A Brief Market Overview of Aunties January 24, 2010

We conducted our study based on a one-on-one observation of our target market.

Aunties generally define ‘the best buys’ as one that is a well known brand but priced below market price. (We used NTUC Fairprice’s products as a market benchmark)

To scour for ‘best buys’, Aunties have to stay focused and do mental calculations in their heads all the time. They appear to be grumpy but they’re actually really just thinking hard about purchasing items within the family budget constraint.

To successfully engage the Aunties target audience, sellers must understand their products and be able to rattle off sample recipes at the snap of a finger. This will encourage the Aunties to make a purchase.

Aunties are never fooled by appearances. For the sweetest oranges, go for the ones with the big navels. For the sweetest durians, go for the distorted shapes. For the sweetest guavas, go for those with the roughest skin.

Think of aunties as ladies with an aerial understanding of home necessities. This enables them to zoom in quickly on the ‘best buys’.

Bulk buying discounts do not work. Aunties establish a camaraderie with each other very quickly – even if they’re strangers. They make flash friends with someone interested in the same product and they combine purchases to take advantage of bulk purchase discounts.

Well placed snack carts are bound to enjoy visits by Aunties. Indonesians kuehs are a hot favourite. German sausages aren’t.

And yes they will quibble over a ten to twenty cents profit. If it doesn’t hurt your profit margin a lot, just give the damn discount to them.

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Another of Baileys January 18, 2010

That's my paw, not yours! No touching!

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Gaga Over Fountainhead January 12, 2010

There are books you read that makes you feel like you’ve found kinship with somebody else who has read the same titles. (And I do mean read. Not buy, read three pages, stack it up on a shelf with your other prized titles, assumed you’ve read the entire book, then read the book review and regurgitate the writer’s opinion as your own. That is the worst kind of dishonour you can punish a book with.)

And then there are books that open up a secret pathway into an exclusive club after you’ve finished it. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings was described as one such tome. I’ve read Tolkien’s entire series, even the prelude title he wrote for his kids – but I did not feel that way. I probably didn’t understand the significance of the series.

But  I did feel that way about Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead.

I usually blaze through books skipping words, sentences, even paragraphs I felt was mere drivel. That was how I finished Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code in one sitting. I thought I could do the same for Fountainhead too – but no, I couldn’t. It felt disrespectful to not give some of the words, sentences and paragraphs a few more reads.

I enjoyed the dissonance I felt with the characters of the story. The best of them was hateful, the worst of them was disappointing. I tried to like Dominique Francon but she was too unreal to like. Or Gail Wynand, but he’s such a complete asshole! But the hateful ones, you begin to have a sadistic joy in catching their  moments of humanity – I remember most clearly when Dominique was described as “giggling” when Steve Mallory was telling a group of four his outrageous personal stories. It was so out of character but it felt so real too.

But most of all, I liked how it has overturned many perspectives I was living with and affirmed some of the ones I secretly held but had no courage to explore. I also love the irony that the book, which expounds objectivism and promotes the individual above the collective would have 6.5 million copies sold. It’s a collective praise for a hatefully individualistic book! Love it!

Really hating the idea that the lives of Howard Roark and friends will end in some 100 odd pages and I have half a mind to leave the book hanging – but that’s just ridiculous, I can’t wait to finish the damn book and then move on to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged – described as her magnum opus – you mean there’s something better than Fountainhead? I can’t wait!

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The Baileys Glossary January 10, 2010

"Hiding" - An action where you can see your bloody owner but you think your owner can't see you

"Uh huh, now what?" - An exclamation for when your owner finds your hiding spot.

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Quote Unquote January 10, 2010

My salvation phrase of the week:

“Sexual love, Peter, is a profoundly selfish emotion. And selfish emotions are not the ones that lead to happiness. Are they?” – Fountainhead, pg 330

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Still Prefer Faces January 10, 2010

Reminder: Hort Park is a great place to do night photog. Do not freak out unnecessarily – even if it means walking the damn bridge after midnight in total darkness (save the city lights in the horizon and the moonlight) and get laughed at by present company.

I'm not a huge fan of doing landscape pictures. Perhaps I don't have the patience to. But I do like this picture muchos from the rest of the stuff I've taken.

Metal gleam on nature's green

But I still prefer doing portraits.

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It’s a Bitter Marshmallow to Swallow January 9, 2010

Last night after watching Sideways, I suddenly panicked. It’s like that invincible feeling of youth suddenly threatened to leave me and I was not prepared for its departure.

I know that it will go, one day. But not today.

