RELATIVELY SPEAKING...

My apologies for being absent for a while... things have been extremely hectic lately with the festive season and all (we just celebrated Eid or Aidilfitri here in Singapore)

Anyway, I have mixed feelings about the festive season. Now, don't get me wrong... I love the fact that the festive season comes with a mandatory public holiday. And spending that public holiday tucking into great food... well, I really can't complain. But there is one thing that I don't quite like... and that's dealing with weird relatives.

It doesn't matter where you are in the world, festive holidays are the time when families congregate and this will inadvertantly mean you'll have to contend with that weird aunt or uncle of yours that you haven't seen in years (and for good reason).

Maybe it's that aunt who never shaves her pits but insist on wearing tanktops... or the uncle who lets one rip indiscriminately while others are happily tucking into the sumptuous dinner... or that grandaunt who cries at everything - the thought of of a recently deceased relative, the fact that one of her sons couldn't make it to the family get-together, the overcooked gravy... everything.

Actually, most of my relatives are really nice, normal people. In fact, none of the above are any relative of mine... well, except that uncle who lets one rip at the dinner table. Only it's not my uncle... I call him "Dad". So I'm sure in another blog, there is a cousin of mine ranting about the above and how they had to survive that during the holidays.

My personal hell during this festive season is this uncle who, out of the blue, have started to be a tad too affectionate for my liking. Our greetings used to be normal, firm, manly handshakes but this year, he started this new thing where he would hug and kiss me on both sides of the cheeks... AND my forehead! I mean, I can deal with it if my mom or grandma does that... but to have a big, hairy, burly man with a huge belly and greasy hair do that... is just wrong.



Now... I don't know how it is in your part of the world but in my book, there should be no kissing amongst straight men. No kissing on the lips, no kissing on the cheeks and especially no kissing on the forehead. The forehead kissing privileges expired when I hit the age of 12 and since I will not be donning a white bridal gown at my wedding anytime soon, I really don't see this forehead kissing ritual resurrected at all.

The handshakes were good... so let's just stick to the handshakes. I can do an occasional hug... but let's limit that to big occasions... like my wedding... or the birth of my first born... or when we survive the first nuclear holocaust... for those occasions, I can do a hug.

But no kisses. Especially if we just survived a nuclear holocaust. I mean, for the sake of the survival of humanity, I think it's only wise we keep all the kissing to members of the opposite sex. Don't you?

MY BIRTHDAY CURSE

People don't believe me when I say it... but it's true. I'm cursed. It's a curse that has followed me for as long as I can remember... ever since I was a little boy. I try not to about think it but every year, on the 13th of Oct (i.e. my birthday), I am reminded of that curse...


The curse of the Bad Birthday Gift.

I get bad birthday gifts every year. EVERY YEAR. I don't know why or when this curse started but I've been getting bad birthday gifts for as long as I can remember. The only reason I could think of is that as a little kid, I once used the money my mom gave me for my friend's birthday gift to buy myself a nice gift instead (a cool green water pistol) and used the balance to buy him Panda brand crayons that just costs 60 cents since it was made in China (though I did splurge on a nice piece of wrapping paper... PLUS ribbon)

But I've been doing a lot of good now that I've grown up and I don't scrimp as much when I buy gifts for other people so as karma rules it, I should be getting better gifts. But unfortunately, karma works in mysterious ways and every year, without fail, I still do get the odd bad gift.

And when I say bad... I mean, bad....

