I Challenge You to My Boliao-ness

About a year ago I read about one half of a couplet from a Hong Kong magazine:

叉烧叉叉叉烧烧
(Barbecuing the char siew by skewering it to a char siew fork)

The immediate thought of a corresponding phrase was:

烧卖烧烧烧卖卖
(Selling the siew mai while it's still hot)

But they failed as a couplet because the characters don't have the matching properties required of a couplet:

叉烧叉(noun)叉(verb)叉烧(noun)烧(verb)
烧卖(noun)烧烧(adjective)烧卖(noun)卖(verb)

And I've been thinking about a better phrase ever since (on and off, haha).

Yesterday morning, it came to me:

汽水汽汽汽水水
(Effervescing the soda water by carbonating it with soda water gas)

And the properties are:

叉烧叉(n)叉(v)叉烧(n)烧(v)
汽水汽(n)汽(v)汽水水(n)

NOOOOOOOOO!

Please help me with my boliao-ness. I don't want to be thinking about it for the rest of my life.

And while you are at it, you can read about 不肥佬。

Costa Orang Tua

CK called it a floating old folks' home.

How apt.

Last Sunday we were invited to go on board this cruise ship called Costa Romantica for a look-see and free luncheon. It was organised by CK's high school friend who works in a travel agency. Nice lady and quite a chatty person.

We were first brought to look at the cabins. The cabins were fine - not too small or big, just nice for two person. Definitely should go for the Outside Cabin, meaning it has a porthole window. It makes a huge difference to the interior with light streaming in and a view of the sea.

Apart from the OK cabin, my dream of crusing around the world in a ship like Titanic sank faster than the Titanic.

The carpeted corridor were musty. And as you enter different deck or area, a different (unpleasant) smell hit you. Sometimes stale, sometimes acrid.

And there were lots of sagging skin as we visited the sun deck and pool. I understood from the hostess the ship just came from Australia, with 99% of retirees on board. We only soptted one teenage girl. That poor thing.

We had our lunch in one of the restaurants. Different from the buffet hall, the lunch here is served as a set, and is better than the buffet food, according to CK's friend. The appertizer was salted beef with cheese and salad, which was pleasant. What followed was a downhill parade of mediocre food (very salty penne, veal with identity crisis as it wanted to taste like pork and a watery mess of coffee cream pretending to be Tiramisu) which made me think, if we were on board for a week, we will have no choice but to eat these. SCARY.

On a more intoxicating note, the drinks are cheap (1-for-1 all day) and the cocktails exotic. I'm sure Lola will be happy here: wake up, stuff face with food, drink, drink, drink, more food, more drinks, sleep, wake up, repeat.

Caramel: Cirque du Fuck

So we were having this free drink promotion to attract customers. We handed out flyers and pasted multiple copies of posters on our glass panels to let people know that we are going to close our cafe for good if they don't come in this instant and get their freebies.

The next thing we know, came this email from the building management, which consists of 3 utterly useless, gutless fucks, asking us to remove our posters or reorganise them into a corner so that no one can see them for the sake of their building's image.

WHAT IMAGE? If the building wanted an image, it would first spit out these 3 pieces of crap, collapsed upon itself and asked to be redesigned and rebuilt.

A few rounds of emails ensued until we became so irritated we asked them to meet us face to face. The meeting was set on Tuesday. Tuesday came and the meeting time went but no fugly face in sight. Did I have a hunch? Yes I did.

I wanted to see how bad their incompetence can get. I checked my gmail (those retards' favourite mode of communication) to find out that they've actually sent an email to cancel the meeting because one of them has fallen ill.

"Yes let's send an email to cancel the meeting, they operate a cafe but I'm sure someone is specifically assigned to check emails every 5 seconds, even though we've sent the email at 10am to cancel the 4pm meeting and yet to receive their acknowledgement of the cancellation. Let's not bother. Let's not have the courtesy to inform them through phone or mobile. Let's have lunch now."

We used to call them The Three Musketeers but that's such an overrated compliment. They are a bunch of clowns.

Caramel: A Place Where Birds Don't Lay Eggs

It's a Chinese saying which means a place so remote even birds don't fly there. And that's where we're at. Exit bridal shop, exit steamboat restaurant, exit soya drink stall, exit watch shop, even ATM doesn't want to be here. They've always stressed that their centre lacked the "critical mass", which we already knew, as it was printed in black and white on the offer letter (for the place) before we moved in. But what baffles me is, they actually "highlight" this lesser fact, again and again, through their email correspondence with us.

Now, instead of saying there's no crowd coming to their centre, why don't they do something about it? I do not know. Oh yeah they did - they created a Facebook page which no one knows about and a website which no one visits. It just seems that they are more comfortable admitting defeat than trying to promote their centre (yes EFFORT AND MONEY will be spent instead of perfunctorily organizing a very sorry ass of a flea market which looked like a primary school charity sales event, and attracted no one).

But one thing for sure, they are very good at getting replacements (read: dumbassese like us who were lured by the delusions of cheap-but-not-exactly-that-cheap rent and non-existent office crowd from above their centre). Not the ATM, though. Banks are smarter - they don't go to a place where birds don't lay eggs.

Childhood Fishbone-in-Throat Remedies

PLEASE DO NOT TRY THESE AT HOME. Or anyhwere else. Just don't eat fish.

Random: Do You Have FB?

No, I do not have Facebook. As marvellous a networking tool as it seems, I do not want to be caught in its web of mind-disorienting navigation and losing hours in frustration trying to figure out what the heck has happened to the pix and comment I just posted and WTF is going on with all those groups and members and fans and fuck nots.. based on my experience using my friend's account. I'd rather have a fuck buddy than Facebook, at least I get pleasure from the former.

Is That Your Ass on Your Face?

Appley went out with her bf last night and bumped into her assface client.

Assface: "Hi Appley, is he your son?"

What an idiot! First of all, Appley's bf is only two or three years younger than her, not two decades. Secondly, how can you mistaken someone who is two years younger as someone else's son? Younger brother, maybe. But son?! It's not like humans have lifespan of a fruit fly.

Assface should go for reconstructive surgery to remove ass from face; Appley should shave her beard to make herself look younger.

Caramel: How About I Tiao Ta'ng in Front of You?

First thing first: I'm not a Christian, Buddhist, Taoist or Muslim. I'm a Non-committed Polytheist: meaning I pray to gods (not any one in particular) when I'm in dire straits (like when I want a limited edition Birkin so badly I hope it'd just drop from the sky) and I pretty much leave them alone most of the time.

The thing that perplexes me is, ever since I set up the shop, I've witnessed MANY Christians coming into the shop, sat down, ordered food, ate and then started doing this gather round the circle thingee and praising the lord thingee, sometimes they'd put hands on another member's head or shoulder like they are channelling some cosmic energy from one to another.

OK to be fair, they don't do it loudly but audible enough for other patrons to notice what they are doing and sometimes it does get a bit OTT with all the hand gestures to express their passion. At times they'd also raise from their seats, heads lowered, like they're discussing their next volleyball tactics. It's all very distracting when I'm trying to finesse my bacon sandwich with swirls of truffle oil and dainty sprinkling of salt and pepper.

I'm not against Bible study. But other than that shouldn't you be doing your emotional hail out loud in a church or a fellow member's home where there's more privacy? Because seriously so far I haven't encountered a Buddhist chanting Buddha's teachings in the shop or a Taoist suddenly go tiao ta'ng for divine advice.


Not to be done in public.