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With exceptions, the buskers I run into outside Tiong Bahru Plaza are a pretty sorry mix. In no order of WTF-ness:

• An elderly duo - one on erhu, and the other armed with a mic - attempting to serenade the crowd with an eclectic collection of chinese oldies. Except that the erhu is the only thing in tune, and both vocalist and instrumentalist are bereft of any sense of rhythm and tempo. Full marks for effort; none for entertainment value.
• Lady on a stool acting as a tissue seller - if by “acting” I mean actually holding out packets of tissue in the hopes of snaring customers. Will work only when tissue-selling counts as performance art.
• Silent lady on a stool holding a radio. I shit you not.
• Guy blowing random notes into a plastic recorder - presumably hoping that it’ll sound close enough to a chinese flute piece that I’ll be taken in. I’m not.

Gary :: Apr.13.2009 :: General, WTF :: No Comments »

Not to be a sniggering bastard, but quotable quote is quotable.

“My parents had jumped into the swimming pool thinking that the water would only come up to their feet. Now, it seems like there is a black hole in the swimming pool that is sucking everyone in and drowning them.”

The universally-understood (astronomically not-so-understood) metaphor of the black hole, coupled with the absurd image of a swimming pool with water which only comes up to one’s feet makes for Sensational Literary Device! Furthermore, the allusion to suffocation highlights the helplessness and desperation of the victims, drawing on the basic human fear of being sucked in and drowned simultaneously!

Can it be Hugo Award time nao?

Gary :: Oct.13.2008 :: A thousand words, All the news that's fit to print, Bitchin', Sad, WTF :: No Comments »

A spokesman for the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) said: ‘The smuggling of contraband goods has tremendous security implications for Singapore’s safety and security as the same concealment methods used by smugglers may be used by terrorists to smuggle arms and explosives to carry out attacks in the country.

Emphasis entirely mine, but seriously, what the hell? Logical fallacy FTW.

(At work now. Venn diagram to follow.)

Clearly, people who smuggle cigarettes must be punished severely as they also use the same methods to smuggle weapons into Singapore OMG.

Gary :: Sep.15.2008 :: Stifle me, stifle you, WTF :: No Comments »

At first you’ll be all like “wtf” and then you watch for a minute then you realise what’s actually going on and then you’ll be like “WTF” and then you’ll lose some minutes of your life.

Gary :: May.26.2008 :: WTF :: No Comments »

It took one brave volunteer, a team of scientists, a paramedic, and a tennis ball launcher to discover what any man since the stone ages can easily affirm - that getting shot in the nuts gives you an adrenaline rush.

Bonus vid:

Maybe the Japanese should be hosting the olympics. Heh.

Gary :: Feb.15.2008 :: A thousand words, WTF, w00t! :: No Comments »

And that offspring is Battlefield Heroes. Details are sketchy right now, but it appears to be a free download, available “summer 2008″ (read: fall 2008) and the website looks legit.

From the press release:

Unique Cartoon Shooter Introduces a New Way to Play Battlefield

Munich, Germany, January 21, 2008 – At the Digital, Life, Design Conference (DLD) in Munich, Electronic Arts Inc., (NASDAQ: ERTS) today unveiled Battlefield Heroes™, an all-new Play 4 Free cartoon-style shooter that will bring classic Battlefield gameplay to an all new mass audience. Available for download at www.battlefield-heroes.com this summer, Battlefield Heroes is EA’s first title that is offered completely for free, and features a built-in matchmaking system to ensure that players of equal skill are paired together for fair play. Developed by DICE in Stockholm, Battlefield Heroes is leading EA’s new web-focused free to download, free to play business model which generates revenue through advertising and micro-transactions. With zero barriers to entry, now anyone can be a hero on the battlefield!

I can live with this as a free download (kudos!), I can live with this being a casual game, I can live with this being ad-supported, but please, for the love of god, don’t let this count as BF3.

Gary :: Jan.22.2008 :: All the news that's fit to print, Games, WTF :: No Comments »

If this is a hoax, the let me play my part in its spread. If it’s real, well…

We are a group of musicians who have downloaded newly leaked albums by popular artists, quickly recorded many subtle overdubs over the work, and then re-leaked it to the internet. We have done this for about three years now. We used all kinds of instruments with recording techniques that matched the audio quality of the album in question. We used a varied amount of re-leaking methods including but not limited to Soulseek, OiNK, The Pirate Bay, Limewire and zipped files hosted on sites like YouSendIt or Mediafire with links spread out on hundreds of message boards. Our turnaround time was usually very short so often our version of the artist’s album was online for download within hours of its original leak. If you illegally download music on the internet the chances that our work is in your collection is very, very likely! In fact, you might have a whole lot of us!

Linky.

Gary :: Jan.16.2008 :: A thousand words, All the news that's fit to print, Music, WTF :: No Comments »

…but not for the reason you probably have in mind. I can’t complete it because at the exosuit battle (the second last one!!), my framerate drops to a disgusting 1 - 2 fps. At that point, an immersive 3D game becomes an interactive slideshow, and no matter how practiced I am, no matter how much ammo I have, I can’t hit shit, and hence, can’t finish the game.

I have even tried, in desperation, to set every single setting to Low and to run the thing in 800 x 600 - but to no avail. The game freezes up just as much as when I run it at 1024 x 768 with everything on Very High. At least then, it’s a prettier slideshow.

Fuck. Waiting to see if the kind folks on the forums have any tips for me; else I’ll have to wait till the patch arrives sometime mid January to see if the problem goes away.

Gary :: Jan.03.2008 :: Bitchin', Games, General, Sad, WTF :: No Comments »

After a much-trumpeted launch coupled with an ad blitz a few weeks ago, Tatarah mysteriously went down - their front page replaced by an ugly HTML page informing visitors of “hardware issues”. Some time later, they announced that they would be cancelling all outstanding auctions, refunding the processing fee to all who had bidded.

The date now is 11 Nov 2007 and by midnight, Tatarah will once again resume operations - though with one major change. The much-hyped “unique lowest bid” auction model has now been replaced by a “highest unique bid” one.

What happened, Tatarah? Did you get loopholed into this? Did you not think this through long before your initial launch? Did you lose too much money the first time round? Did you make so much you figure you can make more if you change the model? Did you find yourself on the wrong end of some obscure gaming law? Did you receive nastygrams from certain parties unhappy with your pricing?

Answers, Tatarah, answers. Singapore wants to know.

Gary :: Nov.11.2007 :: All the news that's fit to print, WTF :: 2 Comments »