Blast from the Past

I went to see Up on Wednesday (Orange two for one offer...). It's brilliant, it's probably one of the best films this year, if not the best film of the year. For a cartoon it has so much depth it's mind blowing. Of course it has all it's little Pixar moments, it has its chases and it has its very funny moments but beyond that is the human touch it offers the audience. I don't want to spoil it for people who haven't seen it but one of the most affecting moments for me was when Carl puts his hand on the hand print of his wife on the mailbox. There are so many other tiny subtleties (the perfectly made side of the bed that belonged to Ellie for instance) throughout that it seems like not one shot was wasted. Go and see it.

Thumbs up for Up!

I think Owen gave me a plug on his Radio Show and in response I said I'd do the same back for his blog, so here we are: Read It Here. Kate and I saw him last night at a Pagan/Folk Metal gig, he was up to his usual tricks, laughing at fat Vikings and jigging about like a Medieval Flemish Peasant.

I fail to see what's so funny, Owen

Someone was complaining about the colour of the background and the font colour of this blog. If you don't like it, you can FUCK OFF. I like it therefore it stays.


There will be further excavation memories when I get a chance to write them, but before that I was also thinking about the Singapore Blog and below is the first of several installments as I will be reprinting the blog in full. I'll shove it at the bottom of the page so if you can't be bothered to read it then you don't have to. It doesn't exist before May 24 2007 as I deleted it from Myspace in a fit of rage, so all that remains of it is from this point until I got fired in June. Where this installment begins I had already been in Singapore for a few weeks and we'd settled into the job. So enjoy it or enjoy it again for those of you that saw it the first time round!

Mr Wong says 'hooray for the Singapore Blog!'

Thursday, May 24, 2007

This is the first one for a while, I've been a bit busy and last night Myspazz was being a MOTHERFUCKING BITCH and not letting me post a new weblog. On Monday I went into town after work, we found some dummy practise bomblettes on site. You know the kind, plastic white things they drop from aeroplanes before they give the airmen real ones to drop on Primary Schools. I went to find To Megatherion, Singapore's primary Black Metal store. I wanted some new Cd's. Thinking I knew where it was I found myself walking around Raffles Plaza Mall about eight fucking times, completely lost. I even asked a doorman where Coleman St was, the street it is on. He sent me the wrong way the stupid bastard. I was not in a good mood on Monday and I was getting hot and sweaty, so decided to jack it in before I committed pavement rage on someone. I went down again on Tuesday, this time armed with a map. I found the place, only to see it was locked up!! Gah!! Last night I was actually successful and managed to not only find it, but find it was open. I even bought some Cd's. Endstille (what does this mean John?), Impiety and Rotting Christ's 'Passage to Arcturus', which I have on vinyl, but the last track 'Inside the Eyes of Algond' skips so I wanted it on CD. It also has bonus tracks, so a bargain all round... I also bought my ticket ready for Saturday's BM fest...

On Wednesday we entered site at eight in the morning and as we were driving Ang to his digger a military Land-rover appeared out of nowhere and we nearly broadsided it (I'm glad I was driving, I would have hit it. I have been driving all round site in order to practise, I will go for my test after this is all over. At last.). It seems that, unbeknownst to us, the Singapore Army's EOD team were on site to do some practise demolition. It doesn't matter that WE are the only ones who are supposed to have access to the site. We have already had to see of the Dog Handlers section of the SAF, now we had EOD to contend with. It's not that we mind these people being on site, we just wish they'd tell us they are coming, instead of surprising us at junctions. Anyway they had laid out some pretend ordnance to blow up. We went site looking for it. They had a large airdropped Japanese WW2 bomb, a large torpedo looking bomb and a 105mm howitzer shell made in plastic. We asked them if they wanted to blow up the REAL ordnance we had found in the last few weeks. The commanding officer told us they weren't insured to deal with real ordnance.

Fat lot of good they will be.

I was watching Lifeline the other night, it is the single worst soap opera I have ever seen. It is set in the Singapore Civil Defence firefighting team. The acting is so dreadful it has to be watched to be believed... The latest episode involved a load of models getting into a truckload of trouble during a photo shoot. The photographer made the best of a bad job by photographing all the firefighters as they were doing their job. He even turned up in the hospital shooting the girls in
their bandages. I can't wait for next week! You know when you've been in Singapore for a while when I walked up some stairs for the first in four weeks the other day. Mind you, I stood at the bottom of them for ten minutes thinking it was just a really long escalator. I also had trouble
using my knife and fork the other day, I was trying to balance them like chopsticks.

At about break time yesterday morning I was laying out a grid for us to run the array across, Mr Wong shouted from the other side of the field. He was bringing my attention to this little figure crossing the field towards us. On closer inspection it turned out to be a girl. I approached her, I thought for a second that she may be a reporter. another unannounced visit. anyway it turned out she was a Spanish Girl looking for the MRT. I asked her if she was lost, she said yes and looked concerned when I told her we were working on clearing bombs and such from the area. She was probably about as far from the MRT as you can get in Singapore... She had taken a wrong turn and walked down the entrance road to the camp, Mr Wong was waiting for his diesel van and had the gate keys. She had asked him directions and being Malaysian and a very poor speaker of English he had brought her about a mile into the camp to talk to us... She was fit so I began chatting her up as we ran her back outside the camp and to the bus stop, I found out she was visiting a friend who lived nearby and was working in Indonesia as a vet treating Orangutans. B*** suggested she could give me a once over. After she had left we decided on the idea that we would go back and under the pretence of asking her if the gate was unlocked during Mr Wong's guarding of it I would give her my phone number. The plan was infallible, except we didn't plan on the SMRT bus service being so goddamn reliable. She was gone by the time we got back to the bus stop.

Mr Wong was asking me if I was married, I told him no and he suggested I should have got the girl's phone number. I told him I tried and he laughed at me. Bastard, that is probably the last time I shall ever see a woman beside T**** in this line of work...

Went to the Beach tonight at Tampines, had a swim, had some food and came home. We have taken tomorrow and Saturday off as we all thought today was Wednesday due to tiredness. It was only made apparent that it was Thursday when Mr Wong and Ang came over and said 'So we work on Sunday, but not tomorrow and Saturday?' B***, T**** and I all looked at each other, Tomorrow as well? Three days off? We thought mutiny was afoot. But no, it was just us being tired and working very hard.