Work-around.

...around the clock, perhaps.

Been quite busy. I do apologize. Twelve hours at the office doesn't leave me fit for much else when I get back.

But, yes. The pictures, they are out. Now, I know I promised nice pictures of our beloved Ministers of Parliament and such. But I had a niggling doubt (of the non-racist variety), and consulted Mr Ancob. After all, they're more or less his pictures.

He explained it quite nicely. In the interest of readability and flavour, I have distilled it down to this:

"You want to put pictures of gah'men on your site. Never die before ah?"

Lovely thing, self-censorship. I did concur, however. So you'll have to take my word on Dr Lily Neo being very, very pretty.

...Really.

...No, really.

Pity. The profile picture link on the previous entry does her no justice. But if I do put anything up here, I might get...



...BadAss man after me. I never did find out his name, but look: no other words are going to come to mind when you see him. He could do anything, and people would never question it.


BadAss man shoves past a 120kg, African-American bodybuilder.

Bodybuilder: "Yo what up wit dat dawg?! You looking to star..."

BadAss man slowly turns around. He looks questioningly at the bodybuilder.

Bodybuilder: "...sir."


He was one of the bodyguards there. Utter respect. One does not manage that grim set to the jaw without years of practice. Of course, he could be cheating and have been born with it. Probably flipped off the doctor as he slid out, too. Badass.

What, you think you could take him? That's just because you're not seeing him in the proper context:


Told you. Badass.

So you'll have to make do with generic cute kid.

Hey don't diss it. You think getting these are easy?


And of course, must have pretty girls.

The beautiful Kelly, runner-up of yet another Idol-type contest, Project Superstar. She does sing very well. And is very pretty.


And there's Kelly with the winner of that contest, Kelvin! ...otherwise known as Wei Liang.

I must speak up at this point. Even in newspapers, I see the phrase. Why is she "Kelly", and he "Kelvin, better known as Wei Liang"? It's a trend, you know. That Chinese male singers go by their Chinese names, while female singers take on all sorts of bopsy monikers. "Apple" and "Fish" are up there. I've heard of someone called "Hymen", though that's unconfirmed.

...why?

But they're very close, as far as I could tell. It was oddly sweet. Cameramen would go up for pictures, and Kelly would tell Kelvin their pictures were being taken. Kelvin would then flash a very sweet smile at a nearby potted plant, and Kelly would put her arm around him and gently swivel his head to the right direction.

I must also mention that Kelvin came very close, several times, to being photographed groping Kelly's boob. Though I will not condemn others for things I would very much do myself, it might be something they want to look into. Just wouldn't look good on the camera, no matter how much we understand that it's an accident. Or two. ...Or nine.

It couldn't have been easy for either of them, you know? Whoever won the contest was going to be called names. Kelly could dress up, sing and dance. Which she did. And people would say that was why she won. Kelvin was blind. An against-all-odds sort of hero. And people would say that's why he won. As it is, I've already had a friend say quite firmly to me, "You do know he only won because he's blind, right?" .

Well, I let it go. They seem to be doing very well together. Perhaps some happy relationship will come out of this. You go, Kelvin! ...or, Wei Liang.


Well, maybe he doesn't need my well wishes.

The other pretty, pretty girl is...Eve, I think. Runner-up of...another contest. It begins to get out of hand.

She's from Taiwan, and also sings quite nicely. I felt a little sorry for her initially. You see, the three of them were sitting quite innocently at the side of the stage. You could go right up to them, like three other photographers and myself did.

Then...they were noticed.

The agents and organizers eventually pried the bloodthirsty crowd of schoolgirls, bengs and aunties off. Then they allowed no one onto the little platform where the performers were seated. Through all this, Eve was...untouched. No requests for pictures, no sneaky sneaky pictures being taken. She looked a little sad, to me. So, being one of the few that could get onto the platform, I decided to make her feel a bit more special by taking pictures of her.


Pretty pretty.

Turns out there wasn't really a need to. Though a fair bit of the crowd started leaving right after Kel&Kel finished their last song, quite a number stayed, intrigued by the sweet young thing coming on stage.

She sang, and though it wasn't magic or anything, she was pretty good. And very photogenic. A group of schoolgirls collaborated to chime, "You're very cute!" after her song, and that cheered her up considerably.

I thought there was some surreptitious checking out on both my side and hers, both before and after I'd taken her picture. But of course, quite probably my deluded self. Her agent was better looking than me.

And way back then, I had a girlfriend.



...It wasn't a terribly interesting day, and not put across in a terribly interesting way.

Story of my life, that is.