I don’t think I’ve squandered the last ten years of my youth away but I have been living:

1. from one material good to the next
2. from one career path to another
3. from one weekend of aimless fun and laughter to this weekend and the next

Bah… just what have I been doing with my life! No no, it’s not that I haven’t been doing anything with it. It’s that I have not done anything CONSISTENT for the last few years. it’s a very very mild form of an attention deficit. Too mild to be termed a clinical disorder.

But it is a disease! It must be!

Just a few moments ago, I had an impulsive urge to take up oil painting classes. Last month, I seriously contemplated taking up French lessons. And then there were intense reflection sessions on fencing, dancing, traveling, collecting comics… And there was coffee!

Oh my god! Coffee?! Yes, coffee!

I wanted to take up this personal research project on the varietals of coffee beans and the process of growing, grinding, decaffeinating and whatever that ends up in a Styrofoam cup. I don’t know what I’ll do with all that information but it just seemed really interesting. I probably don’t have enough attention to see the project to its end though, which is a real pity.

But that might just be a solution to my attention deficit problem. I learnt of this concept called delayed gratification some time last month while talking to a friend. it was borne out of an experiment that involved resisting marshmallows. Hmm… I would have failed that test, I know I would. (Hmm… marshmallows… I wonder if the convenience store downstairs has any…)

I mean, if the recipe of success included ingredients of determination and discipline, this is a real insight into why i have not been able to amount to anything in life of late. But let me highlight another point first. Determination and discipline is less an issue if the matter of timing wasn’t involved.

See, if you tell me that I could have a second marshmallow if I waited for 15 minutes – that would have been a struggle.

But if you tell me that I can have a second marshmellow if I waited for 15 seconds – OF COURSE I CAN WAIT!

The issue is that success, can be very fickle, very discriminating. There are people who slog their way to success – with determination, discipline, well all the works. And there are those who has had ’success’ falling in 15 seconds on their laps – think striking the lottery. Admittedly, in this situation, we must consider the variable of luck. And luck, is an EVEN MORE discriminating little bastard.

But fortunately, life isn’t too unfair. Everybody gets a go at being young and everybody can choose how they utilise the freedom of youth. If you don’t have luck on your side, at least you have energy for this period of time to attempt to be successful.

In my case (with luck NOT by my side) I certainly wished that delayed gratification came in the form of pills. With just three more years before I hit the dreaded three-zero, I’ll definitely need a quick and painless solution to getting to where I want to be – success.

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Gnawings and Droppings January 8, 2010

Before Baileys, the cutest cat in the world, came along, we had Alpha, a chinchilla, for about three months before it died of heat exhaustion. We thought it’d be a great idea to give the rodent some freedom and have it roam the house as it pleased.

The chin gnawed on most wooden corners in the house and furniture and it left droppings EVERYWHERE. Two years after it passed on, we could still find Alpha’s droppings behind corners and between drawers.

I can’t help but relate this to the amount of writing I devoted to past relationships. See, I usually clean out my mailbox of messages between me and ex partners when the relationship sours – but I can never get rid of ALL of them. Just while looking through my hotmail account earlier, I found drafts that dated back  10 years ago! In 2000!

My writings are EVERYWHERE! Like Alpha’s droppings! They’re useless and they’re so many of them!

It was not cute and innocent like Anne Frank’s diary. It was awkward, childish and self absorbed. There was a draft email I intended to send to an ex complaining about how little time he spent with me. I read through it and blushed at some points. DID I REALLY MEAN ALL OF THAT?! It was so embarrassing.

I feel apprehensive going back to the old blog to read my ramblings, there are so many things I do not like about the young me. Not that I’m particularly pleased with myself now but I will take comfort that I have progressed enough in the last 10 years to not feel sorry that I can’t go back to being 18!

I will probably cringe again when I read my ramblings here ten years later but I think that will be a good sign of progress. Unlike Alpha’s droppings, I didn’t clear out my drafts and writings. Some personal history is important for reflection exercises.

But the gnawed furniture and corners – those I can never remove, not even if I try to. Every partner I have been together with, I always leave a little bit of my heart with them – even the meanest of them all. It makes me reflect upon my failings with these issues.

If I treat these experiences as a statistical problem, I ought to see a consistent pattern of problems that I can probably resolve. But I refuse to see relationships so coldly! How can a relationship work like a mathematical equation?!

But perhaps, that is a failing in itself, to be unable to see a relationship as a game.

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Ronald’s 26th: Album Cover Art December 28, 2009

Album cover for Ballad of the Lonely: Girls Girls Everywhere But Not Getting Any

Album cover for Christmas Rocks 2009: A Great Big Tree!

