Today's Missionary URL

You might believe that if you avoid religious sites in your online life, you are safe from proselytising, but you are wrong. The Jesuits, whose motto used to be "Give us the boy at 10 and we will have the man for life," wish to prove you wrong.

Today's Singlish story

Note to the Singlish-deficient: Ah Beng is a working-class guy with gelled hair, he's a smoker, often likes to ride on a fast motorcycle, and aspires to greater heights. Ah Seng is his female counterpart--in this story, he works with her. Found this in elementz and loved it. It's a version of a joke I heard years ago, but some Singaporean inventiveness made it even funnier.

Ah Beng went to take night courses with the reasoning that in future he would get promotion or better job.

During work, Ah Beng liked to show off to Ah Seng about his knowledge.

Ah Beng: Ah Seng ah... I've been taking night courses for 3 months already, next week is the exam.
Ah Seng: Oh... Good luck ah.

Then Ah Beng started show off...

Ah Beng: Ok, I test you, who is Graham Bell?
Ah Seng: Don't know
Ah Beng: He is the inventor of phone la... in 1876, see... if you take night courses, you would know this.
Ah Seng: ........................ *speechless*

The next day, Ah Beng showed off again...

Ah Beng: Ah Seng ah... let me ask you, who is Jean Jacques Rousseau?
Ah Seng: Wash your toilet one ah?
Ah Beng: No! He's the author of "Confessions", nah nah nah...told you already, if you take night courses, you would know this.
Ah Seng: ......................... *speechless + frustrated*

The next day, once again...

Ah Beng: Do you know who is Alexander Dumas?
Ah Seng: Your gay partner?
Ah Beng: Choiii!!! If you don't know don't simply answer la. He's the author of "The 3 Musketeers", if you take night courses, you would know this.
Ah Seng: ....................... *speechless + frustrated + irritated

This time Ah Seng cannot tahan (stand) anymore and in turn asked Ah Beng...

( Take a look behind the cut to see what Ah Seng asked Ah Beng! )

Monday's thoughts

A couple of additional items from yesterday:

• The joke with which I began my sermon involved a woman getting cosmetic surgery. G, the parish worker (and female) said to me afterwards, "Why couldn't you use a man in your joke?" I thought about it and realised that the original joke had included not only face lifts and tummy tucks but also a boob-job. As it wouldn't have been easy to describe a boob-job in a very Anglo-Catholic church pulpit, I left it out. However, I didn't think to change the sex of the person in the joke. Gives one pause for thought.


• We watched a DVD of a movie called Hot Fuzz last night. It's basically a cop shoot-em-up movie set in rural England rather than gritty LA or realistic Manhattan. HWMBO liked it, but I found myself only smiling most of the time, with only two or three laugh-out-loud moments. I think I must be turning into an Old Fart. Perhaps I've decided that the effort required to laugh out loud cannot be wasted on mere chuckle moments. And, anyway, while UK police officers are now sometimes armed, the amount of shooting they have to do is very limited. So realism wasn't even attempted.

Today's gripe is tourists. HWMBO gets very annoyed when I complain about them, but I can do so here in the certain knowledge that he can't stop me. In the neighbourhood of Victoria Station and Coach Station, there are many people with pet suitcases behind them. For some reason, when out of their native habitat (which could be Lower Slobbovia, judging from their behaviour) they are unable to distinguish when they are in the middle of the pavement, anxiously scanning their maps or trying to screw up the courage to ask a passerby (often me, sad to say) where Buckingham Palace is--this while standing on Buckingham Palace Road. They are oblivious to the pedestrians trying to pass them by on one side or the other. Now, it only takes a smidgen of grey matter to realise that moving to one side of the pavement means that people won't have to view you as an obstacle, only as a relatively harmless figure of fun. This smidgen seems to have passed them by.

The rant is over, go in peace.

Today's Advice

Stolen shamelessly from deza

Five things needed for a happy life:

1. It's important to have a partner who helps at home, who cooks from time to time, cleans up and has a job.

2. It's important to have a partner who can make you laugh.

3. It's important to have a partner who you can trust and who doesn’t lie to you.

4. It's important to have a partner who is good in bed and who likes to be with you.

5. It's very, very important that these four people do not know each other.