MORE SENSELESS ACTS OF BLOGGERY

As I may have mentioned somewhere in this blog, I’m very big on book/music tourism. Which is to say, whenever I travel to another country, my sightseeing activities inevitably include bookstores and CD stores – particularly in Singapore, which I get to at least four times a year and have seen the majority of the sites worth seeing.

Which means more time for books and CDs stores. Especially this trip, since I basically had Saturday and Sunday all to myself. So naturally I spent them covering every decent book store in town, including a few I didn’t know about before, but which a friend and fellow book nerd recommended I check out.

Result: not quite the same pile as last time (which was the product of a dirt-cheap Borders clearance sale), but a respectable haul, much of it comics-related (let’s just say you’ll be hearing about my opinion of Grant Morrison’s Doom Patrol run in the next few months).

And I mention this primarily so I can bring up three big surprises I came across:

1. Harris Planerds

The last time I visited this bookstore, it was a plain Harris outlet. Between then and now, it’s transformed into a specialty bookshop that deals primarily in SF/fantasy, comics and related merchandise.

Which is cool, of course. What strikes me about it is that this isn’t the usual small indie outfit that runs such specialty stores – Harris is a Singapore-based chain owned by Popular Holdings, a book publisher that also runs its own retail outlets, primarily for educational books. I’ve never heard of a retail book chain opening a specialty SF/F/comics store.

Maybe you have them in yr community, but it’s the first time I’ve seen something like it. It’d be like Waldenbooks opening an SF store. (And I’m assuming that hasn't happened somewhere.)

2. San Bookshop lives

Way back when I first started to travel to Singapore on a regular basis in the late 90s, one of my regular stops was San bookshop, a local store in Marina Square that dealt in new and used books. You could “rent” books by paying the sticker price for them and then returning them for the fixed buy-back price on the book, which worked out to a rental of a few Singapore dollars.

San had a nice broad selection, but it disappeared over a decade years ago after Marina Square started doing renovations. But on a chance visit to Vivocity (a galleria complex next to the Sentosa Island resort, where I went to meet good friend Agent K for lunch Friday), I found out there was a San shop there. And after that I found out actually there’s a few of them around Singapore.

On the downside, the selection at the Vivocity store was smaller than the one I remembered. On the bright side, I got a nice discount on Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book. Anyway, it’s nice to know they’re still around.

3. Borders is still open.

Apparently that huge clearance sale wasn’t related to the bankruptcy proceedings. So I may have misinformed you on that score.

That said, it might as well be closed. They’ve redone it inside, but it hasn’t really helped make it a better option than the competition. I walked in, browsed, and walked out wondering why I bothered to walk in.

The end.

Up next: Gambling!

I read books,

This is dF

Everyone has a vice. That one thing they just can’t say no to and will go out of their way to satisfy if given half a chance. Cigars. Booze. Blow. Blowjobs.

For me, it’s bookstore clearance sales.

I’ve been in Singapore the past few days. They have a Borders there. And Borders, you may have heard, is going through a rocky patch. And so, by the wildest of coincidences, on my last day in town, Borders rented space in the *Scape Warehouse and bought truckloads of books, with the highest price at 5 Singapore dollars (which works out to 4 US dollars).

And I just happened to have a few hours to kill before I had to head to the airport.

WINNING!



( Factual statements inside )

DISCLAIMER: While I’m kind of sad that the Singapore Borders is closing, I won’t really miss it. Apart from the selection becoming less and less relevant to my needs (compared to the Kinokuniya a few blocks down Orchard Road), that particular store had a bad habit of not policing the racks to reshelve books in the right order, or even the right genre, after customers had moved them, which just made it hard to find things.

Don’t get me wrong – it’s gratifying to see Ann Coulter’s books in the science-fiction/horror section. But still, you know, I have standards.

TOTAL book nerd,

This is dF

Or perhaps not.

Anyway, following on from this post, I was able to take a few more pictures for you during last week’s mission to Singapore.

And here they are.



Yes, I know. TOTALLY worth the wait.

Anyway, 75% of those were taken around Bencoolen Street. That’s the Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple and the Sri Krishnan Hindu Temple, which are next to each other, and a nearby temporary statue of Qu Yuan for the Duanwu Festival.

The Qu Yuan statue is noteworthy for the fact that I passed it every night on the way to the hotel from the train station, and every night he was facing a different direction. I’m sure there’s a reason for it.

And the bloke in the football uniform? No idea who he is, but he was overseeing the consumption of alcohol in Clarke Quay.

There are a few more pics behind that pic, if yr interested.

And so much for Singapore. No more traveling for awhile, as far as I know.

Ain’t no home for me,

This is dF

I’m back in Hong Kong.

And in case you thought I was kidding about the cosplay restaurant in Chijmes ... I bring evidence.



Sadly it was closed, as they only open after 3pm, which is when I had to ship out for the airport. The menu looks fairly typical for trendy eateries, but I hear it’s all right, if a little pricey.

As it happens, I’m going back to Singapore in a few weeks, so I could eat there for yr entertainment if you like.

Still, if it’s cute Asian women dressed in maid costumes you want, I’m sure you can find pics of that on the Interwub somewhere.

And yes, I owe you words + pics from Hainan. I'll get to that. Soon.

