Clear Blue Sky and Sunshine

So yeah.
This: http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/agc-sends-warning-to/710314.html

A warning was sent to a filmmaker by the Attorney-General's Chambers who had recorded interviews with
the 2 PRC bus drivers (apparently the 'ring-leaders')(has a villainy ring to it, don't you think?)
about how they were treated by the police,
about how they were coerced into making 'confessions'.

Now before I continue,
I gotta say,
that these guys do indeed have my support.

They'd gone through all the available avenues
FOR A FUCKING YEAR
to remedy their deplorable living conditions...

And as a last resort,
they all went on Medical Leave (you know, take a 'sickie')
at the same time as a protest.

Now if you'd heard about the news
only through the official channels...

Holy shit! You'd think these were the
most dangerous motherfuckers
to enter Singapore since the British,
and would've brought about Armageddon!

Because you know,
standing around peacefully
at their workplace
is a grave, grave danger to the stability of the country,
and your sanity,
not to mention the sanity of your cute little kittens.
WE MUST PROTECT THE KITTENS AT ALL COST

So yeah.

Back to the story.

Something bothered me about the story.
Not the warning itself.
That's par for the course here.

It bothered me so much,
that even though I'm exhausted,
and it's 1am,
here I am,
posting about it.

Yes, yes... you really appreciate it, I know.
Now shut the fuck up.

Was it the flimsy-as-a-stripper's-thong justification?

"The AGC in a statement said that Ms Lee was aware, at the time of publication, that criminal proceedings against He and Liu were ongoing, and thus her conduct had created "a real risk of prejudice" to the proceedings through subjudice.
This may lead to parties connected with the trial "would be improperly influenced" by the publication, in their making of findings of fact, the AGC said. It added: "These are matters that should be determined at a trial and not by publications that are made outside the court."

It sounds so very... reasonable. 
Sounds like common sense.
How could you possibly argue against it?

Yep. Ok then!
Accepted!

I shall continue on my merry way-
Now wait.
Hang- Just wait a second...
Something... something's forming in my mind...

Oh yeah. Go fuck yourself.

What bothered me was how
I was initially unable to counter their justification.

So why was my first reaction of...
what's the right word here...
incredulity?
Yea. That's it.
Incredulity.

Now don't get me wrong,
what she done could've well been against the current laws.

You see the thing about the system here in Singapore,
the laws (and constitution)(ha what a joke) pretty much reflect
what the PAP allow and don't allow.

Something happens to be currently legal?
They don't like it?
No problem!
Just amend the law... or hell, create a new one!
BAM! Legal justification, baby!

And if that doesn't suit their fancy,
there's always the Internal Security Act...
indefinite detentions without trial.
You know... for our own protection.

It reminded me of how I was falsely accused,
then railroaded into a motherfucking 'confession'.

Yeah, not too much faith in the legal system.

But why should the filmmaker NOT be punished?
Well for starters,
you can't give interviews while out on bail?
Are you fucking serious?
Is that a law now?
I don't know. Maybe. Knowing Singapore,
it might be.

Now here's the thing.
Those guys gave the interviews.
She reported it.
And she is guilty?
Seriously?

Besides that, though.
Let's do a bit of a recap.

These guys went through
all the proper channels to air their legitimate grievances...
they were literally suffering...
and nothing happened.

So their last resort was a harmless protest.
And what happened?
They get arrested,
demonized,
charged with something along the lines
of threatening to rape the constitution and coconuts or something...

Oh, and did I mention while they were being detained (I forget how long),
they didn't have access to a lawyer?

OH! OH!
And there are no video recordings during police interrogations.

So you expect these guys to do what, exactly?
REPORT THE ABUSE TO THE EXACT SAME PEOPLE WHO WERE ABUSING THEM?
Right.

Now I'm not saying anybody
who makes an accusation should be immediately believed.

But the circumstances are different here.
This, plus the record of the legal system and police
isn't exactly stellar.

Why not give them access to lawyers?
Why not record the interrogations at least?