Now... I'm sure you're thinking "It can't be that bad..." but I assure you, the gifts get so bad, I can't recycle the gift even if I wanted to. I mean how do you recycle the following gifts:

• A tin of MILO. Think that was for my 10th birthday.
• A bottle of rose syrup. Same birthday.
• A pair of Tat Sing slippers (i.e. made in China flips flops). Same birthday. (It was a particularly bad year, that one. Must be the same year when I peed into the neighbours pot of plants)
• A filofax with a leather jacket. And by leather jacket, I mean an actual leather jacket... like the one James Dean wears in Rebel Without A Cause except it's tiny and fits a filofax... complete with the white t-shirt beneath the jacket.
• An Abdominizer or Ab Flex or Ab something... and that damn thing doesn't work, by the way.
• Cellulite cream AND a hand-held plastic cellulite scrubber.
• A football fan - A tiny football with a battery operated fan attached.
• A plastic plaque with a picture of a cow and the words "He who procastinates gets nothing" (don't ask me why... I still can't figure that one out)
• A cheap plastic toothbrush
• A couple of bronze toothpicks with Merlion heads
• A pen with a big ball of fluffy pink flamingo feathers attached to the tip
• A pack of Swan brand cotton underwear... again, made in China.

And finally, a Hall Of Famer in my gallery of Bad Birthday Gifts...

• A bronze Merlion shaped lighter which... when flicked open, will play that tune from Lambada (it was the craze back in the 80s. Again... don't ask me why). And not only that, the eyes of the Merlion flickers red while the tune is playing. Woohoo......

And the thing is... I don't even smoke.

Seriously, I'm not making this up. It all happened... and what I've written up there... those were my actual birthday gifts. And this year, this is my bad birthday gift.

A Hello Kitty cake. I'm 32... and I got a freakin' Hello Kitty cake.

When will this madness end...

YOU KNOW THE HAZE IS BAD WHEN...

This morning... the haze situation in Singapore got really bad. I sound like Darth Vader... or a perverted sex fiend (when I'm on the phone, that is) and damn it... I don't even have asthma.

Every year, the Southeast Asian region gets stricken with haze, no thanks for the "slash and burn" practices of our agricultural neighbours down south. And today, Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) level hits a high of 150 and anything beyond the 100 mark indicates that the air now is at unhealthy levels.

Anyway, you really don't need the stinking (pun intended) PSI to tell you the haze is bad. You know the haze is bad when....

- Smokers decide to quit smoking, take the filters off their remaining sticks of Malboros and stuff them up their nostrils

- Someone farts in the room and people welcome the smell

- The country looks like a dodgy 80s disco with a faulty smoke machine... or

- The country looks like a ganja bar in Amsterdam

- Golf courses decide to replace the tiny flags at each hole with miniature lighthouses

- Milli Vanilli called... they told us to just Blame It On The Haze

- I cash in my retirement fund and fly Erin Brockovich here to sue someone's ass off

- The French starts selling us bottled air at premium prices...

TOP TEN THINGS THE ASTRONAUTS WERE THINKING OF AS THEY ACCOMPANIED THE FIRST FEMALE SPACE TOURIST

On the 8 September 2006, Anousheh Ansari became the world's first female space tourist. She blasted off into space in the Russian Soyuz spacecraft together with a two man crew headed to the international space station for their 6 month stint in space. She returned to Earth 10 days later with the outgoing US-Russian crew.

This is what the all male crew really thought about while they were in space with Anousheh.



10. I busted my ass to get to space too... how come she's hogging all the media attention?

9. I hope she knows how to cook. I just had a sudden craving for hummus...

8. We finally got a woman up here and we still have to eat food from tubes...

7. If she asks me if I'm lost one more time..........

6. Who am I supposed to ask directions from? The space debris outside? Aliens? That oncoming... asteroid?

5. For the last time lady... we can't get Oprah in space.

4. I don't care if she paid $20 million for this trip, she is not going to boss me around

3. Now we can't just fart whenever we want anymore

2. Finally... some eye candy.

1. Honestly... the spacesuit does make your ass look kinda big.

Now... before you give me any flak for gender stereotyping, the above are all made up and Ansari was reportedly an efficient crew mate up there in the international space station. So kudos to her.

And secondly, to clarify... this was not lifted from the David Letterman show as some of you have presumed. This Top Ten is produced by me and the reason I'm doing this is really as a tribute to Letterman and also to hopefully convince someone to send me to New York to watch Letterman Live.

But heck... screw New York. Send me to space! Don't be a cheapskate. It's only... what... US$20 million?