Happy Halloween

The Rubiks Cube, The Bride of Frankenstein/Run-Away-Bride/Like-A-Virgin, The Popcorn and many more (photos later) came out to play on Saturday and it was muchos fun. Costume Parties FTW!

We won a bucket of beer for our efforts -_-

Boo!

It’s the little things that matter the most. Thanks for sending this my way B. Can’t wait to pick you up with Charlie.

Keep Mussolini on the Island!

Time to take a vote folks! Since we’ve decided to keep Fatty over here on the island, it’s time to play the name game..

At the moment we’ve been calling him Dua Pui Sai (or any other variation of fatness, i.e. Fatso, Lardball, Butterball), Pops favours Churchill (but we already have a Winston), and then there’s his stunning resemblance to Mussolini……..

You know which one has my vote :)

Kitties make a comeback

Things are coming together, albeit slowly, but surely. I finally unpacked my books last night (first sign of here to stay because I’d never go anywhere without them) and my little kitties made a comeback creeping into shots all over the shelves. Part II commences tonight – the moving of the shoes – this could take a while.

A Good Read on Bad Writing.

[because I know many of you are too lazy to click on links, I've copied the whole thing and dumped it all here, because it's too good of a read on bad writing to pass up. You will read this.]

7 Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School

by Jonathan Morrow

What is good writing?

Ask an English teacher, and they’ll tell you good writing is grammatically correct. They’ll tell you it makes a point and supports it with evidence. Maybe, if they’re really honest, they’ll admit it has a scholarly tone — prose that sounds like Jane Austen earns an A, while a paper that could’ve been written by Willie Nelson scores a B (or worse).

Not all English teachers abide by this system, but the vast majority do. Just look at the writing of most graduates, and you’ll see what I mean. It’s proper, polite, and just polished enough not to embarrass anyone. Mission accomplished, as far as our schools are concerned.

But let me ask you something:

Is that really good writing?

I think most good writers listen to the way English teachers want them to write and think, “This isn’t real. It has no feeling, no distinctiveness, no oomph. You’re the only person in the world who would willingly read it. Everyone else would rather chew off their own eyelids than read more than three pages of this boring crap.” And they’re right.

Compare an award-winning essay to a best-selling novel, and you’ll notice that they are written in almost completely different languages. Some of it has to do with the audience, sure. It’s natural to write differently for academics than you would for everyday people. But my question is: who are you going to spend more time writing for?

My guess: everyday people — your family and friends, your blog audience, your boss at work, maybe even a Letter to the Editor every now and again. None of them are academics. None of them want to read an essay.

Personally, I think good writing doesn’t have to be educated or well supported or even grammatically correct. It does have to be interesting enough that other people want to read it. Much of what comes out of high schools and universities fails this test, not because our students are incapable of saying anything interesting, but because a well-meaning but flawed academic system has taught them a lot of bad habits.

Let’s go through some of them.

1. Trying to sound like dead people

It’s a sad state of affairs when the youngest writer on your reading list has been dead 100 years, but that’s the way it is in school.

I don’t know who exactly decides what’s worth reading and what’s not, but they (whoever “they” are) believe in reading the “classics,” and most of those classics are centuries old. What’s worse is that many teachers hold up the classics as examples of what good writing is, and they expect you to mimic those writers with your essays.

Sure, Chaucer and Thomas More and Shakespeare were the stud muffins of their day, but you don’t see them on the New York Times Bestseller List now.

Not because they aren’t good (they were freaking great), but because people can’t connect with them. By mimicking their style, you might make a few teachers happy, but you’re essentially handicapping your writing in the eyes of the public.

If you want to make a connection, you’re much better off studying the hot writers of today — like Stephen King, J.K. Rowling, and Seth Godin. Watch what they do, and play with using some of their techniques in your own writing.

Yes, you’ll still be mimicking the work of another writer, but at least you’ll be mimicking something people want to read.

My brother the Army Boy..

Saturday, October 24, 2009 @ 2:37 PM

Tekong Family Holiday Resort
This scenic one and a half star resort is located on Tekong Island, just a 20min ferry ride from mainland Singapore. For the low low price of two years of full time service to your country you can enjoy all the wonderful amenities this resort has to offer, including…

• Free sunset ferry shuttle service to and from the mainland
• Complimentary camouflage resort-wear
• Friendly and helpful resort staff
• 3 buffet style meals a day
• Gym *use subject to restrictions
• Pool *use subject to restrictions
• White sandy beaches *trespassing prohibited
• Physical training by qualified instructors *attendance mandatory
• Rifle range *use subject to restrictions
• Organized camping trips

Book your stay today!

Buggs manages humour even when the situation sucks. 2 days till he’s out. Yay!

I know many of you are concerned about his welfare *coughmomcough* but fear not he is faring very well. Though I do encourage all of you to send some love his way!

Trolls

Lots of things about work are hard. Dealing with trolls is one of them. Trolls are critics who gain perverse pleasure in relentlessly tearing you and your ideas down. Here’s the thing(s):

1. trolls will always be trolling
2. critics rarely create
3. they live in a tiny echo chamber, ignored by everyone except the trolled and the other trolls
4. professionals (that’s you) get paid to ignore them. It’s part of your job.

“Can’t please everyone,” isn’t just an aphorism, it’s the secret of being remarkable.

Thank you Seth for this wonderfully astute observation, and for making working life marginally better.

Havana, Cuba

Someone take me away.

[Photos courtesy of Robert Caplin for the NYTimes]

Stalking the Sartorialist

My obsession with the Sartorialist started long before he became The Sartorialist, back when he almost exclusively shot men on the streets of NYC, back when his pictures still had that raw un-fininished quality to them, back when his subjects weren’t always perfect-in-an-imperfect way (does that even make sense? I’m sure you get my meaning), back when most of them were not in fashion…….

I stumbled upon his blog through sheer randomness – clicking around online while attempting to write a paper in the spring of 2006 for my Perspectives in International Studies intro course (anyone who’s procrastinated on a paper understands this phenomenon – you always find the most fascinating things on the www right when you have approximately 2 hours to finish that damned midterm paper) – and was immediately drawn in by his photos, the sometimes funny captions (i.e. Fat Bald Man Always Looks Great, New York, May 2006) and the way he captured real people going about doing their thing, minding their own business and looking stylish at the same time.

So I suppose you could say that I sort of feel like he’s cheating these days by taking pictures of these beautiful people who always look stunning and are decked out in the it item hot off the runway, I mean, it’s hard not to look good when it’s your job to look good. But nonetheless, the one thing that’s remained the same is his uncanny ability to bottle the essence of his subject’s style without over-styling the shot. It’s in the way their expressions speak much louder than their outfits, it’s in the artless way they stand and laugh and walk. That’s it, his work is artless (meaning free from artificiality, I do not mean he is without skill, he clearly has a lot of that).

These are my favourites from his recent FW trip to Milan. The word stylish is entirely over-used these days and has unfortunately been equated with fashionable/in vogue though it is supposed to mean the complete opposite! Was it YSL who said “Fashion fades but style is eternal”? Because it’s entirely true. But back to the point, he’s managed to capture the very thing that all these lovely bellas have in common – entirely effortless style. They have mastered the art of artlessness and he’s captured them in all their natural glory. I kow tow to the master.

On another note, I’m suffering from massive mane envy right now – don’t the twins/sisters just have the loveliest hair you’ve ever seen? The first word that popped in my mind was glorious. They have glorious hair.

[All photos obviously courtesy of The Sartorialist]

fml.