And lastly,
are you telling because of these two interviews,
a judge (not jury, by the way) (and not an elected judge either)
is suddenly gonna fling his hands in the air,
and toss out all his training and exclaim 'Oh shit! OK you guys are free to go! Fuck the facts! You are clearly innocent!'

You have THAT little faith in your judiciary?
What, are they little children?
Do they still believe in Santa?

Or maybe they really are that dumb.

I could go on and on about how the legal system
is stacked heavily in favour of the politically-connected
and wealthy...
but I really need to get some sleep.

Go fuck yourselves.

Well enough of that

Imitation Isn't Always Flattery. Unless You're Doing The Imitating, That Is.

So I was wondering about what to post about today.
I've been waking up several times at night the past 2 or 3 days,
and now I'm exhausted.

But I've got to keep posting,
got to keep trying to express myself.
Articulate my thoughts and all that.

I didn't want to post about 'heavy' topics like the goddamn Prism Programme.
No. Something lighter for me today.

So fortunately,
I stumbled upon this little morsel of passive-aggressive cuntery: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20130612005100-1291685-i-think-i-m-being-stalked?trk=tod-home-art-medium_0

A lovely little write-up about
how a business owner is being ruthlessly, relentlessly, shamelessly plagiarized!
Oh wait. No.
IMITATED.
OH MY GOD.
Another business is imitating your model??
HOLY SHIT.
Better stop the presses and get the president on the line!

Anyway, I have a few issues with this lovely, sweet-as-candy-floss, completely innocent article.
Just a few.

The article starts off with the author implying that she is being stalked.
Sure, she doesn't state that exactly.
But the frame has been set.
Someone out there is doing something bad to her.
She is the victim.

Then, she goes on and on about all the nice things she'd done...
Look at how much good I've done for all of you! Look! Come on! LOOK GODDAMMIT!

Now let me point out that this woman
has 150,000 followers.

Ooooh I just feel the call-to-action coming.
Not too long now.

Now she talks about how a mysterious woman
is copying EVERYTHING she does.
EVERYTHING.

Giving herself the same title,
sending experience gifts with balloons (HOW DARE SHE! I STARTED IT FIRST! IT'S MY THING AND MINE ALONE GODDAMN YOU)...
you get the idea.

Of course this is swiftly followed by criticism "I cannot see any inspirational thought, innovation, or anything new."

Oh and by the way, up to this point,
and throughout the rest of the article,
she never specifies who this mysterious person is.

Although I'm willing to bet she already knows
her followers are going to try (and will) find out.

"So how should I respond? Do I stop writing, stop my public speaking, leave twitter alone? I have to say it is really disturbing to see such a blatant copy. "

I can just see her hands in that 'What can I possible do?' position.

Right. She was definitely considering quitting the things that
have been and are critical to her success.

Oh yeah.
For sure.

What can she possibly do, right?

Besides the fact that I seriously doubt she herself hasn't copied elements
from others (sending unique gifts for example)...
and that we've only got one side of the story so far...

What's wrong with it?

What, you're gonna sue in court for sending gifts with balloons too?
Man, that's like Burger King suing McDonald's for running a similar promotion.
Or Nike asking their followers if they should stop making sports shoes
just because Adidas started doing the same...

And you can bet your ass if she'd committed any kind of copyright infringement,
she would've received a shitload of notices from a lawyer.

No.

Since I'm out of time,
I'll need to wrap this shit up.
Staying back in the office for a blog post is not my idea of time well spent, you know what I mean?
Shut up.

So it's a sort of call-to-arms.
Passive aggressive bullshit.

The lady had done nothing illegal.
So what's the best thing to do?
Fuck up her reputation by getting your minions all riled up.

Already the comments section is filled with blind-as-fuck dumbasses
making suggestions on what she ought to do...
'Take legal action!'
'She sucks! You rule!'

... all without even hearing the other side of the story.

So yea.
Generate publicity, while rubbing a budding competitor's name in the mud.

Mission accomplished, eh?


Well enough of that




















 

Boundless Informant

Prism. Boundless Informant. And who knows what else.

