The further adventures of an earthbound alien

I thought it started off as a good day. “Yankee Doodle Dandy” had just started on TCM. I’ve never seen the beginning before. I usually come at the part where he meets Mary. He’s dressed as an old man and she is stupid enough to think that he really is an old man, and he does that wild, out of control dance thing that would have sent any normal woman scurrying out of the room. I never knew the movie started with him meeting someone who is doing a really shitty FDR Imitation. At least I think it was supposed to be FDR. It could have been Hoover. I don’t really know what Hoover sounded like so if it was supposed to be Hoover then maybe it was a pretty good imitation. I guess someone doing a Hoover wouldn’t really sound like FDR at all, now would they? Anyhoo, I decided to do my morning computering from the comfort of my own couch while the movie played on.
Then I went to meet “G” for lunch at a place called the Cartel Café. I had passed by the Cartel café the day before and looked in at a family eating. Imagine my surprise to find them not eating bananas covered in Peruvian Marching powder, but a good, old-fashioned, American, Sunday breakfast. …Eggs, sausage, pancakes… the works! I made a mental note to give the place a try next chance I got. So, “G” and I sit down, the waiter comes up and we get a couple Cokes. (It wasn’t really two cokes. I got the coke and “G” got some weird squeezed fruity drink. “A couple cokes” is so much easier to say than one weird fruity drink and one coke. I’m sure “G” won’t mind if I abbreviate his order.) I try to explain to the guy that we are waiting for someone, so we would hold off ordering the lunches until he got there. The guy just stands there. He picks up the menus and shows us the lunches in the menu. That’s when the radio station went a little off, and the song took a tinty turn. I smiled and told him to bring the drinks and we’d order in a little while. He took the page from the order pad and put it on the table, and left. No cokes. We waited. We were going to have a big meeting later in the day and we were guessing what was going to happen. It was fun at first, making plans on what we’d do if someone said “X”, and I’d be all, like “Y”! We had been guessing on the subject for so long I was beginning to sour on the game.
I flagged the waiter down and asked him where the cokes were. He picked up the ticket and walked away with it. In about a half hour the cokes arrived. The radio station slipped a little further off. By now the residual good feelings I had stored up watching James Cagney encapsulate an idealistic chunk of American history into a series of linked scenes had worn off. I called “B” and he said he was just leaving the office and that we should order the food. The waiter brought the bill ($7 for two cokes; $3.50 each) I told him that the radio station was not tuned in and the songs sounded like there was an electrical storm coming. He told me it was the building that was interfering with the signal, then walked away. He was surprisingly quick with his answer. He must say that to everyone who complains. I guess in his mind it’s really the building’s fault so there isn’t really anything he can do about it until someone decided to tear the building down.

My coke was gone and another waiter asked if he could take the glass. I asked for a refill and she said no. Just water was entitled to a free refill. She asked me if I wanted more water. I told her that the radio station was a little off. She tried to take my glass again. And I wouldn’t let her. “G” read the menu and found out it was a special restaurant. I said that explained the retarded service we were getting. Apparently it worked like this: you read the Menu, fill out the card then take it up to the counter where you pay up front. When they feel like it they bring you your food. Basically this little system they cooked up encompassed all the worst things about ordering food. Sit, Order, stand, pay, wait, then eat. We decided not to wait for “B” because if their kitchen was set up by the same guy that set up the ordering system we weren’t likely to eat until Easter. And that would have been too long. All of my Yankee Doodle would be gone by then, for sure… Plus I would have been dead. So we fill out the card, I draw a bunch of stars on it (because I’m starting to get a little mad) and I take it to the counter to pay for it. I also took the receipt for the cokes with me so as to settle up everything at once. The girl at the counter takes the ticket and says that I don’t have to pay for the food right there. Today they were doing it differently. I did, however have to pay the $7 for the drinks. I told her that since they were going with something new today, I’d pay for the cokes when I paid the bill for the food. She looked a little confused and called the manager over. As I waited I noticed that the radio had slipped slightly into another station. This is when I decided to see if I couldn’t out weird them.
When the manager arrived I showed her the stars that I drew all over the order form. I told her that some might mistake them for suns but since there were so many of them, and they didn’t have little sunglasses on they were stars. The manager said I could pay for the food and the cokes at the same time. So she took both receipts tore them up and made one receipt with everything on it. I asked her if I could have the pieces of the ripped up receipt because I was rather proud of all the little stars that I drew on it. She refused. I asked her if I could eat my lunch right there at the counter because I wanted to be near the ripped up stars and I didn’t want to return to the table because I thought my friend had cancer and I didn’t want to catch it. She said I couldn’t eat there so I returned to the table. The food arrived almost instantly. “G” was a little surprised at the way the waiter tossed the plates on to the table from a distance, and dashed back to the kitchen. (…presumably to wash his hands.) I had, probably, the worst chef salad I have ever had in my life. They couldn’t have fucked it up any more if they had actually made it out of a chef. We ate and about a half hour later “B” showed up and started talking about what might happen at the meeting. He didn’t want to eat there because it was American food. He said he’d rather go to McDonalds. I congratulated him on the interesting distinction and flagged the waiter for the check. The waiter was thoroughly confused as he had never delivered a check to a table before. Apparently this required some sort of special training because he couldn’t really sort out what we wanted. To make matters worse both “B” and “G” tried to explain at the same time. I stopped them and said to the waiter, very calmly, “Oh! What a fine bunch of rubens, Oh! what a jay atmosphere; They have whiskers like hay, and imagine Broadway only forty-five minutes from here.” I don’t think he watched the same movie I did that morning because he didn’t get it.