Album Cover for Shampoo

Album Cover for These Boots Are Made for Cleaning

Album Cover for Broken Sunnies

Album Cover for KNNBCCB: Songs for your Moms and Pops

Album Cover for My Broom Brings All the Fleas To The Bins (Damn right, it's better than yours!)

Album Cover for KNNBCCB: Songs for your Grandmas and Grandpas.

Masala Girls' new hit single - Spice Up My Curry

Masala Girls' new comeback hit single - Never Give Up On Photo Whoring

Album Cover for P is for Pui!

Album Cover for P.I.M.P Mah Bro

Album Cover for Mushy Love Songs - Will I get Some Tonight?

Album Cover for Mushy Love Songs - You Can Get Some Tonight!

Album Cover for Bad Romance - I DON'T WANT ANY TONIGHT!

Album Cover for Popular Children Songs: 101 Ways To Get back At Your Teacher

Album Cover for When I Grow Up (I wanna be a G2000 Model)

Album Cover for The Girl From Hougang

Album Cover for Bom Bom Bottom Girl

Album Cover for How Much For Those Puppies in Your Blouse

Album Cover for Hand On My Friend's Chest

Album Cover for Master Tango in Three Days

Album Cover for I'm Still Not Getting Any

Album Cover for Mercy Mercy (F***)

Album Cover for Saturday Night Delinquents

Album Cover for You Stole My Muruku!

Album Cover for KNNBCCB: Songs for your cats, dogs, hamsters and chinchillas

Albun Cover for Hello My CB Friends

Album Cover for Rag Mop

Album Cover for Smells Like Armpit Spirit

Album Cover for Shampoo 2

Album Cover for With or Without My Sunnies

Album Cover for Ain't That a Cone on the Head?

Album Cover for Oops, I did it again!

Album Cover for Ella Ella Eh Eh Eh - Give Me Back My Clothes, You Arseholes!

Album Cover for Ella Ella Eh Eh Eh - Check Out My Umbrella

Album Cover for Ella Ella Eh Eh Eh - It's a Cocktail Umbrella

Everybody stand back! It's the bochup girl!

Everybody stand back! It's the arms akimbo man!

More of arms akimbo man!

Everybody shut up! It's the I-can't-hear-what-you're-saying-nyeh-nyeh-nee-boo-boo girl!

Everybody watch out! It's the funny fingers girl!

Everybody check it out! It's Val checking out her titties!

Everybody wiggle your bums! It's the Mambo teacher!

Everybody hold your noses! Athlete foot smells threaten!

Now vote for your favourite album cover art!

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Ronald’s 26th: Brunch at Prive December 28, 2009

Superstar of the day waiting for all the other fashionably late superstars.

The other superstars finally arrived and immediately engage in what's happening in the last hour. "What?! He announced this on FB?!"

My rather awesome eggs benedict.

Somewan's bestie's Ultimate breakfast. Have.urge.to.poke.em.eggs.

As of most superstars, these two started off as lowly kopi kias, i mean barristas.

And look at us! We all can afford a freaking lobster linguine now! WOO!

Instant attraction. Flash wedding. Guess that'll be Gummy's inspiration for his next hit song.

SPOTTED: Geetha and Ron in a new collaboration discussion! We hear it's gonna be named His Tongue in My Cheek, hush hush!

Proposes to bestie his new stage name - Ronald Wank

And he blows out some candles to commemorate the birth of his new stage name!

To make up for her infidelity, Val does a Kobe Special and bought Ron a wind up alien invader.

Ivy kidnaps the monster.

Ron's news is so important, it's even printed on limited edition umbrellas too.

Kris tried to show some groupie love to Ron.

White is for virginity - time to lose it!

Ivy kidnaps the bestie.

Xiuhui practices giving out red packets.

All paid US$1 million to appear at this brunch.

BESTIEEEEEE!

Janice be nice nice nice. Don't put those fingers up my nose nose nose.

Man, it's a really good deal. Getting paid to just stand and fool around.

Oh oh, i finally get a chance to get an autograph on my ass!

Ivy approaches Ron to star in an anime film.

Deal fails. Ron tells Ivy to f*** off.

How about Titanic then?

Sure, but you've gotta show some cleavage first.

Impressed, Sheryl gets a feel up Ron's chest.

And that was how Ron successfully gets a foursome porno flick deal.

At the risk of looking like beggars, these two sit around hoping a talent scout will notice them.

Higher chance of getting noticed with more people!

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