Saw one of the worst ever puns at one of the local food courts. Thaksin beef noodles. We are bullish about beefing you up! I think THW might actually appreciate the sheer punniness of that. Another punny food slogan from Clark Quay... We are En-Thai-Ly Thai.
So at M's chi-chi farewell party for Siv the other day, we saw a travel show featuring turkish oil wrestlers. Now, the sight of half-naked beefy hairy Turkish men wrestling while drenched with oil is already somewhat homo-erotic, but what capped it off was when the men started reaching into each other's pants. And there are actually whole websites, moves and rules devoted to this sport.
Was chatting with L today about the state of Lindy here. It seems kinda strange that you really only see about 14-15 dancers who regularly show up and are at a comfortable enough level with the dance, unlike other scenes where there seem to be more regulars. That said, my limited experience with the US scene in Ann Arbor and Michigan indicates that the number of dancers, and the number of more advanced dancers, is also not that big. And perhaps part of the reason why the scene is not large is also because we do not interact much with the Lindy Hop Ensemble, and do not go to each other's swing events. Is there something more we should be doing as L Hoppers to grow the scene? Maybe reach out more to the intermediate dancers? I really don't know. This topic has been debated ad nauseum on the chatterbugs websites, but I still don't think we have a good answer.
Another random article seen this week. Sunday Life featured an interview with this 30 year old engineer who had saved $250k, in contrast to many of his peers who were struggling with massive credit card bills and other unsecured loans. Now that sounds impressive, until you realise that this $250k included CPF savings (that accumulates at 20% of your income anyway!)
That's one of the things i've learnt to be careful about when reading reports, papers, etc. The statistics and policies you read are often based upon certain assumptions....
In some ways, that was one of the most useful lessons i took out of political science and into work/life, which is the importance of being rigorous in one's thinking. Was reminded about this most recently when reading a book called Freakonomics, which aimed to answer everyday questions using the methods and approaches of social science. Questions like : why do crack dealers still live with their mothers? Do sumo wrestlers really cheat? (answer : they do, sometimes). Let me give an example from this book : In Israel, these child care centres were experiencing a problem with parents picking up their kids after the stipulated time. So they decided to impose a fine, but that only resulted in more parents picking up their kids later. Why? Because the imposition of a fine made parents feel like it was ok to pick up their kids late. The imposition of a financial disincentive was more than outweighed by the removal of a moral incentive to be on time. Parents no longer felt guilty, as shown by the fact that a higher number of parents still picked their kids up late after the fine was removed. I guess what I took away from this book was the idea that we need to be very thorough and vigorous in anything that we do. If you pick up this book, read the section on school teachers and sumo wrestlers. The way in which the author builds up and proves his theory is simply beautiful.
On a less esoteric note, RENT is coming to town. RENT! One of my favorite musicals, and it's the Broadway Cast this time. No half-past-six mix of Filipino and local actors this time, even if Karen Mok is going to be Mimi.
2 months till H is here. Can't wait!
Ajantis is aching for a baking....
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