Avenue Odd

*Stretches arms* Alright, Time for an update after something like a month of inactivity. Been.. well.. busy.

Been surfing around blogs a bit lately, and I have to say, Singaporeans love being food critics. They would head into a restaurant armed with their handy digital cameras, order a dish, take something like ten pictures of the same dish, and finally dig in. When they are done, pictures of empty plates littered with crumbs and food deemed not edible will be taken as a sort of closing ceremony (correct me if I'm wrong, I truly do not understand the entire ritual).

When they get home, the pictures are uploaded into their computers, and subsequently onto their blogs or food critique community sites.

When people read these blogs or sites, they form an image of what the food, service (if mentioned) ambience, and other details of the entire experience, which, effectively, ruins all the fun in going to a restaurant in the first place! If we only visit places that are “highly recommended” how then are our gastronomical horizons going to expand?

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against people blogging about their meals and such, but seriously, if you don’t have anything nice to say about a restaurant, I'd much rather the post not exist, it only serves to damage reputations and spoil potentially enjoyable dining experiences.

Head into an interesting restaurant with good company, and more often than not, the food would be delicious :)

oh and, cute picture huh?

Picture taken off Flickr.com. Originally Uploaded on May 14, 2006 by doc18

DAMMIT. 5 HOURS TO BURN AND I LEFT MY iPOD AT HOME.

palmface.

PHOTO WAS TAKEN OFF FLICKR, ORIGINALLY UPLOADED BY TMink.

So school's been in for a while for me now.. All's been fine and well and suitably boring. There is one thing though, that i just HAVE to grouse(some I adore, but heck, grouse seems more appropriate) about. There are "peacocks" who saunter about the lecture halls as if they hadn't a care in the world. Distracting.

*peacocks: people who just have to make a fashion statement, however good or bad. No reference to brain size here, mind you (go ahead, but dont tellem).

Specimen 1: Ankle-Covering Furry Boots. I could hear her feet choking from where I was seated...

Specimen 2:  Deep V-neck body hugging gown. Think.. Oscars, red carpet, limousine. Ladies, please, do not get me wrong, I am all for plunging necklines, and elegant gowns, but in SCHOOL?!?! You are hampering many hot blooded mens' feeble attempt to pay attention to that cleava.. er i mean.. lecturer. Not to mention the hurt you afflict upon the less well endowed.

Specimen 3: BIG FRIZZY HAIR. There are people who actually need to look at the big white sceen on which pictures and words are projected upon to learn. Please, get out of our faces. (Its pretty funny, the seat behind him is consistently left empty). If i ever am forced to sit behind him i shall make him balance the Guiness Book of World Records on his head just to keep the damn thing down.

Specimen 4: Singlets (almost always from New Urban Male). Brrrrr... Nuff said.

Specimen 5: Sunglasses. Unless you're from Bollywood, please, leave them at home.

Specimen 6: That hot girl in the back of the room. Thank your mother for such brilliant genes, to be specimen 6 is your birthright. You're just plain distracting. omg. the chair melted.

If you have to make a fashion statement (or a fashion faux pas for that matter), do in on Orchard Road or somewhere else where someone would actually give you the right type of attention. Someone might actually find it artistic or something.

oh and miss specimen 6, come sit beside me;  its cooler here, and no - its not the air conditioner.

With morning classes over.. I now have 5 hours on hand till the next (one hour only) lesson.  While waiting for this lesson, something crossed my mind:

We spend a large part of our lives just waiting, and a good portion of that time, we are waiting for others. Now, that is perfectly fine. For the first 10 minutes or so (lets face it, busses miss us, and jams catch our cars sometimes). After that though it does get slightly (and oftentimes excessively) annoying when we are made to wait, and wait, and.. wait.

As you might have guessed, I am usually the punctual one, and while I pride myself for such punctuality, it never fails to irk me when made to wait anything in excess of ~20mins for anybody. To put it plainly, time, MY time, was being needlessly wasted.

Armed with bristling righteous fury for chronic latecomers of the land, it was decided that I, The Punctual One, will plunge the depths of chronic latecoming and seek the truth and the One Ring to Rule..... nevermind.

Tardiness can seem like an incurable disease sometimes. I do know of people who will make a conscious effort to avoid arriving late. These are the ones who will prepare an hour beforehand, and ultimately, arrive... late.

Habitual latecoming, that is called. However, do know that, THERE IS HOPE! The challenge here is upon deciding on just how important it is for him/her to be on time. In most societies, chronic latecoming is seen - no not as a mental illness, but rather a (serious?) character flaw. Especially in the business world, where (you guessed it) time is money, to waste someone's time is as good as saying 'know what? I cannot be bothered to respect your time, and much less, you.'

Now, with that aside, we move on to the type of lateness that bothers me the most: the "he's-gonna-be-late-anyway" or "I-don't-want-to-stand-there-like-a-clown-waiting-for-him" syndrome.

The reason why this bothers me so much is how this problem can (and will) compound. If Aaron is consistently late by 10minutes, Charles will soon decide to arrive 15minutes after the pre-decided time (surely its ok for her to finally wait for 5 minutes!) So assuming that Charles keeps that up, Aaron will consequently turn up 20 minutes late. Why?

Waiting alone to most people is experienced as a painful, boring and time wasting activity. Above all, it projects an image of a lonely person. Many people have the innate fear of being left all alone, and consequently, hate to be kept waiting, and as such, just keep coming later than the other to avoid the painful experience.

So, what can we do about it?

Being from the fine city state that is Singapore, a monetary penalty comes to mind. For every minute that a party is late, he/she would have to cough up an amount of money, or buy lunch etc. While this may seem like a viable proposition (and is in practice in some social circles actually), personally I feel it will only worsen the situation in the long run; because now, it is "acceptable" to be late, never mind that you have wasted three people's time waiting for you, as long as you buy lunch later, its perfectly fine. I can see a culture building up there, albeit and unhealthy one. (Note: There really is no free lunch. The time wasted waiting for that one person could most probably been put to better use.)

The only piece of real advice I can give is for the punctual party to never fall into the vicious cycle. That way, the person who is making you wait, if he/she considers you of some importance (and since you are meeting up more than once or twice I'd safely say that he does), might 'feel bad' and make an effort to arrive on time in the future.

Alright, for those of you who made it this far, congratulations on conquering my longest wall of text in about two years. Isn't quite the Great Wall.. or the Berlin.. or the Earthworm Jim.. or the Nokia N95.. or the Evian.. or the...

Time is precious, do not waste others' time. Or your own, typing walls of text.

Reading mine, however, is time well spent. Thank you for your precious time.

THE PICTURE WAS TAKEN OFF FLICKR AND ALL CREDIT GOES TO THE ORIGINAL POSTER