Powered by Dao Sa Bao.

When I was a kid of about 7 or 8, my family often went out on weekends and shopped till about 9 30 in the evening. We would come home to a coffeeshop (that now no longer exists) and have our supper.

It must have been during one of these occasions that my parents told me this ghastly horror story:

Every night, at 10pm, the great 'Dao Sa Bao' monster rises up from the steamer to devour little children.

Uh, it's about that long.

And as proof, they showed me what the monster looked like. It looks exactly like this:






The bite marks from a freshly tasted dao sa bao resemble a monster's mouth.





What could I do? I was just a kid. I believed them.

And everytime I went to buy supper, I made sure to run like the wind. Because it was always 9 50 or something. I ran with the fear of being eaten up by the great Dao Sa Bao Monster.


Ok now. Hands up, who believes that this is a real story?

Fact or fiction?

Truth or lies?

You Decide. (TM)



William can't believe what he's reading. If I could read upside down, I won't believe it either.

Mileage today.

I'm Thomson. NO, I'M THOMPSON.

"Ask them for the Air Way Bill No. Call the Freight forwarder to check the wherebout of the shipment. "

--
Posted by Emmerdeur to O Wheely? YEA WHEELY! at 7/28/2006 08:49:03 AM

Yo Emmerdeur person. Sorry for missing your comment. I hope I did not seem rude. Being new to 'blogging' I didn't know you had to go to 'moderate posts' to, uh, moderate... posts.

Forget me own name next.

Anyway if you have been keeping up, the alarm finally arrived, thanks to the very lovely Kate Grant who sent me a replacement.

I seem to be gaining a small readership. As proof, my little experiment on the 27th July worked. Hey Zaphod. Hope your gf likes the little blinky LEDs you gonna get for her handlebars.

About The Title.

"I'm Spartacus."

If you read the Tintin comics, and who the huh didn't if they grew up in the 80s, the Thomson twins were these two bumbling detectives, who according to Wikipedia: ".... Thomson and Thompson are two bumbling detectives who, although unrelated, look like twins with the only discernible difference being the shape of their moustaches.[17] They provide much of the comic relief throughout the series, being afflicted with chronic spoonerism and shown to be thoroughly incompetent."

Well, I got me a Thomson today. And it's the one with the funny moustache.

As opposed to the other Thompson with the not so funny one.

Ok maybe a pic would help.



27.2 x 330mm. Zero Degree Setback. I had to think long and hard about whether to go with silver or black.

Black it was because this way, Dad doesn't notice.

Links.

If you look on the right, there's some links there. I would like to explain why they're up.

The first is a no-nonsense kinda site by actual Singaporeans about the cycling that they do. I really enjoy reading about people who are driven by passion. They really do enrich the place in which they live. Note that because they used the same blog layout I had, I've switched mine to a new one. Hence the new blue look. The Moose-Stang loves the blues and approves.

The second is some bloke's site that was fun to read. I like sharp-tongued, articulate people who don't write behind a veil of hypocrisy. Life's so short.

Next, reading about Ken Kifer's death somehow made me feel a twange of sadness inside this hollow thing I call a heart. I learnt a lot about riding from the next link which is all the stuff he's written.

One way not to feel sad about his death is to browse through his legacy: his bike pages are filled with a wealth of information. You go back time and again and find something new and interesting. Or it could be me with my chronic short term memory triggered by my trying to kill it with booze. You be the judge.

Then we have Sheldon Brown, the ultimate authority on all things that rhyme with buy-sickle.. I keep returning to his site, if only to keep gawking at that picture of him with a helmet on. Who needs a bell when you look like that?

Cycler's Life and Bike Year are two other inspiring blogs that I have actually had the patience to read all the way through to the end.

And of course who can forget Freddie Hoffman, the Forrest Gump of the cycling world. In a world that's dying for a lack of reason to live, he's my kind of champion.

That's all. I'm still very sick. I had no idea the way an illness can completely wipe out your fitness level, much like how supplies of 2-ply toilet paper gets wiped out at Portable-Loos right after a 60,000 participant marathon run.

That sentence is so wrong and gross that I think I'll actually stop here.

Guess I may not be able to go explore Chinatown tomorrow.

Love Me, Love My Uvula

So I landed myself in traction over the last 3 days.

The long biking hours in the sun have finally caught up with me.

My uvula is baked. I have phlegmn in my lungs and throat. A dry cough. A fever. A mouthful of ulcers.


"And a partridge in a pear tree."





Note the parched lips. And, fascinatingly, I managed to capture my uvula. Hi there, little guy! In case you don't know what an uvula is, it's that dangly little bit at the back of your throat that wiggles when you scream. In the pic above, that would be the little glowy blob just below my two teeth. How's that for self-portraiture?

It's not a flattering shot but I'm proud of it.


ANYWAY, I took Wednesday off, spent Thursday on my back (medical leave), and took today off again when I realised I was still sick. I want to strangle that little uvula but damnit, it's too cute, especially when you draw a 'happy face' on it, like so:

:)


It has to be one of my favourite body parts. If you're attached, a fun game to play with your loved one is to see if you can suck your mate's uvula. It's gross, yet sexy, and you should never take relationship advice from me.

Uvula is going onto my list of inherently funny words, such as 'va-jay-jay', 'spatula', 'cow', 'chicken' and 'duck'.


Moving on, with this much time mandatory off the bike, I decided that I'll replace the corroding bolts on my stem with new stainless steel ones.




That is, Dad volunteered to get me new bolts.

