Old Memories - 1996

Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments

Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments I


Extreme Diet Coke & Mentos Experiments II: The Domino Effect

Why Transformers Cannot Be Set in Singapore

While watching 'Transformers', we wondered how come this kind of big action movie about giant robots who turn into cars and stuff cannot be set in Singapore. Then we thought about it some more, and realized why...

(click on picture to see)

© http://www.talkingcock.com/ 2001-2003. All rights reserved.

NATIONAL DAY SPECIAL: 60 SIGNS YOU’RE A TRUE SINGAPOREAN

It’s not enough if you pay taxes or carry a pink IC. To commemorate National Day, TalkingCock.com brings you a checklist to see how Singaporean you really are.


1. Thanks to SMS, you have an extra large thumb.

2. Tks 2 SMS, u oso dun no how 2 spel n e mor.

3. You pat MRT and bus seats to cool them before you sit down.

4. At lunch, you start discussing what to eat for dinner.

5. Your wedding photos include shots of you dressed up like Louis XIV, Michael Jackson, or Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet in Titanic.

6. When speaking to foreigners, you somehow feel a need to adopt an accent. (If you’re a DJ, this happens even when you’re not speaking to foreigners.)

7. You won’t raise your voice to protest policies, but you’ll raise your fists to whack someone over Hello Kitty.

8. You’re forever talking about businesses you want to set up but will probably never get around to starting.

9. You don’t know ¾ of the people attending your wedding.

10. You separate food into 2 basic groups: ‘heaty’ and ‘cooling’.

11. You’re never completely sure how many times you’ve sung the second verse of the National Anthem.

12. You think that what makes you ‘married’ is not the legal registration but whether you’ve thrown a 12 course dinner.

13. You marry for the real estate breaks.

14. You have kids for the tax advantages.

15. You move to where you want your child to go to school.

16. You feel you can’t walk around naked in your own flat.

17. You force your children to take Speech & Drama classes, but pray they won’t wind up in Arts later on.

18. You suddenly realize you’re very interested in biotech - just like you suddenly realized three years ago that you were very interested in e-commerce, and before that, engineering, and before that, medicine and law.

19. You think being an entrepreneur is setting up a bubble tea/Portuguese egg tart/gao luck/porridge shop right next to an existing bubble tea/Portuguese egg tart/gao luck/porridge shop.

20. You think people are inconsiderate when they don’t leave their table immediately after eating at the food court but think you have every right to take 25 bites to finish the last red bean in your ice kachang.

21. You find it impossible to make suggestions without drawing a fishbone chart first.

22. If you’re a guy, whenever you get together with your guy friends, you invariably trade army stories.

23. If you’re a girl, whenever you get together with your girl friends, you invariably trade stories about how your stupid guy friends are forever trading army stories.

24. You think the most important sporting event in Singapore this year was David Beckham switching from Manchester United to Real Madrid.

25. You somehow feel that food tastes better when eaten by a longkang.

26. It actually makes a difference to you being called an ‘NSMan’ rather than a ‘Reservist’.

27. You’ve eaten more times at the Esplanade than you’ve actually seen shows there.

28. You need campaigns to tell you how to be courteous, to flush toilets, have sex, etc.

29. When you visit the Zoo, you wonder what the animals taste like.

30. You feel the urge to add the suffix ‘-polis’ to everything, viz. Biopolis, Airtropolis, Fusionopolis, Entrepolis, etc.

31. You always feel oddly hungry at 11 pm, and are willing to drive to far away places for supper.

32. You meet in hotels a lot.

33. Your children have a rudimentary knowledge of Tagalog or Bahasa Indonesia.

34. You work at McDonald’s when you’re old rather than young.

35. You’ll gladly spend $50,000 on a car, but will go to great lengths to save a few bucks on ERP charges or even a few cents on a parking coupon.

36. Pork floss and mayonnaise on bread is a completely natural combination to you.

37. If you’re pregnant, you have the strange ability to make people on the MRT fall asleep instantly.

38. You ask for the bill by miming a signing movement.

39. You’ve started referring to foreign employees as ‘talent’ instead of ‘expatriates’.

40. At the dinner table, you’re always discussing which other food places serve better versions of what you’re eating.

41. You copy down licence plate numbers of cars involved in accidents.

42. You think your boyfriend doesn’t really love you unless he gives you part of his liver.

43. During sales, you book hotel rooms near malls to enable you to shop more efficiently.

44. You pronounce the letter ‘R’ as ‘ah-rer’ and the letter ‘H’ as ‘haytch’.

45. No matter how old you are, you keep associating people with their secondary schools. (alternative: No matter how old you are, you secretly need to know what other people got for their PSLE, O levels and A levels.)

