So there is now a 'sequel' to The Phantom of the Opera. It's called 'Love Never Dies'.

I'm... appalled.

Okay, so we know that Christine is the classical 19th C damsel in distress. She gets kidnapped on a frighteningly regular basis by some dude in a bauta who proceeds to imprison her in a dungeon beneath an underground lake. He insists she dine alone (he likes to watch), that she sing for him (he also likes to watch this), and allows her to amuse herself with solitary card games (presumably he also likes to watch this: we are starting to see a pattern here).

Ordinarily, all the above would suffice to convince any woman that the man responsible for these outrages deserves a swift kick in the groin and a sharp uppercut. But kicking men who deserve it is not Miss Daäe's strong suit: despite her misgivings and unhappiness at the false imprisonment practised upon her, she returns - of her own volition - to the Phantom's lair; time and time again.

The best that could be said for Christine Daäe is that she is afraid that the Phantom will make good on his threats to harm himself (and the Paris Opera House, and Raoul), and is - at some childish level - still convinced that he is the incarnation of the Angel of Music.

In comes Raoul, Vicomte de Chagny. He is young! He is good-looking (or so we are told)! He has money! And a title! He's also Christine's childhood sweetheart.

Raoul wastes no time in showing off his 19th century gentlemanly chops: he engages in a graveyard duel with the Phantom and crawls away alive, he stalks his own lady love in the interests of protecting her from the interests of another man, he flings himself without reservation into the underground lake, endures a maze of mirrors, evades the Punjab Lasso, confronts the Phantom - and lives to tell the tale.

In what must be the most sensible act of her entire life, Miss Daäe then gives up the Opera and the stage in favour of becoming La Vicomtesse de Chagny.

La vie, dit le petit Prince, est belle.

So far, so good.

Then we come to the sequel.

Force - a sequel. To Phantom.

Do you know what the plot of this sequel is? The Phantom isn't dead. He didn't die of a "broken heart" as Gaston Leroux intended. No. He goes to Coney Island, in America. Just like every other villain of the Old World whose life has fallen apart.

Fast forward ten years. Christine, Raoul and their child go to Coney island on the invitation of an anonymous impresario, who has invited Christine to sing. They do not know that the impresario is - surprise, surprise - the Phantom.

Ooh.

Meg and Mdme Giry are also in America. In a bizarre twist, Meg has developed an obsession for the Phantom, whom her mother apparently assisted to escape from Paris. (Perhaps Mdme Giry dressed him in a tutu - never trust these ballet dancers.) Lots of singing and angst and reminiscing ensues during which we discover that Christine and Raoul's child is - gasp! - actually not Raoul's: he's the result of a "night of passion" shared by Christine and the Phantom just before her wedding to Raoul.

A night of passion. What.

This is where the story totally breaks down for me: in Gaston Leroux's novel, and the stage adaptation of the same, Christine shrinks from kissing the Phantom - because he is so disfigured and deformed that she cannot bring herself to touch him, much less kiss him.

Christine yiffing the Phantom just before her marriage to her childhood sweetheart is, therefore in-fricking-conceivable.

And then Raoul finds out, and leaves Christine, and Meg kidnaps the boy (because she is obsessive and distraught over the Phantom and Christine having got it on) and then Meg shoots Christine fatally and Christine makes an utterly unintelligible dying confession -

That, in essence, is Love Never Dies.

It's not a musical so much as a massive tribute to what can only be the most advanced form of Stockholm Syndrome, in the history of Stockholm.

I wish Otto the cat had deleted Lloyd Webber's libretto all over again.

...it's really been a while since I last updated.

Life has seriously gotten in the way of any regular blogging, and right now, Facebook is just so much more adapted to the considerably more hectic schedule I now have (as compared to the first half of 2009).

I guess updates on LJ will be more or less sporadic. Don't worry! I'm not dead, just busy.

By way of apology, here is fanfic. It helps if you've played KOTOR.

( Chapter 1 )

Recently, several pictures have been plastered all over a local tube station in conjunction with an ad campaign for locals to 'Tour Taiwan'.

( Read more... )

Force have mercy on us all.

I wrote this in a forum somewhere, read it over, and realised that I have to post it here, too.

Dogs Have No Dignity

The Master Returns

Dog: "Oh Master, Master, Master OMG you're home I MISSED YOU SO BADLY I SPENT ALL DAY SMELLING YOUR SHOES BECAUSE THEY REMINDED ME OF YOU and OH MASTER now that you're home I can barely control my bladder I love you so much I loveyouIloveyouIloveyou OMG OMG OMG MASTER let me lick your toes, it is I, your humble servant, feed me later let me get your slippers for you here they are I have chewed them all day because I LOVE YOU OH MY MASTER...."

Cat: "Dude. Nice to have you back in one piece. I CAN HAS KIBBLES NOW PLZ? We talk later."

Dogs Tend To Smell Bad

This is an empirically observable fact which needs no further elucidation.