That little lunch pretty much set the pattern for the rest of the day. I felt like I was in a comedy that I didn’t understand. Needless to say the meeting didn’t go that well. Nothing really big happened and nothing was really decided. It did rain a little during the meeting and the rain sounded nice on the tin roof. Other than that nothing really big happened.

Next time: “Tall in the saddle” and the Singapore museum of Chinese art.

Ok so I’m a little freaked out by the fact that I never did find the picture of the guy with the birdcage suspended by the pins through his skin. But I did find out what he was up to. Apparently, it is a Hindu custom. The “bird cage” is called a “kavadi” and the event is called the Thaipusam festival. For some reason these guys walk from temple to temple and back again, all day. In the hot sun, they walk for fun. Periodically, people hang stuff from his rig, so that by the end of the day, like a shrimp net, it’s loaded down. I still didn’t find out why they do it. But, I guess I can let that one go. If I were the kind of a guy would go around doing some extreme religious thing, I don’t think I’d feel obligated to explained it to a tourist. (Especially a smart-ass like me.) The weird thing is the picture that I took vanished. I took a nice shot with the camera phone, just for the blog. And when I got home… notin! Now, here’s the weird part. In every picture that “G” took there was some guy blocking the shot. So he had no clear shots of the guy. Collectively we have no evidence that this guy even existed. I called “G” the next day and asked him if we really saw that or was I hypnotized into thinking I saw it.

Here’s what I ate today:

This is what is known as a century egg. Go on guess why they call it that, I’ll wait… No, it’s not because it cost $100.00. It’s because it’s very old. The eggs are covered with a coating of lime, ashes, salt and rice straw and buried in shallow holes for up to 100 days. The end result is a brownish/ clearish egg that tastes not completely unlike a standard hardboiled egg. I suppose it’s a nice tradition, or something for old people to do but if they are ever interested in saving a little time they might consider just boiling a couple and looking through a beer bottle.

Here is another little delicacy that I ate:

Yep, stewed chicken feet. The dish is called… Oh, hell I don’t know what the hell they called it. And I don’t really care. It didn’t taste that bad, but it wasn’t that good that I could get over the fact that I was eating feet. I think I might be a little jaded at this point. Eating all this stuff. I mean, I’m a pretty critical person anyway but, when people start eating feet I have to pause. When we had a visitor from another country come to visit I didn’t torment them with disgusting regional culinary atrocities.

Before you start thinking I have turned into a sour puss, here’s a picture of something I do like:


This is called Sate. Basically: meat on a stick that is cooked over a small grill. Nothing to it. Stick, Meat, grill. They also serve it with onions and cuecumbers, a small bowl of peanut sauce and some packed rice wedges. Naturally, we also had beer. So that made me feel a little better.

Next time: Butterflies and sunshine!! (the only two thing they don't eat)

Anyone who has even the slightest knowledge of Singapore knows they are a little rule crazy here. Not just a bunch of little rules like, “no gum chewing” or being fined for not flushing a public toilet, but big ones. Big killie ones. The week before I arrived they had just hanged an Australian for drug smuggling. Granted he did have about a ton of heroine and he did look like he had it coming but wow, hanging someone? It’s down right medieval. In fact, Singapore averages one execution every 9 days. Picture that in a country the size of Oakland County. By the way, fine for gum $1000 Sing (that’s only $612 US so it might actually be worth it)

I was going to devote a whole huge blog to the rules of Singapore but, once again, if you want to know that crap go to the official Singapore rules web site. I’m no mans reference tool, damn it!