46. You’re always on a quest for the definitive version of your favourite local dish.

47. When you explain things to people, you keep (a) using alphabets, and (b) speaking in point form.

48. You believe that you can generate ‘creativity’ through rules and committees.

49. You ‘chope’ a seat by placing a packet of tissues on the chair.

50. You’re very forthright with your criticisms of the Gahmen, unless there’s a chance they might actually hear you.

51. You diligently track the whereabouts of your favourite hawkers, i.e..you know that the famous Tiong Bahru Bao is now in Jurong, the famous Outram Char Kuay Teow is now in Hong Lim Centre and the famous Lau Hock Kien Hokkien mee from the old Lau Pa Sat is now at Beach Road.

52. Your mother probably can’t speak your ‘mother tongue’.

53. You’d rather drink your own pee than pay someone more for water.

54. You secretly find that the best part of the Speak Good English Movement is hearing the Singlish bits in their ads.

55. You have an automatic sensor in your head which categorizes people you meet into stayer/ quitter, cosmopolitan/heartlander, normal/ express/ gifted, etc.

56. You think we’re living in a modern, sophisticated country even when our leaders still insist on wearing their school uniforms.

57. You wish your constituency is in a walkover, because otherwise it’s damn ‘leceh’.

58. During elections, you decide that there is no credible opposition even though you don’t know the name of the opposition candidate in your constituency.

59. You think having a constitution is like the condition you get when you don’t eat enough fibre.

60. You can never quite remember what “the core values” of Singaporeans are.

by Kway Png

© http://www.TalkingCock.com 2001-2003. All rights reserved.

Currently Watching: AIR GEAR

Opening Song:

Team Kogarasumaru

MOS Dusty Opening + SAFRA Night

Dusty Opening @ MOS

it was kind of boring actually...

so it became SAFRA Night...
something more "normal"...

Singapore Women's Masters Squash Championship, Singapore

04-Aug,
Final:
Nicol David Masters Singapore In Latest Triumph

Nicol David showed fans in Singapore just why she is the world squash number one with a fine display that was full of running and crafty shot-making, outlasting her closest rival Natalie Grinham 9-6, 9-5, 9-5 in 54 minutes in the final to win the inaugural Women’s CIMB Singapore Masters at the Kallang Squash Centre in Singapore.

03-Aug:
Semi-Finals Results:
[1]Nicol David(Mas) vs [3]Rachael Grinham(Aus) 9/2, 9/2, 9/3 (23m)
[2]Natalie Grinham(Aus) vs [4]Tania Bailey(Eng) 9/6, 9/6, 9/1 (46m)

02-Aug:
Quarter-Finals Results:
[1]Nicol David(Mas) vs [5]Vicky Botwright(Eng) 10/8, 9/0, 9/3 (44m)
[3]Rachael Grinham(Aus) vs [6]Omneya Abdel Kawy(Egy) 5/9, 9/5, 9/0, 7/9, 9/4 (68m)
[4]Tania Bailey(Eng) vs [8]Jenny Duncalf(Eng) 8/10, 9/3, 3/9, 9/1, 9/1 (84m)
[2]Natalie Grinham(Aus) vs [7]Madeline Perry(Irl) 9/5, 9/5, 9/2 (38m)


Taken from : © World Squash Federation


I was there... hoping to witness the match on 04th Aug.... but I can only see the back right hand cornor of the court... kaoz.. there was too many people there... so horrifying... didn't know that there were so many squash fan in Singapore... :p

but I got to see all the full matches for the quater-final and semi-final on the 2nd and 3rd August... mmm... better than nothing... :p

Licensed Anime (By AnimeSuki)

What is licensed anime?
Licensed anime is any series or movie (part or whole) for which the rights to publish the anime in a specific area have been bought. Simply put, if a company buys the rights to put an anime series or movie on TV and/or release it on DVD in the USA (in English), that anime series or movie is considered licensed anime by AnimeSuki. Note that of course it's also possible for anime series and movies to be licensed in other areas (such as Europe). Such licenses usually involve publishing in languages other than English though and therefore are of no interest to us.