Before I continue,
I'd like to state that yes,
it is indeed motherfucking ironic that I'm posting on a site that actually contributes to the problem.

But fuck it.
I still need to express myself.
And regular pen and paper just won't do.
Maybe that's part of the problem, eh?
We're just so used to uploading
our thoughts and pictures and other types of personal information to the internet.
It's become a normal thing.

And of course,
whenever there's something precious,
whenever there's something to exploit for financial gain or power,
you can bet your ass that is exactly what is going to happen.

I've read hundreds of comments on the issue.
One thing that truly amazed me was
that there were actually people online
who were thinking along these lines:
"If you've done nothing wrong, what's there to hide?"

Yep. This type of people still exist!
I mean of course there are going to be people who think like that.
Just like there will always be those who believe Jesus was White,
and that the Easter Bunny is a friend of his.

But damn, man.
When you actually encounter one of these geniuses...
it's kind of like your brain got hit with a stun grenade.
Your jaw drops.

Oh yes.
That kind of stupidity STILL exists.

Well if you happen to be one of them,
let me say this:
Forget about the fact that THAT is one the things
most authoritarian governments say to justify the invasion of your privacy,
and it's not far behind the "It's for your own security!" justification
for taking away your rights - free speech comes to mind.

No. Forget about all that.

Let me put it in a way that is in the ballpark of what you might understand.

Once they know everything about you,
they OWN your ass.

When that happens,
you're going to be one of the 'in-betweens'.
You'll be one of those who remember that there was a time
when you could express yourself.
And you might even recall how that freedom slowly eroded.
Hell, you might even remember specific moments when it happened.

And that might make you a threat.
You see, the generations that come after you
are going to see absolutely nothing wrong with it.

They would've been trained.
Just like Soviet citizens accepted what life was like,
so will they.
They would have known nothing else.
That makes them less of a threat... than you.

You dare to express (unapproved) discontent?
Hope you like prison food.

Maybe an exaggeration at this stage.
But how do you think totalitarian regimes get started?
By first getting support from people like you, you dumb fuck.

Lately I've let others do the arguing for me.
And over time,
I lost the capability to argue.
Actually felt myself losing the ability to articulate my thoughts,
like it was fine sand,
slowly slipping through my fingers.

I would do a search for those who argued against a particular viewpoint
I disagreed with.
Then, once I found the ones that seem to match the amorphous
objections in my head,
I would just use their arguments.

Sure, I agreed with them.
But by relying solely on others,
I was losing the capacity for critical thinking.

I would see comments on stories and articles
that to me exhibited severe ignorance (and a lack of functioning brain cells),
and somehow,
the fear of being thought of like that actually almost stopped me
from expressing an opinion on something.

And that scared the shit out of me.
I will express my opinion.
And I will be open to debate,
and to the opinions of others.

Sometimes people will agree with me.
Sometimes they won't.
And sometimes I will make mistakes.
But it should never, ever stop me from expressing my thoughts.

This has been a much longer post than I'd expected.
And what's an even bigger surprise,
is that I feel compelled to write even more.

But I'm tired.
Tired, but a little satisfied.

This is the first step in a long, long series of steps that will need to be taken,
before I become once again comfortable in my own skin,
before I once again am able to clearly put into words
what I am thinking.

Being able to express yourself is critical.
I shall not take it for granted.

Well enough of that


 







 

What The Hell

So it's Monday again.
And here I am, trying to adhere to my new personal routine,
which includes a new blog post every morning before I begin doing actual work.

A sort of warm-up, if you will.
To set the mood for the day.

The plan is to spend an hour, from 8.30am to 9.30am doing this.

It is now 10am. Bah hahahahah.
Yea, I'm writing a blog post DURING OFFICE HOURS.
I'm so badass.

Every weekday I wake up and think to myself
"I really do not want to come into work today".
Every. Damn. Day.

It's not quite a lie to say that I like my job.
I do. The sales bit.
When I get to interact with customers,
and when I get to see
the more experienced Business Development guys in action and learn from them,
that's when I really enjoy my job.