The main rule here is smile and buy stuff, and whatever you do, don’t try not to spend money. Here are a few signs:
Can you name them all? Really? Then what the heck is on that guys hand? what ever it is, it's broken. Also remember, don't go around assuming that monkeys eat just bananas, you might offend them. No bird squeezing. No paper cut. no 70's music...
A durian is a local fruit that is at the heart of a local culinary controversy. Most people hate these things and there are a few wise-asses who say they like them. It’s pretty much the same everywhere, there’s always some old guy that will eat some old disgusting type of food from the old country and say they like it. Maybe they do, but I think most of them are just trying to annoy people. Anyway, they stink so much you can’t bring them on the train. The fuit not the old guy who eats stuff. I’ve never tasted one, or even smelled one. But, if the stink any worse than the sweaty guy from India I had to sit next to, they must be pretty foul indeed.
No explanation needed, I'm going. I'm going! If you look closely you'll see that the gun has a bayonet. The other thing I like about this one is the pose of the guy with his hands up. It looks like he's getting ready to beat it out of there.
So, what I see here is, if you can manage to ride a bike with the handlebars flipped around backwards, there is no fine...?

Next time: I may be wrong but... No, I'm wrong.

So one quarter of my family are in Sin City.
Half of us are in Traverse City, with friends,
and I’m here in… what ever the nickname for this place is. (Sing City?) What’s next for the traveling Hughesberry’s? That’s a darn good question. You know, I’m really glad you asked that. That is one of the best questions you have EVER asked me. I think you’re finally coming around. You keep asking questions like that and together we’ll have a pretty good blog.
Here’s why I’m in Singapore and, roughly, the way it was all supposed to work. I help a studio here knock out a pilot episode. It will be animated in the Philippines and edited in London. Then on April 3rd we sell it to all the people who have television stations all around the world. For those of you who don’t know the animation process as it usually goes (and that includes some of you actually in animation!) here’s a simple way to look at it. Let’s say I’m building a house to sell for a big investor. I go to the architect and tell him what I want. He draws up some plans that I approve. The architect and I find a builder and we start construction. When the house is finished I hire a designer to fill it with all those little things that make a house a home, like paint, pots, pans, sofas, ping pong tables and stuff. Then we go to the house selling convention and sell it with the promise of 25 more of equal value.

So now, picturing arriving at the architect’s office and instead of a team of 12 or so you find 2 working at the same drafting table with a single black crayon. You up the production crew to 4 and get another crayon. You are reminded by the investor that this had better be, “the best home ever built in the history of homes”. As the plan is being drawn you are told to send the finished parts of the plan to the Builder so that they can start building right away. Against your better judgment, you rip the plan into 27 strips and send them to the builder piece by piece, as they are finished. (With the understanding that the builder will start building as soon as each of the finished strips of the plan come in.)

Things seem to be flowing now, so you decide to visit the builder and see how they are doing with the 27 strips that they should have tapped together into one plan. They should be about a third of the way to completing the house. When you arrive at the building site you find that there are no builders, just the supervisor. You also find that there’s no lumber, no nails, hammers, measuring tape, nothing. Oh, the lot’s been cleared, but little else has been done. Good news though, the next day the builders start to trickle in and ask where their hammers are. I also suspect that they’ve never built anything before.

That’s where I am right now. I have no home for the home show in April. I may just have only the front porch and the living room to show the buyers. After the home show, and depending on whether we sell anything, I get to decide if the architect and the builder are worthy to build 25 more homes. So who knows where I’ll be in April, still in Singapore? Or do we pack up and move to China? Or Korea? Or London? Or India?

This is what I’ve been dealing with while being chased by monkeys and tormented with exotic bathroom facilities. I have all this to do while I try to find something as simple as a potato peeler in a country that doesn’t peel potatoes. To add to this frustration, any bump in the schedule will delay the arrival of my wife and kids. I can’t begin to tell you, you intelligent question asker, how this makes me feel. I never really understood why anyone would come to another country and turn into an “ugly American.” But, NOW I FREEKING GET IT!

Whish me luck.

Next time: Once more into the breach dear friends…

Im back safe and sound.
in the land where the only
mud is in my pants.

