gambitch - now available in blue

Saturday, July 01, 2006

Word has got around that Britney Spears had posed nude while pregnant for this magazine called Harpers' Bazaar. It's a pretty high-profile magazine, I hear, although I don't know very much about this magazine. I'm not a magazine junkie, you must understand. Not even when it comes to ladmags, which is the standard turn-on, I am told. Sorry, doesn't work with me.

Anyway, Britney Spears. So she appeared in a photo looking something like this (photo courtesy Reuters/Alexi Lubomirski - please credit):

Pardon me, but that was such a puke-inducer of a picture. Seriously, I think Demi Moore looked better when she did another pregnant pose for a magazine over ten years ago.

I can't pinpoint what's wrong with the picture, and perhaps I shouldn't. It is just... WRONG!

I don't understand what the world's obsession with Britney Spears is. She's basically someone who sang a bunch of songs full of innuendo-loaded lyrics, prances around like nobody's business, and has very dubious talent. And she has a trophy boyfriend. I'm not sure why anyone cares so much about her when she doesn't deserve it. Hell, I don't know why I even bother to talk about Britney Spears in the first place.

Whatever it is, my eyes need treatment after being scarred by the sight.

gambitch [ 12:02 AM]

Friday, June 30, 2006

Some friends in Singapore have informed me that former Mandopop singer Mavis Hee was recently arrested and thrown into a mental institution for creating a scene in a certain Singaporean hotel. I found that news very shocking when I was first told about it.

In the last couple of days, however, it has emerged that the situation was very serious. And that's when the shock gives way to something else. Mostly, I am told, it has something to do with Mavis having an underground relationship with her regular music producer - who by the way was supposedly married, but is now divorced. Problem is, he was married when the rumours of the underground relationship first surfaced.

Which of course leads to the not-unreasonable speculation that Mavis was very badly entangled by affairs of the heart, being caught in a triangle and all that. I don't know Mavis at all, but I sympathize. That's the kind of situation an artiste like her has the hardest time getting out of. It's a massive emotional investment - and in using the word 'invest' I have no intention of suggesting any attempt to seek return, at least in the classical sense of the word.

The point is, I'm sure Mavis had a pretty hard time coming to terms and all that. Ultimately she chose the path she did, possibly because she saw no other choice - even if people may condemn her for not doing the obviously 'right' thing. Can't blame her. To quote Faye Wong, "this time it's herself, not just someone else". She's the one "in it".

And it is apparently visible what had happened to her since, losing lots of weight and becoming a lifeless, pale shadow of her old self. I'm told she used to be a quiet person even as a public figure, but she seemed the nice and kind if introverted type. It's really bad if the entanglement has done this to her, although I would stress again she deserves nothing less than heartfelt pity. Does she deserve more? I don't know.

I do know, however, that she should not have dyed her hair into that ugly shade of gold that a couple of newspapers are showing her in (my friends were kind enough to scan me copies). Natural black seemed to suit her hair better.

Here's wishing life takes a turn for the better for Mavis, whatever form that turn may take.

gambitch [ 12:26 AM]

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Those painful memories fall into the soils of spring
Nourishing the land to start the next season of blossom

What does this post mean? Go find out yourself. No clues.

gambitch [ 5:23 AM]

Wednesday, June 28, 2006

So, I went visiting at this place, see, where a couple of the people know me somewhat. They hadn't seen me for a little while - just a couple of weeks, actually. And the first thing they noticed was that I seem to have become thinner.

Have I? I didn't really think so, and that's what I said there and then. Then they looked at me, asked me to turn around like I'm some model, and then said again that I have become thinner.

I don't feel it. I still weigh the same. But I'll admit, I am now able to take some of my jeans off without unbuckling or unzipping them. So I appear to have lost inches off my butt. That, or the jeans have become looser.

Have I turned into something of a vainpot? I don't think so. That said, I still remember the days when people used to say I had nice eyelashes. No one says that anymore, but that's because no one's helping me do my makeup lately for stage performances. Been a while since I last did theatre and had to put on makeup.