So sweet of him.









I had to leave the flat washers off though. Important lesson learnt: there are good screws, and there are bad screws.

Bad screws strip first.

I love talking dirty.

In other news, the compass I got from Nee Soon Camp during my trip to Sembawang? It sucks. It's been demagnetised. I salvaged my old compass and an old headlight mount and put the old compass back on again.

Here's a view of my cockpit.





Why do they call it a cockpit?







Heh.

Oh Yea. The Sex.

Now, why would anyone get married? I'm sure no wife would let her husband get on a bike and ride all day from dawn till night, like I just did over the weekend.

Oh yea. The sex.

Right with you.


Saturday 27 August 2006.

I started off at 10am.

My secret riding trail:


At the entrance:


Halfway down:


Not much of a view, but still I wanted to capture it. Need a better camera, perhaps?



After coming back for lunch, I continued riding. And found myself in the backwoods. This industrial site was due to be torn down and something else in its place.






I like to wander around such desolated places.


Riding to the end, guess what I was rewarded with?





Sunday 27 August 2006.

It rained this morning. So I went back to bed. After lunch, I headed out to the SPCA, not knowing how to get there. After 2 wrong turns, I found the place.

There was a beautiful golden retriever there today.

I hope it finds a home.

And I just kept on riding.

Just doing the Forrest Gump thing.

And I found myself at Payar Lebar Airbase.






On coming back I found myself going past the Air Musuem or whatever it's called. And surprisingly there were none of the usual harassing building managers who hate bicycles on their premises.

Hence:







Well, me and the 'Stang now know where we stand.

See the similarity between the Moose-Stang and the Skyhawk?



Kind of bumped my bottle loose today. This beautiful thing:



Is now roadkill.


I'm going to start setting up my bike for a long road trip.

Wanderlust

The Fully Loaded Tourist Bike Page

For some reason seeing all those bikes makes me want to hop on mine and disappear off the face of this earth.

How nice it will be to lose myself...

I am thinking of making the ride on every road in Singapore into a book. I will call it "I Know Where You Live". It will be a pictorial study of how people interact with the streets they live, work, and play in. Urban spaces shape lives -- this can be like my master's thesis in urban anthropology.

It will take about a year and a half to complete a 1st draft. According to the Ministry of Transport, the total length of paved roads in Singapore is 3144 km. I have ridden that in about half a year.

Minus a month, because I might go in December on a solo trip 'somewhere'.




I am glad this blog is around.

It's like talking to myself, only I can play it back.

Who would have thought that writing would actually save my life and earn me a living. And now it may actually provide me with some direction in life. I don't believe in destiny anymore, but it sure is funny how life turned out.


I'm going to pitch this to publishers and see if I can arouse any interest. Perhaps I can get a small advance.

Perhaps I can still become a millionaire.


"Because Every Day Is Still Exciting." (TM)

I Will Know Where You Live.

I'm drunk, but listen.

I have a fantastic idea.

It's something different.

Hell, maybe it's been done, but it's never been done my way.

I'm going to get me a copy of the Street Directory of Singapore.

Then I'm going to cycle down every damn road there is in this stupid island.

Paved. Unpaved. Shaved. Unshaved.

44 times back and forth its lateral span isn't enough.

I guess I just haven't found what I'm looking for yet.

And guess what? I'll take 'peekturs'. Of every damn road. And I'll write about it. I have always maintained that there's a lot to Singapore. You don't have to go overseas to see a beautiful sunset. Sure there are more beautiful ones...

But this one is mine.

I will post a pic of every street.

Who wants to buy me a Sony Ericsson K800i?

Itsy Bitsy Spider

This old man, he played one
He played knick-knack on my thumb
With a knick-knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home



This old man, he played two
He played knick-knack on my shoe
With a knick-knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home



This old man, he played three
He played knick-knack on my knee
With a knick-knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home



This old man, he played four
He played knick-knack on my door
With a knick-knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home



This old man, he played five
He played knick-knack on my hive
With a knick-knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home



This old man, he played six
He played knick-knack on my sticks
With a knick-knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home



This old man, he played seven
He played knick-knack up in heaven
With a knick-knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home



This old man, he played eight
He played knick-knack on my gate
With a knick-knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home



This old man, he played nine
He played knick-knack on my spine
With a knick-knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home




This old man, he played ten
He played knick-knack once again
With a knick-knack paddywhack, give a dog a bone
This old man came rolling home

Latex, Thy Will Be Done.

On July 12, I posted that

"I clocked 2000 kilometers today, 1000 since 2nd June 06, which makes it 1000 km in 40 days. Not a lot, but if I were riding across the island, I would have crossed it back and forth roughly about about 14 times."


I made 3000 kilometers today, 1000km in 38 days.

I'm going to try to make 6000 kilometers by the end of this year.

Today is the 19 August. There are 133 days left for the year.

133 days divided by an average of 40 days per 1k = 3.325k.

So I should make 6k with some to spare.

There's no reason why 10,000 kilometers a year is impossible.

After all, this guy Freddie Hoffman - rode to the Moon and back - twice.



This Used To Be My Playground:



And my brother and I used to sail our toy boats at the fountain.


Clementi is going to change forever.

I hate how everything changes.

Word Salad: Tossed

Tuesday, 15 August, 2006: Word Salad.

Amorphous head SEX azimuth twin bedsheets, for fun SEX .

Take no pills SEX easy wheels hire promsicuous girls.

What is 'word salad'?