I know I’ve been Pretty hard on the Philippines, but I think the Philippines are pretty hard on themselves. Whoever is in charge of watching out for the common man must still be on a lunch break, or something. The road to the airport was cluttered with the usual array of slap-dash vehicles, people selling water and smokes and little beggar kids. I was told that they are part of a group headed up by an adult that was the equivalent of a little beggars pimp. Like “Oliver” but not so muck singing and dancing.

At the airport I was checked into the building by security, then I got in line for a baggage scan and a really good feeling up. (makes me wish I had underwear on) after I got my seating assignment I had to pass another checkpoint then go past a person in a booth that took a 550 peso service charge. (bribe) Then I had another security check and another feeling up. Finally I got to the lounge. No one felt me up there but I was so relieved to be somewhere relatively safe and clean that I fell fast asleep. And so ended my Pilipino odyssey. I get to spend the weekend creating a report about the studio that I went to check out. (That did NOT go well either)

As I flew over the island on the way home I saw some nice beaches and some blue water. It made me almost regret saying bad things about the Philippines. Almost! Manila had the final laugh on me. That food that I praised so highly in the last blog entry, rose up got me at about 4am this morning. And it’s been reminding me of my intestinal mortality every hour on the dot. During cab rides, airport feel-ups, plane trips, cab rides and finally here, sitting on my couch in Singapore. The doctor in the US said this kind of thing happens when you travel, and that the best thing to do is to eat rice, and bananas and drink tea. What she doesn’t know is that’s pretty much all that’s on the menu there. (…besides chicken) Serves me right for venturing outside the mini bar in the hotel room.

Next time: What? I’m going to London now?

In the two days since I’ve been here, Manila has done little to change my first impression. But, I haven’t really been out there enjoying the town either. I wouldn’t know where to begin. This town has so much to offer. Should I stand under the power lines in the smog and watch the cars go by. Or should I try to walk the streets, paved loosely with busted concrete, rebar and broken glass. Am I being fair to Manila? After all, it hasn’t really said anything bad about me. As far as I know.
The road from the airport to the hotel in most cities is pretty telling. After all, who wants to live next to the airport? It’s usually industrial and pretty covered with smoke dirt. I’m thinking of the trip from Chicago’s Midway airport to the Hilton downtown, Detroit Metro to anywhere, even my little home town. The first sign of life you see there is a gun shop.
The route we took was lined with, what used to be American Military bases. “J” told me that not too long ago this strip was pretty nice. Still you have to wonder, if someone’s idea of “nice” is a military base, they should be pretty easy to please.

For the most part Manila is pretty Americanized. Everything is written in English and they use the standard American current and plugs. (Wouldn’t you know it, the one I didn’t bring for the computer) They have all the aggressive sex appeal and vigor from advertisers but some sort of inability to sweep up or use a paintbrush. To encapsulate: picture a billboard propped up by fallout, featuring a beautiful model holding up a bottle of something delicious. The landscape is a little like the final shot in Mad Max. Remember the pan where all the cars were wrecked, the bus was turned over, there was smoke and fire everywhere? Well it’s like that here, only not so charming.

But, unlike Singapore, They have napkins! When you sit down at a restaurant they give you a napkin. There are still no towels in the bathrooms. But it’s a step closer to civilization. And the food is better than Singapore. Not so many bizarre types of fish humiliated by discussing sauces served on noodles. The main type of food is chicken. They love chicken. They eat the shit out of chicken. If I was a chicken, and I lived here, I’d be putting my will together right away. In fact, even if I weren’t a chicken I’d be putting the will together. But if I were a pretty chicken, I’d…

Next time: White hen’s can’t chicken dance.

Should I reserve my judgment of Manila until morning? After all I have only been here six hours. Is it wrong to use the term “shit hole” without really getting to know the city a little better? Maybe it was just the one road that had all the potholes in it and the slums along it. Maybe that’s the only really rotten road in Manila,… the road from the airport to the best hotel in town. Maybe tomorrow it will be better. Maybe, right now, hundreds of government employees are scrubbing and repaving and painting, so that I can wake up to a bright shinny beautiful city. Maybe…

At first glance, Manila is like a Mexican boarder town but without any of the good things. The cars run on unleaded gas and produce a smog that I haven’t seen since my childhood. I thought something was on fire! The traffic system is just this side of utter chaos. It’s a very free style, streets are crowded with cars, bikes, vans, people walking, unicycles, balloons, you name it all roughly flowing in the same direction as if someone dropped a plate of marbles down a circular stairway. The taxis are really a cross between a taxi and a bus. They follow some sort of rout and you just jump on them when they slow down. You pay the driver, while he’s driving and just kind of roll out the back when you want to get off.

