无语

以前看到CPF，以为是CFP；现在看到CFP，以为是CPF。。。

无题

看到同住的Kwoon lim正在为病怏怏Joshua煮晚餐，我称赞他说，不愧是哥们儿啊。他回答道：没什么嘛，顺手牵羊而已嘛。

Ng

Ng不是not good，而是“黄”，新加坡人很多姓这个的。Ng是2个辅音字母，很多人读不出来，实际就读N。大街上老远看到一个熟人姓Ng的，大叫Mr N，喊破嗓子也听不见。哦，不对，不可能喊破嗓子。

还有姓Gn的，这个不会发了。

X Fair Price

刚知道Jurong Point新开了家Fair Price，因为规模大，名字也不一样，叫X Fair Price。听起来觉得挺别扭，总觉得和ex-wife很像。遂感叹新加坡真是 昔非今比啊。

小方块和小蛋壳

有人说，Wall-E是2008年最浪漫的影片。小方块好奇却又胆怯，但怀着只想要牵手的单纯，勇敢得差点粉身碎骨；小蛋壳一开始很白很暴力，后来却为旦夕中的小方块放弃自己的使命（directive）。其实，“他”是“她”或者“她”是“他”也说不定；他们之间到底是友情，还是爱情也说不定。浪漫不一定在爱人之间，为了彼此而超越自我的勇敢，就是最终极的浪漫了。无论在天荒地老的地球垃圾场，还是梦幻的星空中。

某人说，小蛋壳完全就是ipod啊。一说之下恍然大悟。乔布斯本来就是Pixar的老板（founder，其实是买过来的）啊。有眼光。

American Size of Stomach

I've been to America and got a rough idea about people's appetite there. For example, in McDonald's, a burger is about 1.5 times the size of a same one in Singapore. Yet I saw a guy swallowed two within 1 minute with one on each hand. A separate order of coke in another restaurant is 30cm tall. And I had to take away nearly the whole main course of a 20 dollar sea food order, just after finishing the soup and appetizer. This is no kidding. In doubt, try this one!

Cafe' Cartel, at Plaza Singapura. We went there for dinner on the way back from a Greek sculpture exhibition in the national museum. Five of us, two hadn't had lunch at all, another two had some light snack, in order to meet our meeting schedule. We walked in, already near half death out of starving and exhaustion.

HQ had been there before, he advocated the flagship "pork ribs", depicted in the picture below, without mentioning the doze. I ordered steak for a change of other 4 serves of pork ribs. The steak came first, normal sized 15x7 cm2 piece, plus some chips and vegetable, good for me. After another 10 minutes, the pork ribs finally showed up. Everyone's jaw dropped to the necks. They are not pork ribs, but piano boards (PB)! My steak was less than 1/5 of each PB, with the same price... To close, two of our usual big stomachs never felt full before, in a status without lunch, crashed upon this. One had to ask me to finish some leftovers, another one swept the whole, bearing the pain of standing up with a exploding belly for the rest of the day.

Poor students in SoC

The whole school of computing has just moved to a new site. Despite of some small inconveniences of the new location (such as transportation, freezing and irregularly shaped office, no cellphone signal coverage, etc), one rule has been posed in every research lab - "NO FOOD OR DRINK ALLOWED". This is because instead of using plastic floor, light colored carpet is now covering every inch of the lab turf. I'm not sure whether the policy maker has also noticed the fact that, dark muddy footprints are already everywhere during the raining season, if so, maybe we will be informed to use our bare feet. On the contrary, I have never seen any food spread or drink spilling in the old lab. But ok then, Singapore has had plenty of places not allowing food/drinks (bus, mrt), just plus one place we're working for more than 8 hours per day, there is no big deal, really. This is not the end, though.

A few days ago, the head of the department disseminated an email clarifying this new policy, he said, he wants to use it to push students to the pantry where they can eat/drink and at the same time talk about their research with one another more. That is good. However, when we headed to the pantry, we all stuck at the entrance:

East coast outing

转眼间来新加坡已经5年了。在筹划5年庆的同时，大家也忍不住先出来活动一把。小绿说从来没有去过东海岸，虽然上班在同一个地铁站下……东海岸我们来了。

下午准时出发，迟到半个小时到达Bedok地铁站，顺利和Staul、小绿会合，加上我，埃瓦和WT，刚好5个人，不能打Taxi。出去后先问路，一群aunty商量了半天，告诉我们对面坐31路。车子蜿蜒的开了10多站，下车后在一个好心的aunty带领下辗转到达久违的东海岸边。

话说东海岸是专门供人们运动休闲的，狭长的海岸线边上，依次排列着沙滩，人行道，自行车/旱冰道和树林草地。单排轮旱冰，自行车和跑步游泳是这里的主要运动休闲方式。此外，岸边还可以烧烤，搭帐篷或者租房间过夜，还有很多著名的海鲜餐厅。总之呢，除了沙滩太小，海水不蓝，确实是周末的好去处。暂时介绍这些。