Maid in the shade,

This is dF

Reporting from Sentosa island off the Singapore coast, home of the newest Universal Studios theme park, as well as two golf courses, a Merlion statue and a sanctuary filled with peacocks, bananas and the sounds of pre-recorded monkeys.

I’ve been to Singapore a bunch of times, but this is only the second time I’ve been to Sentosa. The first was in 1998. They’ve really built it up since then.

Not that I’ve seen that much of it. I’ve been working almost nonstop since I landed, so pretty much all I’ve seen is a nearby 7-11. And this.



I fly out this morning, and then it’s off to Shenzhen across the HK border for three (3) straight days of PowerPoints from just one (1) company.

Joy.

Also, as this will be my first trip to mainland China in a couple of years (having finally gotten my visa re-approved), this will mark my first attempt to buy a copy of Guns’n’Roses’ Chinese Democracy in mainland China (subject to availability).

Because that’s how far I’m willing to go to entertain you.

Time to go.

Appetite for destruction,

This is dF

Okay. It was one thing to have Padma Lakshmi making love to chowing down on a Hardee’s/Carl Jr  bacon burger.

But now Hardee’s/Carl Jr have hired “top rated bikini body” Audrina Patridge (who may be famous – I’m not sure) making love to chowing down on a Hardee’s/Carl Jr teriyaki burger.

( Video behind the jump to conform with office dress codes )

Which I might not bother to mention except that it seems Burger King is keen to up the ante in the meat-sex competition with this.



Which I mention for a couple of reasons:

1. I actually saw the same ad for Burger King in Singapore last week. I thought it was a local campaign, seeing as how oral sex in Singapore was only legalized less than two years ago. And that was only for straight people. So I thought, you know, progress. (Insert "$6.25 slut" joke here.)

2. Ads like this are apparently why MIC – that Burger King franchisee in Tennessee – put “Global Warming Is Baloney” on its signs.

JJ McNelis, MIC’s marketing president, told Lou Dobbs that they did the signs in a response to some of BK’s “poorer marketing”. Not the Seven Incher specifically, but the one with Sir Mix-a-Lot rapping about square booty to promote a Spongebob kids meal.


Quite.

So you can expect more scientifically inaccurate conservative sloganeering from MIC to offset the inevitable BK/BJ jokes. Maybe something on how abstinence-only sex ed works 100%.

Incidentally, the transcript of that interview is worth reading if you enjoy the spectacle of Lou Dobbs blathering about how brave MIC is and how Big Business doesn’t do nearly enough to stand up for its First Amendment right to push oversimplified political views on its customers, for which American soldiers are dying to protect.

From you I get opinions,

This is dF

Sing yr life,

This is dF

A few administrative notes:

1. By the request of Def Agent thelastaerie , I’ve added a new tag that’s appropriate for posts like the “Southern Baptist Praying For Obama’s Death b/w Obama Ordered Tiller Hit” story. She suggested “madness”, but it made me think of the band. So I opted for “Ministry Of Batshit”. I hope you like it. And I hope I won’t get much use out of it. But somehow I just know I will.

2. I’m off to Singapore tomorrow for another week of industrial telephones journalism madness. Normal service shouldn’t be disrupted, but one never knows. A few nights will require me to go out and drink heavily with people in suits whilst being massaged by young busty women in tank tops and miniskirts, so if I disappear for a bit, you’ll know what happened

3. Just kidding about the young busty women in tank tops and miniskirts. As far as I know.

4. While I won’t be doing much travelogue stuff, Def Agent lorilori has assigned me to look into the Legend Of The Seah Street Deli Slut.

As documented at FailBlog.


see more Fail Blog

I happen to know where the Seah Street Deli is, but I’ve never eaten there. And they don’t put their menu online. So I’ll have to go there and check out the $6.25 Slut for myself.

Because I live to entertain you people.

Bear in mind that the receipt – presuming it’s not a Photoshop meme – is over six years old, so I can’t promise they still have Sluts on the menu. But I’ve got to try.

Wouldn't you?

Gimme three sluts and a jelly donut to go,

This is dF

Here’s what’s dominating the local headlines here in Singapore:

A man working as a cleaner at the Singapore Zoo apparently committed suicide by throwing himself to the tigers.

Not just any tigers. White Bengal tigers.

He jumped the fence and began annoying the tigers until they attacked. He did this during opening hours. Visitors thought it was a show until he started screaming.

Sad. But original.

I’m off to the airport now.

Don’t tease the tigers,

This is dF

First off, welcome to new Def Agent dr_p_venkman , who participated in my zombie poll. And thanks to everyone for playing. Evidently many of you are zombie traditionalists (though it's been pointed out I should have had a "whatever, yr still doomed" option – fair call).

Meanwhile, I wanted to advise you that Team Def is blogging from an undisclosed location somewhere on Orchard Road in Singapore for the remainder of the week. We are here investigating rumors that someone has built an Ethernet switch the size of an SUV that can download the equivalent of the entire Warner Bros DVD library every second. It makes the Large Hadron Collider look like a goddamn sewing machine. And rumor has it if they ever switch it on, the data stream will be so fast that it will suck the entire universe into another dimension containing an alternate universe where George W Bush is still president.

Or something along those lines.

Developing.

I may even have pictures later on if they ever let me out of this hotel. Hope book store interiors do something for you, cos that’s my top priority (aside from acquiring vast amounts of Wild Turkey).

Helpless yet irresponsible,

This is dF