Before I came I tried to find a guidebook to the Philippines, but I couldn’t find one. I checked at two of the biggest bookstores in Singapore, Nothing! I’m sure one exists and I assured myself that the reason I couldn’t find it was because it was such a popular tourist spot that they naturally sold out. Now I know the real reason. It’s because the person they sent to write the book never returned.

Next: A new dawn over a shining clean city.

It was Per diem day Friday so I beat it down to the main office in the financial district to get my doe. It was S’s last day, lor. So, like you do in Singapore, we took her to a Northern Indian Tandori place for lunch. It’s not good enough saying we had Indian food, around here. That’s like saying we has a sandwich, back in the states. I’d tell you what we had but, really who can tell with Indian food. Is it beef? Is it mutton? Is it safe? Who knows? The whole reason I bring this up is because I wanted to show you this photo:

I don’t know what “G” said but it seems to have the waiter rethinking his career goals. I see this reaction so much from waiters that it doesn’t even register anymore. It occurs to me not that maybe even the people who work in Indian restaurants don’t even know what the lumps are in the sauce. That’s the lovely Clark quay in the background. Once the shipping hot spot of Singapore now the sipping hot spot, as it’s lined with bars and restaurants.

Here are “M” and “H” for those of you who think that “S”,”G” and I sit on the same side of the table at lunch. (we usually do but today we brought them along so that we wouldn’t flip the table over into the River.) Here’s a real fact about Singapore that I think you can amaze your friends with: The river running through Singapore is called the Singapore river. I felt distinctly foolish when I was told. I vowed at that point to never ask anyone any questions again for as long as I live. Do you think that's wise?
Here is a look of simple and overwelming confusion, equal to that of the waiters, as I try to figure out how to get the phone/camera’s flash to work.

Incase your wondering here’s how you get the flash to work on a Samsung camera phone: Don’t. Just hand it to “S”, she’ll mess with it for a while, take an equally confused picture of herself, then toss it back at you.
Today along the road outside the studio there was a parade, of sorts. The police had cordoned off a walking path along the side of the street. There, hundreds of Indian people walked south. I have no idea why they do this. There was really no one to ask. Maybe I should have gone back to the Subway shop and asked the owner. Anyway, As these sort of things do, it clogged up traffic into the night hours. One of the guys in the parade was wearing a giant metal cage, sort of thing. It looked to me like it weighted a lot. It had all sorts of religious symbols and trinkets dangeling all over it. The burden was increased by the fact that it was very hot out there… Oh yea, and the device was supported by huge needles jabbed into his flesh. Almost forgot that one. It looked like it hurt like hell and he looked like he was regretting it as he walked by. I hope who ever he was doing it for was impressed, because I sure was.I'll post the photo when I find it.
When I was a kid I was in a parade. I don’t remember if I was excited to bi in it or even questioned why I was in it. The only thing I remember was that it was a long walk. It was a little like the last hour of a canoe trip. You keep hoping the livery will be around the next bend. I couldn’t imagine how this guy felt, or feels now that (I assume) the parade is over. I suppose it is some test of willpower or a show of his ability to focus the pain away by thinking about something else. “Oh, god why did I agree to dis. I have to tink aboud someting else. Let’s see… uha I wonder if doze lumps at lunch were muddon or beef? Doze would be good on a shiskabub… Oh, ow, right… I forgot. Uha tink ah someting else…”

OK, so next Monday it’s off to the Philippines. I’ll be there for a week bugging animators to hurry up and take their time at the same time. Do I worry about forcing my work ethic on people of other countries? Nah! I didn’t in Manchester, Berlin or Paris. Why should I worry about Singapore or Manila.

I know about as much about the Philippines as I do about making hubcaps. So I’m thinking, about this time two weeks from now I’ll either have malaria and wish I was dead or I’ll be some sort of a minor authority on the inner silliness of Manila. Perhaps they too have deeply held religious beliefs that I can take the piss out of for the enjoyment of my blogites.

Wish me luck!

Next time: I shall return!

Maybe it’s the mood I’m in but the strangest things keep popping up. There seems to be an underlying apathy to the people of Singapore this week.
In this case the restaurant doesn’t seem to be giving itself very much credit.

These guys could stand to be a little less honest.

This guy was a little hard on himself.

