me. Too bad for you, kiddo. You are stuck with my good looks. Muhahahahaha…….

This is interesting information:

But somehow, this presenter irritates me.