But when there is no clear direction,
a lack of technical support and resources (I mean come on, STILL no fucking CRM?? COME ON),
it makes me want to quit. On the spot.

Would've done it ages ago, if only it weren't for this tiny, miniscule requirement that I tend to have from time to to time...
MONEY.

Ah well.
I'm downloading Game Maker at the moment,
hoping to get a bit of practice in each morning.

I used to think all you need is a great product to sell (like a great mobile game)...
and put in the minimum amount of effort to get that product out,
to be successful.

It's way overdue,
but I've come to realize that to wish for something like that,
would be to wish for a goddamn Arnold Schwarzengger physique
by working out 5 mins once a week and downing a protein shake right after.

Doesn't work like that.
You need to put in the effort.
Gonna be a pain in the ass,
and yea, yea... it's common sense too.

I feel like going back in time and smacking my self.
I was just a lazy asshole.

There is no easy way out.
You need to pay your dues.

Time to get to it.


Well enough of that.

Back to the Future

Or in this case, the past.
Or maybe we never really left that past.
Maybe we've been stuck in the same goddamn place for years and years,
with only our perception having been changed without our realizing it.

Or worse,
maybe we've actually regressed.

I know I have. My English is so bad,
that after only a few sentences,
I'm wondering if I've made any grammatical errors.
This is what happens when you quit sharpening your skills.
AND when you're surrounded by Singaporeans almost on a daily basis.
The latter is probably more damaging.
 But I digress.

So MDA has decided that Hey! Online news sites should be thoroughly controlled by the government as well!
And what constitutes 'news'?
WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY SAY IT DOES.

I mean, check this out:

"A “Singapore news programme” is any programme (whether or not the programme is presenter-based and whether or not the programme is provided by a third party) containing any news, intelligence, report of occurrence, or any matter of public interest, about any social, economic, political, cultural, artistic, sporting, scientific or any other aspect of Singapore in any language (whether paid or free and whether at regular interval or otherwise) but does not include any programme produced by or on behalf of the Government. "

Oh but hey, hey... no, no... you guys don't need to worry.
We're only looking at sites that publish articles more than once a week,
and get more than 50K views a month...

So don't worry, ok?

Yea, but that's not exactly what the new regulation says and-

SHUT THE FUCK UP OR WE WILL FUCK YOUR LIFE UP FOR YOU!

... but please, don't worry ok?
Great.
This is all just for the good of Singapore.

Yep.
We never really had freedom of speech to begin with.
Even before this new regulation came into effect
(which took all of what, 5, 6 days?
Who has the time to debate this shit in parliament, right?
Fuck that. Just implement it! Nobody really gives a shit),
the government already had the power to take down websites,
haul people to court for stuff they find to be... well, not nice.

For example, 'PAP no good!'
Oh shit you better start running motherfucker
because 5 mins later the entire SPF is going to be coming after your candy ass.

This begs the question.
If they already had that power,
why the need for this new regulation?

I could probably come up with the answer by digging just a little bit deeper.
But in the end, it won't make a difference.

Maybe the original law governing online 'news' sites wasn't enough to shut them down,
whenever the government feels like it.
Or maybe it didn't address the user comments (most of which are about how the PAP is full of shit),

I don't know.
It doesn't matter now.

The law has come into effect.
And in a few weeks (or less), most of the citizens would've forgotten about it.
They'll start railing against foreigners again (easy target),
or go off on minor things like how the bus stops around Singapore are not pretty enough or something like that.

They go for the easy targets.
Always.

One of the side-effects of our glorious education system: Compliance.
The sheep may get upset once in a while.
But in the end they always fall into line.

There will be no more protests. Not of the kind that matters, anyway.
Things won't change.

I need to get my act together. And fast.
The grass is always greener on the other side,
but over here on this side,
it's already brown and dry from being constantly stomped upon.

Fuck this shit.

Well enough of that.