Still, it’s good to know that there’s a cheap laugh around every corner.


I got a new friend!
Actually he’s an old friend
Who just came to town.

Next time: more about Gary?
Or: Six weeks or so until my wife and kids get here!

Singapore, roughly translated from Malaise, means Lion Island. The story is that a Malaysian prince, on a visit to Singapore, saw a loin.

That’s about it. He saw a loin and went home.
All he remembered about his trip was that he was on an island and that there was a lion. One wonders how much time he spent down here. Did he just see the lion and leave? Because the food courts here are great. If he didn’t have time to go to the food court he was one “missing-out” kind of guy. On the other hand, if it was a big lion, I suppose I would have beat it out of town pretty freakin quick too. It’s like the beginning of Rocky and Bullwinkle:

Malaysian Prince: Hey, Rock. Watch me pull a rabbit out of my hat!
Rocky: Again?
Malaysian Prince: Nothin up my sleve... (RIP) Presto!
Loin: ROAR!
Malaysian Prince: That’s enough of that shit, Rock. Let's beat it back to Malaysia!
Rocky: ...And now here’s something we hope you’ll really like.

He must have been eating or something when he said it because the word Singapore is nothing like “Singa Pulau”. (the Malaysian words for, “lion island”). Below is a picture of the famous Singapore Merlion.

Half fish, to symbolize Singapore’s port city past and it’s dependence on the sea, and half lion because of that prince with the hat and the flying squirrel friend. There is water shooting out of his mouth and into the harbor for reasons no one could tell me. I think it might symbolize the sailors who came to town and had a few to many on the old Clark Quay.

As long as we’re down town, here’s another interesting thing on the river. It’s a junk sweeper. It scoops up floaters and a conveyor belt tosses it into a bin in the back. These guys are so clean they even scoop out the river. (white fish and all)

Finally, here is a little red can for burning things. It has hearts and flowers on it. I’m pretty sure it’s not for burning little girls. What is supposed to go in there, I don’t know. Guesses anyone?

So,…
Where did the underpants come from?

The truth is that they fell from the sky. That’s what I told my wife and that’s the story I’m sticking to.

Here’s where the people live. This is the picture you’ll never see in the travel books. A plain old apartment block. This is where the guy who makes the drinks at the Long Bar lives. This is where the guy who has to scrub the Merlion every summer lives. This is where the Capitan of the HMS Scoopy lives.

Those poles sticking out aren’t flags that’s their laundry. I guess clothes dryers are a bit of a luxury here in Singland. By the way for my non computer friends, if you want a closer look at a picture on my blog, just click on it.

Down at the base of the building is the food court. A great place to get an exotic meal (and any number of intestinal disorders) for less than $5 Sing.

Next time: Singapore’s famous MER-PRAWN

Eric the ex pat makes a good point. Singapore has a smell. A very specific smell. I’m reminded of an episode of Sanford and Son when Lamont and Fred were picking up a piano in a white person's house. Fred said, “White people’s houses have no smell.” And it’s true. Except for old, white people. When I think of how home smells I draw a blank. The walk to work smells like smoked jerky in the morning and the State Street rental smells like KFC around 3 pm. Singapore, if you can imagine, smells like food; chili and garlic. It smells good. Even in the morning. I don’t know what my neighbors have for breakfast but it don’t smell like eggs. Think I’ll go over there tomorrow with a big spoon and my shoes off.
Malaysia, on the other hand smells like a wet dog. …A big one. (See, these are the true facts that I know my readers tune in for.) Somewhere there is some elementary school kid putting together a report about Singapore with information he got off the web:

Singapore; Talking cock.
By Hunter Wilson

Singapore is a country that you can take a cab across for the price of a six pack and It smells like garlic and not white people. Monkeys in Singapore smoke pipes and finger themselves and they will hit you with a fish when you buy corn in a cup at a gas station. The main language is Singlish and they pound transvestites into flat pieces of meat and cook them for New Year. It is the year of the dog there in Singapore. They have cats too. The main past time in Singapore revolves around mashed potatoes, prawn balls and giant underpants. Singapore is a wonderful place with happy people to be happy they live there.

The end

By the way “Talking Cock” means that you’re bragging or are full of it. The following are questions that will be on your final exam:

Jack and Jill
Went to Canning Hill
To marry for a flat
But soon, of course,
They both divorced
And the HDB took it back.

Question one: What the heck does this mean?
Question two: Who is Hunter Wilson


Next time: The threat from the outside!