Dogs Chew On Things

Cats scratch. You can buy your cat a scratching pole, put interesting cat toys around it, and your cat will gravitate towards the totem - sparing your furniture.

Unfortunately, dogs will chew on anything and EVERYTHING if they're bored. There is simply no canine/ chew-equivalent of a cat scratching pole.

Chocolate is Poisonous to Dogs

Part of the joy of having a pet is having it share your life.

While most (normal) people would draw the line at making their pet light up or start frequenting the poker table, there's one vice that most of humanity is susceptible to. It's either caffeine, or chocolate. Sometimes, both.

You do NOT want a cat or dog hopped-up on caffeine. Trust me on this. But if you *could* share the endorphin high that results from responsible chocolate abuse, you should.

But you can't do that with Fido. You can do that with Moggy.

There's even an option for the Rastafarian more liberal-minded pet owner who is determined to share the joys of grass with their pet cat: catnip. Dogs ain't got nothin' like this.

Q.E.D.

They did screeding at the ground floor of my block last night. This morning, I came out of the lift at the ground floor to find a freaking SWASTIKA scrawled into the wet cement and the words 'SIEG HIEL' next to it.

For goodness' sake, you bloody morons. Nazism is NOT cool. It is RACISM writ large, and it ended with the deaths of 6 million innocent men, women and children, not to mention the lives of countless MORE persons who were harmed by it - mentally subnormal persons, Eastern Europeans... it was evil.

And it is the *pit* of poor taste to go around your neighbourhood, scrawling offensive marks like this into the pavement. Look around you - you live in SINGAPORE. We're ASIAN here, in case you haven't noticed. Nazism is all about White Pride. Are you white? Am I white? If you have THAT much self-loathing, then perhaps you should do us all a favour and select yourself out of the gene pool. God knows it's already contaminated enough.

And, and, and. What kind of Nazi-wannabe worth their salt FAILS to spell 'Sieg HEIL' correctly!?!?

Idiocy über alles, indeed.

Twats.

Became a fan of a group on Facebook called 'Vulcan Pick-Up Lines'. Some of the stuff people have put up is of quite a high calibre: others leave much to be desired.

Such as this rampantly hormonal offering:

Your, wide hips, large breasts and tiny waist suggest that you would make an excellent sexual companion. Taking these observations into account, it would be logical to assume that immediate copulation would be the most logical course of action.

Holy crap. Even a Vulcan in the throes of pon-farr would be hard-pressed to come up with something as crass as that.

I just had to respond -

The immaculate coarseness of this statement betrays a shallow and puerile state of mental development. Copulation with you is therefore illogical.

I deigned to point out the glaring error in punctuation that was made by the person who came up with that HORRIBLE line.

So! Friends-list! Vulcan Pick-Up Lines!! Let's have 'em!!

Neighbour (to the Bangladeshi worker installing the new lift): So your contract here how long ah?

Bangla: Three years. After that, see they want to renew or not then they renew lor.

Neighbour: Wah. Like that after three years you go back to Bangladesh?

Bangla: See how first lah. Maybe they renew. I hope.

Neighbour: Wah after three years, you go back to Bangladesh, sure become big boss already. Got all the money from Singapore, can open any kind of shop you want. Then you become rich!

Bangla: Rich what rich? I all the money one year here, I take. I build one house in my country -

Neighbour: Yeah, but your house very big right?

Bangla: Yes, it's big. So expensive one.

Neighbour: Still say you not rich? I think your house lagi bigger than mine, right! Is a house with a garden, right? Must be rich lah...

Bangla: No lah! I build already I poor! Take all the money to build house, still got to eat and pay this and that. Where got money? That's why must come here and work some more, otherwise only got house, everything else also don't have.

Neighbour: You save lah! Don't build so many houses lah!

Bangla: Eh I only build one ok? I poor now! That's why I working!


...I really don't know what to be more impressed at. That the Bangladeshi guy speaks English, or that he's managed to learn Singlish and speak it like a local.

Peeps - remember that ludicrous VISA commercial? The one that started life as somebody's Internet meme that went viral? The chicken-wing-flap dance?

The chaps in the 501st's Singapore Garrison have spoofed it.



IT IS MADE OF AWESOMESAUCENESS.

One hundred points to Slytherin!!!

...and yes, C - this video is a LOT LESS inappropriate than the last one I put up.

This was taken from www.civilservant.org.uk.

It is frighteningly accurate, even in a completely different jurisdiction. This cannot be what they had in mind when the Commonwealth was created....!

( Elegant Nonsense )

If Harry Potter were written in Civil Service English it would go something like this:
Harry, along with other key stakeholders such as English Partnerships, the RDAs and Gandalf, and in the light of a wide-ranging consultation exercise, thought that, subject to appropriate consideration of the options, he would head, in an integrated and holistic way, respecting the four key principles of public service reform, for the cottage built on greenfield land situated close to major transport infrastructure interchanges by the end of April 2004.