我们的主要活动：骑车。附加活动：Staul带的Frisbee。小绿本来要溜旱冰，不过胆小爬摔，就没有勉强他。骑车，2个小时8块钱，结束时送2瓶水。埃瓦开始时就要要了2瓶，结束时租车的人忘记了又给了2瓶，结果全部放到我的书包里面，那个重啊。我们沿着海岸线向东一直骑，这一骑才知道，原来东海岸是很长的一片，大概20分钟还没有到头，也就是说至少4、5公里了（在新加坡4、5公里的份量还是很足的）。回程后稍作休息，开始frisbee。我负责照相，结论：埃瓦动作千篇一律，Staul动作最帅。玩了一会儿，天色渐暗，在饥寒交迫中一行人艰难的爬到“无招牌”吃饭。对了，前面还骑车路过发现一片可以玩冲浪的地方，冲浪板加上空中迅速拉动的绳索，很是刺激。还有可爱的小孩若干，包括埃瓦。和从大到小各种狗狗。写不动了，太晚了。。。

Shifting

又是一年搬家时，每年7月，狂风不止，阴雨绵绵，正直搬家的好日子。正所谓每年一搬，年年都住新房子，心情怎能不好。不过呢，新的是我们，倒不一定是房子。吃够了上上次搬家时候用的出租车队的苦，这次请了搬家公司的小货车以及司机小胖，另外高价雇佣了PhD肌肉男民工若干，浩浩荡荡开往心中的那片净土——油池。这次的新家是真的新，看图说话。

Moving

近日新加坡房价大涨，又逢开学在即，在这个节骨眼上找便宜又舒服的房子真是很困难的事情，何况要找一套。听超人说原来他和曾经的室友找房的几次经历，开始都想找一套继续做室友，但后来由于种种原因无奈只能分开的事情，那个时候我对自己说，这次一定要成功，不会丢下谁的。可事情后来的发展却难以左右。

首先，胖墩禁不住便宜的单人床位诱惑叛逃了，这样尴尬地剩下4个人，因为有人需要单间，所以仍然必须是3个卧室的。就在地毯式的搜索各大网站未果而搬家的时间一天天临近的时候，我们的中介女士带来了便宜好房的希望，虽然离学校远了点，1个小时车程，不过想想以前父母在郊区上班，每天早起送我上学之后去做班车，远不止1小时，加上去看了以后觉得周围生活方便，新房子新家具，唯一的一点不便也就忍了。新房的出现是因为房东不满现在的租户总是拖欠房租，想另寻租户。看房那天见到房东太太，用Alva的话说是一个PP却很有礼貌的女士，虽然这个月的租金还没有收到，不过她还没有把这个意愿告诉房客，就连我们去看房都是装成她的搬运工去的，看过之后还送我们回到地铁站。房子还是很满意的，谈了价钱，增添家具的等等问题，虽然没有签合约，不过也算是半定下来了。这样过了两天，今天晚上瓜头却突然和我说她女朋友也要搬家，自然是和他搬到一起住，但她觉得新的地方离上班地方太远。了解了一下，9站地铁的距离，当然，也可以乘一站地铁，再坐公司的班车去，而那个地方，离我们的学校比新的地方还要远蛮多。言下之意，他就要退出我们维之不易的fellowship，跟随女友而去了。这样做未免有些不够朋友，可也算是男人的优点吧。

Fellowship，或许在各种矛盾面前确实有点脆弱吧，就连超人的魅力都没有办法维持住的，我也不必去计较太多。写出来，觉得怪怪的心情好多了。

后记：胖墩的新家3间房已经住了7、8个人，听说就连客厅里面都住人。爱安静的他后来又搬了一次，现在应该还不错吧。瓜头也不顺利，每天上放学一个多小时，后来住得不爽又搬一次，自己和女朋友都很远。事情就是这样的，这就是生活。

Happy wedding!

向MM和Gengpu同学马上就要marry了。除了表达偶衷心的祝愿，还自告奋勇的当了次御用摄影师。同行的还有经验丰富的老年摄影师“耗子”，及影坛新星“光头”。如此华丽的阵容，令同在景点（植物园和圣淘沙）拍婚纱照的其他队伍望而生畏，都尽量和我们拉开距离，避免相形见绌的尴尬。拍摄圆满成功之际，放出此次豪华团队的照片，也算是做个广告，为今后进军专业摄影界做点准备。

主角们，手持自制反光板（poster），表情时而可爱时而呆滞。

本人，扮相极具艺术气质的头号摄影师，以浓密的胡须著称当代马克思。

耗子，老年摄影师，经验丰富，精神恍惚，乘车去目的地时带我坐过2个站头，之后想超近路却误入私人住宅区，差点被狗咬死。

光头，摄影爱好者，以性感的光头从某刚认识的MM那里迅速骗取了专业级的D200相机。虽然学习摄影只有短短2天，而且是网络远程教学，不过在此行中表现出的搞笑和创意，消除了耗子和我差点被狗咬死的阴影。

Local idioms

HH came to Singapore for a business trip some time ago, and asked a few of us to hang around a bit. While on the taxi, he raised a question about a word he saw a lot on/beside the road -- "ERP" which stands for the business he works in (Enterprise Resource Planning) but certainly was out of context. The taxi driver laughed while we frowned. "It tells you need to pay for driving on that road. It says, Everyday Robbing People!". We all fainted... To continue the stunning effect, he further asked "You know what GST is? You pay more when you buy things, then the Government Say Thank you!".

footnote:
ERP - Electronic Road Pricing
GST - Goods and Service Tax