I kind of miss the days when I could look at my eyelashes and feel pleased about them. Nowadays I don't feel anything. And that's because my eyelashes aren't that great, at least I don't think so.

... I think I might be becoming a touch vain.

gambitch [ 11:07 PM]

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

I happened to have had half a day off from work yesterday afternoon (it's past midnight now, otherwise I'd have said "this afternoon"), mainly because I really didn't have any work to do. Of my three regular items that I'm supposed to work on daily, one's got to be done in the morning, the second has been simplified to some chart thing that I no longer have to key in myself, and the third has been suspended for three days because of, shall I say, technical issues.

Couple that with the fact that, after finishing my other piece of work in the morning, I only managed 150 minutes of sleep, and you could imagine how unalert I essentially was in the office. And there was nothing to do for the afternoon anyway. The rest would have been very useful. I could have gone straight home and hit the sack.

Instead, I went downtown. And I spent much of the afternoon doing things I have not done for a long time.

Like taking pictures that could together tell a small photojournalistic story - not seriously, of course. I might work on assembling the little story any day soon, but there's no hurry. It's just a touch funny.

Or like thinking about catching a movie, only to see that the movies I had wanted to watch were all showing at night, while the afternoon had really cartoonish servings like Cars and Runaway Vacation. No, I wasn't about to watch those, thank you very much.

Or like thinking about checking out this old music school I hadn't visited for ages. I used to be a keyboards student when I was still a teenager. Then I completed my course and didn't go back. And I had wanted to see how much a nice flute would set me back. So I got there, and then found out that, of all days, the school was closed today because of some anniversary celebration. Brilliant timing, I thought. But oh well. And they sold drums, pianos, guitars and everything else too!

Or like walking some more and eventually hitting the arts belt, and then visiting this place I hadn't been to for a really long time. Turns out they no longer use the venue that frequently for putting up productions, although they do rehearse there. And the Vietnamese restaurant that used to occupy the spot that kept their rental finances going will now make way for a French fine dining place. It's all good, of course. But the old memorabilia shop isn't open.

Or like swinging over to this shopping mall that I hadn't visited in ages, and then when I get there, I realize there's plenty of renovation that had gone on, the place has had a marvellous face-lift, and a particular joint I was looking for had moved out of its old premises, replaced by this bunch of fashion stores and hair salons.

I will not name the place I was looking for. I did enjoy the evening afterwards, though, this after still some more walking and finding out more about other nice spots that I realized had moved out of the places where I last knew they existed. Took me a while to figure out where they are now. I'll be sure to visit some time soon.

So it's been quite a long day on the road, just trying to relax. I really wanted to do just that, because it's been a little while since I went through all of those things. I'm feeling like re-invoking this other side of me that I've allowed to let slip for a number of years. I want to let it out again, because I'm feeling like doing that just about now.

And now I'm blogging a little about it.

It was genuinely relaxing, and in some ways very heartwarming as well - yes, the evening was very good, thank you very much. I'm feeling a certain kind of fuzziness I thought I had lost a few years before. It's coming back very nicely now. And I want to share it, a little.

Enjoy it while I can...

gambitch [ 12:19 AM]

Monday, June 26, 2006

So I managed to watch a very odd game, and now I get to write about it. No, not the World Cup. Although I will agree that Valentin Ivanov had one of the strangest days in the office. And I will acknowledge that Lukas Podolski's double against Sweden was good. The Swedes were poor as a playing side this year, although there are those who still love them.

But no, I'm talking about some other football game. And I've finished working on my account after six very painful hours of thorough examination and re-examination. Unfortunately I know that there will be a couple of people who aren't going to be particularly happy. But that is the way it is. I can't - and I'm not supposed to - please everyone. I'm a journo, not a sycophant.

Somehow, though, I'm feeling a disturbance in The Force(tm). The disturbance is subtle at the moment, but it grows stronger. And if care is not taken, it could tear people asunder and force us all to take sides. And it could all get ugly.

I don't want to see that happen. Let's hope I'm just hallucinating.

gambitch [ 6:07 AM]

Sunday, June 25, 2006

Boy Has Fun

gambitch [ 3:05 AM]