A Mean Meander Followed by Mildness

 
I can't concentrate properly on typing this when I can hear my maternal ancestor yakking on the phone. I miss having the entire house to myself. Haha. :p 

But anyway, lately, I've been ranting quite a bit about the lack of cultural stimulus and creation in this country. Literature, music, art, or film. Only smatterings that don't seem to rise above a certain level of quality.  When I was in Iceland, I saw that there was a flourishing publishing industry. The total number of Icelandic speakers in the entire world hardly rises above 300,000 individuals, and yet, they are able to sustain a literary scene, AND produce a Literature Nobel Prize laureate. Sunny litte Spore, with her overcrowdedness of 4.5 million people, is in an appalling state when it comes to literature. There was an article in the newspapers (All hail the oh-so-wonderful Straits Times) yesterday, I believe, about book circulation statistics for the National Library. It appears that what my fellow countrymen enjoy reading most are ghost stories. One of the most popular local writers is Russell Lee, who authors the True Singapore Ghost Stories series, which has been floating around since I was a kid. There's also this Mr Midnight series for children, which ranks right behind Harry Potter. If my memory serves me well, I think Mitch Albom's books as well as The Kite Runner were at the top of the adult fiction list. 

Oh, I am filled to the brim with trembling patriotism when I think of my beloved motherland and her glorious ethos of good grades, business, finance, and banking. Hooray! Let me conform! I want to volunteer for lobotomy and make the transformation into a reproducing drone~! \(^o^)/

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Hmmm. I think that came out a little bit harsher than I expected. But whatever. Haha. I am filled with envy when I look at some of the Japanese creative industries - publishing, animation, and music. Ok, fair enough, wikipedia informs me that Japan has a population of 127 million. Hardly a fair comparison. But still. Also, books are dirt cheap there, and there is that lovely huge second hand industry. Oh well.

My two-year old mobile phone is starting to die on me. It was already at a certain stage of being handicapped, but now, the screen has displayed (haha) a tendency towards white-outs. Not good. I desperately want a clam/flip phone, and have something akin to brand loyalty to Nokia, but the only model that is a clam phone has yet to be releas

ed, and is bound to be rather pricey when it eventually is. Boo. 

I am now the proud owner of a 500GB external hard drive. Rather excessive, but since it only cost $10 (approx. £3+) more than a 320GB one, I decided to plan ahead for the future. :p

Another purchase I made that made me happy, was the August issue of Cure, which subtitles itself "Japanesque Rock + Visual Styling Magazine". As you can see, Ayabie are on the cover, and the photo shoot was done in a carnival/funfair setting. I read part of the interview, and at one point, they started talking about their various pets. Intetsu has a floppy eared rabbit! Haha.  

I think I'm going to have to sit around on my butt at home for the next few days to save some of the not-exactly green stuff. Oh wait, there's something called 'Studying for the Japanese proficiency test" which is supposed to be my primary occupation. 

I can't seem to get the formatting of images right. Grrr. Well, this is on the right, but I wanted it in the centre, and now I can't seem to change it. *shakes fist* Oh well. Anyway, it's a pretty pretty picture of a pretty pretty pick (yay, I score for my wide range of vocabulary!) from Intetsu's blog. Picture thief I am. 

By the way, the "ceiling fan" tag here shall serve as my tag for random-ness. 

Oh, and the picture right at the top of the post I snapped while walking back home yesterday evening. It was a nice and atmospherically (in both senses of the word?) overcast day. Also somehow managed to be drenched or splattered by too many raindrops while we were out.