The original purpose of fansubs
As recent as about 10 to 15 years ago anime was not easy to get outside of Asia. The few anime companies that existed could only bring out a few titles as they lacked the funds and the market for licensing more shows. To get more anime and also to encourage certain titles to get licensed in the US, some anime fans started to make fansubs: series which were taped of Japanese television with subtitles added. These fansubs were distributed on VHS tape. One of the self imposed rules the fansub groups adapted was that once a series was licensed in the US, distribution of the fansub should stop. After all, the fansub had served it's purpose.

Eventually the popularity of anime grew in the US and with it the market for anime grew, which in turn resulted in more money to be available to license even more shows. It is probably this reason why in the past few years more and more shows are getting licensed. The popularity of fansubs also grew explosively with the introduction of digisubs: digital fansubs which could be easily distributed over the internet.

Fansubs violate copyrights
We have to admit it: the distribution of fansubs is technically a violation of copyright under the WTO TRIPS agreement. However the TRIPS agreement does not demand that distribution of copyrighted material is a criminal offence unless it is done on a commercial scale. This means it is up to the copyright holder to bring the offender to court. The copyright of unlicensed material is held by the original creator. In the case of anime this usually means the Japanese distribution company. If something is licenced, the licensee holds the copyright and thus the right to sue any copyright infringers within the area covered by the license. (source: ato's forum post)

Up until now fansub groups have had little to worry about legal pressure from Japan. However US companies are more likely to sue, therefore it is an additional reason for fansub groups to stop distributing a series once it gets licensed in the US.

The future of fansubs
Whether fansubs have a future remains to be seen. David Williams of ADV Films recently mentioned at Anime Boston 2003: "One thing fans might not know is most shows are licensed now during the financing stage, before the show is even produced. This makes a lot of fansubs pointless now. Of course, there are still old shows that probably won?t be licensed; but new shows are almost guaranteed."

Still some series might need some help to get popular. Would you buy Azumanga Daioh DVDs if you had have never heard about it? Fansubs probably helped this series and others gain popularity. Also as there is so much anime being created in Japan, there will usually always be some series which don't get licensed for some reason, like Boys Be or Kokoro Library.

It's not a perfect world
If you are wondering why you can still find fansubs of licensed shows (even of episodes aired after the show was licensed), the answer is that the world is not perfect. Certain fansub groups do not follow the general fansub ethics of ceasing the distribution and fansubbing of a show after it is licensed. AnimeSuki does not recommend downloading these files, but there is little we can do to stop them.

What if you're not in the US?
While a large part of the visitors of AnimeSuki are from the US and Canada, not all of them are of course. Those people might be thinking: "If anime is licensed in the US, what has that to do with me? Why stop fansubbing? Why remove it from AnimeSuki?". AnimeSuki's view on this is that the US is the largest market for English subbed and dubbed anime, therefore once anime is licensed in the US all English fansubbing of it should stop.

If you're not from the US, this means you can still download non-English fansubs of the same series (if it's not licensed in your region as well). Alternatively you could also import the DVDs when they are released in the US. It is not expensive to do so if you order directly from online DVD shops in the US. You will need a region free DVD player of course, but even those are easy to get - just ask around or check out The Firmware Page to make your DVD-ROM drive region free.

If a title is not licensed in your area and you still want to download English fansubs, AnimeSuki won't stop you from doing so. However, we won't help you find them either for reasons mentioned earlier. Also be aware that (again for obvious reasons) newer episodes of series which have been licensed before being completely fansubbed might be very hard to get. So even if AnimeSuki did not have the policy of removing licensed anime, we would still be left with very little to link to!

AnimeSuki.com & Fansubs
Unless something major happens, AnimeSuki.com will continue to list torrent links to the latest English fansubs of unlicensed anime. Please note however that only torrent links listed on AnimeSuki can safely be considered to be unlicensed. Certain BitTorrent sites also tend to list licensed anime, which AnimeSuki does not support. However it is not possible for us to just link to those torrents which are not licensed as we link to sites and not the torrent files directly.

See the License List for an overview of anime which AnimeSuki considers licensed.

Taken From : AnimeSuki