Happy Birthday, You Son of a Bitch

Yep. It's my birthday.
31. And I'm still on a millionaire, let alone rolling in dough, all dressed up in designer suits whose names I can't pronounce...
And yea, can you believe it? No Bentley.

It's 10.30am, and I've going through caffeine withdrawal,
my head's starting to spin,
and I've got no to-do list prepared for the day, as I usually do.

Oh and yep. I am IN THE FUCKING OFFICE.

Articulating myself these days has been hard.
Out of practice and all that.

So here and now, I will attempt to do a bit of... practising.

Now don't get me wrong.
I like my boss. And I do like my job.
It's just that right now, I feel like I completely suck ass at it.

That jackass has a way of making you feel like a hungry monkey with no idea
how to peel a banana...
with a smile on his face birthed from the nice, wholesome intentions deep within his heart.

Yesterday annoyed the shit out of me.
Now I get it. Submit the Monthly Sales Report. Sure.
Part of the job.
No problem.

But here's the thing.
I speak with the client, and figure out his requirements and goals.
Then the Technical Guy comes up with the 'How': What software the client would need,
how long it would take, etc.

So now I've got a budget from the client.
And put the number into the report as part of my forecast.
He asks me what exactly I'm selling.
I tell him the Technical Guy will be coming up with the components soon.

What happens?
He goes on a mini-rant about how I should know what I'm selling.
Exactly. The components. Everything. EVEN THOUGH HE KNOWS THAT IT IS NOT MY JOB TO KNOW...
at least, not until the components have been identified by the Technical Guy.

And I should know this AT ALL TIMES (he has a habit of asking you this type of question at unexpected moments, and not giving you the time to consult your notes).
Not just this. ANYTHING at all to do with EVERY SINGLE ONE OF MY OPPORTUNITIES.
Every little motherfucking detail.

Why in the holy hell are there so many note-taking applications out there, do you think?
BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE ARE NOT WALKING COMPUTERS.
Therefore, we take FUCKING NOTES.

Give me a bit of time. Let me consult my notes, and I will be able to get you the answers.
Common sense. Severely lacking.

Anyway, I am not quite as eloquent as I would like to be.
But this is a start. I think.


Well enough of that.

 

And It's Only Wednesday

I am depressed.
Severely.
At least, that's how it feels.

So many things are going wrong on so many fronts.
Feels like I'm a house, and a number of critical pillars are falling apart simultaneously.

My English has gone down the crapper.
Again.
It's practically rubbish to me. Beyond the usual grammar and spelling errors.
Oh no.
I'm using shit that sound accurate,
but are completely out of place.

Even when I'm using slang it's wrong.
'I feel kind of wiped out'.
What?
You're either wiped out, or not. Not 'kind of'.

Even when writing formal documents,
I'm beginning to use shit that are so out of place.
And I can't even think of examples right now.
Goddammit.

I'm depressed about my work.
Not a single deal has been closed since January.
Not a single fucking one.

Oh, and I'm running out of cash, too.

My mobile game is so far from being developed,
that it seems like a distant, unlikely dream.
Forget about the fact that the whole point of it was just to get it out there.

Mobile game developers RARELY make any money.

But after my brother's operation (a brother who hates my guts, by the way),
my mom's myriad injuries, my dad nearing retirement age,
and my youngest sister still requiring a load of cash to continue her studies...
AND the fact that my wife might just be pregnant...

I'd begun to entertain thoughts of making millions from a mobile game.

Yep. That's about as likely as a Pakistani playing Batman someday.

To top it off,
I'm exhausted. Likely due to the fact that my nose allergy medication has run out,
and I'm back to getting woken up every couple of times throughout the night.

Awesome.

So what now, eh?

What?
You think I complain too much?
Come here so I can introduce your face to my chainsaw.
Come closer.
No?
Good. Now shut the fuck up.
I'll complain if I want to.

Where was I?
Oh yea.
What now?

Giving up is not an option at all.

Sure I'm depressed. But hey, when the only way is up,
at the very least the path is clear.

The journey though is going to be a major pain in the rectum.

Well enough of that.