The Republic of Awesome

Avast, ye’ landlubbers! A matey o’ mine informed me that te’ olde Facebook be available in te’ tougue o’ swashbucklers!

T’switch ye Facebook from te’ tongue o’ landlubbers t’that o’ me mighty pirate mateys, go t’ ye settings adjustment in ye Facebook and be setting ye language to English (Pirate).

You are a pirate!

Note: Read the disclaimer in the footer of my blog. No you can’t sue me

Last week, I was having tea/dinner/something with the missus in some place called Kinrara. No, it’s not in Puchong; it’s somewhere in Sri Petaling. Yes I’m very confused myself, but fuck it - a place with food is a place with food and I’m not one to argue about the specifics.

Without digressing too much, it was getting late and I had to get the car back home soon or there’d be hell to pay. Not a problem really, since home wasn’t far away and I had in excess of 20 minutes to do the traveling.

However (as stories like this always require a big-ass ‘however’), Murphy’s Law decided to spring up and give me a harsh FALCON KICK to the bollocks.

Double parked next to my car was a lil Kancil.

FUCKKK!!

As if to add insult to injury, there were plenty of empty parking spaces just a few meters down the road. It was so empty I could probably cram half of Singapore into the area.

The person who drove the Kancil is very clearly either a selfish prick, or a poor victim of loan sharks who has to crawl by the bloody stumps of his severed legs to get to the shop in front.

Noting the lack of blood on the pavement however, I’d go with the former.

“Well at least it’s sort of staggered ahead of your car,” my girlfriend offered. “You should be able to squeeze out of the small gap behind.”

“Yeah, maybe.”

I got into the car and started the engine. Manipulating the gears between 1st and reverse, I got the car to do the cha cha dance as I tried to squeeze out.

To no avail.

I am going to be late.

At this point I was swearing like Gordon Ramsay coaching McDonald’s employees on the finer points of gourmet cooking. It didn’t help that the car was like a Jew-incinerating oven with the radiator malfunctioning.

Finally, with some direction from the missus, I manage to just barely squeeze my car out from the parking  lot. Ten minutes had been wasted trying to maneuver out.

Fuming mad, I was at a point where I’d destroy half a city block at the slightest provocation. There was no more reasoning with me.

I reached into the coin compartment of the car and dug through the coins.

Fifty sen? No, that’s wayy too much to spend on this. Twenty sen? No, that’s too exorbitant too. One sen? Well I suppose, but it doesn’t have much grip.

Ten sen. That’s the way to go.

“OMG what are you doing???”

There was no way she could stop me.

I reached out of the window, the 10 sen coin firmly gripped between my thumb and index finger. Banking the car to the right, I made contact with the surface of the Kancil.

Applying pressure on the coin to make sure it really got into the paintwork, I continued driving. I watched as the coin left a trail of destruction on the car’s champagne coloured finish.

Laughing as I drove off, I knew the answer to what 10 sen can buy me: satisfaction.

Moral of the story - Don’t double park. You don’t know what some psychos will do to your car!

While I may strive to produce awesome content here, once in awhile I stumble upon stuff online that are just pure unadulterated total pwnage and have to be posted here.

One such item is this story from craigslist.

Read this.

“Dude, shisha is the shit.”

DJ Vu, always one for trying ‘awesome’ substances, declared his approval for Egyptian smoke pipes.

“Never tried it.”

“You should man. I was just out with my buddies at Arab Street. Great stuff.”

“I’ll give it a shot sometime.”

“Yeah. It’s kinda ex though…”

At this point Vu starts to detail his finances. It’s standard routine: he starts with how much fun/awesomeness/chicks/alcohol/etc he had during his previous escapade. Upon establishing this, he then details what it has cost his bank account.

Understandable. He had already blown close $500 in half a year on the drink, decimating his scholarship allowance faster than Bill Clinton goes through his interns.

“Why don’t I build you a shisha?”

“You can?”

“Yeah! I’m sure it’s simple enough. Let me check Wikipedia.”

Wikipedia - the answer to life, the universe and everything in between. If you disagree with me, simply edit this open-sourced blog entry.

So it starts. For over a week while all of my friends were doing more “important” things like school work, studying, socializing and generally living, I worked on my contraption.

Starting with a simple glass jar from Ikea, and attaching all manner of plumbing to it, I slowly fashioned a device not unlike the schematic shown above.

Then a problem arose. The pipe would not stand vertical supported only by the cap of the jar and some silicone glue.

In the days that followed I became quite friendly with the hardware shop owners from the nearby areas. I had become a frequent visitor to their shops as I hunted for supporting struts, L-brackets and other widgets to stabilise my creation.

Finally it was done. At a cost of S$25, the device was far cheaper than the S$100++ shishas available for sale in Arab St…

…with the drawback that it looked like a pile of garbage glued together. Which it is of course. And then there was the question of whether it would work like the real thing.

A small group of my friends had gathered to witness the first trial run of my creation. I hooked up a polyurethane hose to the gasket on the shisha and inhaled.

Air bubbled through the water in the jar and I had a mouthful of stale air.

“Dude, you fucking rock! It bubbles just like the real thing!” DJ Vu exclaimed.

“I’m not done yet,” I said as I retrieved a Lipton green tea sachet from my cupboard.

Ripping apart the sachet, I poured the contents – dried green tea leaves – into a metal mesh. Using a lighter, I burnt the leaves before placing the mesh, smoking contents and all, onto the bowl of the shisha.

Taking the hose in my mouth, I took a deep drag. Up to this point in my life, I had never touched a cigarette, let alone smoked.

I gagged.

Smoking, like drinking, is an activity far more pleasurable in your mind than when you first try it out. I was taken aback by the dry feel of the fumes and how it singes the throat as it goes travels down to the lungs.

Nevertheless, there was clearly the taste of green tea.

Curiosity had now taken over. What else could I smoke?

As my friends tried out the device for themselves, I rummaged the room for other things to inhale. Coffee beans were chosen as the next victim. This was quickly followed by flavoured teas taken from the room next door. Later on, cinnamon and spices.

Once you get over the dryness, smoking’s not too bad. What you get in a single puff is a pure essence of whatever you’re smoking, untainted by taste.

Coffee’s really fragrant and earthly, while flavoured teas have an interesting character provided that they’re not completely disgusting to smoke.

Cinnamon trumps everything else however. Smoking cinnamon is like inhaling the sweetest golden honey through your lungs. No other substance I know of can give you such a sweet taste. This is definitely something you have to try smoking in your lifetime.

In the end, I lost the shisha when I moved out of the old hostel. My parents would not see to carting the device back which in their minds is equivalent to a marijuana bong.

ThinkI should build a new one?

Nuffnang Standout Party: A party at HQNINE where the most outrageously fun people gather all dressed up, and of course our favourite 3 words: “Free Flow Alcohol”.

There is literally nothing else I need to say.

So I’ll just post a few pictures I stole from various folken! (If you disagree with my usage of your photos drop a comment and I’ll remove it)

Photo props: Joshua Ong (check out his blog for an ultra cool video of the party!)

Our Spartan party!

Photo props: Chia Wei

Props to Bernard for running around as the Moo. Must be very hot under the suit…

Photo props: Chia Wei

Griza really stood out as the Renaissance-era aristocrat. I love that big thing around her head – probably can receive ASTRO if you aim it properly.

Photo props: Ewin

Massive yam cha at Murni’s. There were so many Nuffnangers there the Murni staff had to arrange a massive ‘h’ (outlined in green) table formation to seat almost everyone.

Oh and one more thing…

Kenny Sia has soft Susan Boyle boobs!