Category: Hobbies

Using Geisha Imagery To Sell Modern Products

Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

The following image is of a soap that appears to be popular in the Philippines, where most women (and quite a few of them men) are obsessed with whitening their skin and maintaining a fair complexion.  The image of a painted geisha face very effectively communicates the idea of a fair complexion and the purpose of the soap.

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It also puts across the idea that by using the soap you will be sophisticated, artistic and elite, which are all qualities possessed by true Japanese geisha.  Contrary to what most people believe, the highest class of geisha do not sell sex but are instead entertainers who sell their skills with instruments, gaming and conversation to high class clientele like politicians and wealthy businessmen.

If You Stink, GTFO of my FX!

Bradley Farless2 Comments

Bawal ang may putok!!!

People smelling horrible in public transportation is something that I, unfortunately, had to get accustomed to in Singapore.  I don’t know why, but even with constant running water and plenty of soap being available, some people in Singapore have no clue when it comes to personal hygiene.  I’ve heard some people try to use the heat as an excuse, but it’s just as hot in the Philippines and I’ve never felt my nose and eyes burn and water just from the stench in public transportation here.  (Yes, I’ve been on the jam-packed Manila trains.)

I took the above photo in an FX, a popular form of transportation for long distances here in the Philippines.  The sticker is a handout from a radio station.  It serves a dual purpose as both an advertisement and a warning to passengers.  The large lettering in black on a yellow backgrounds translates to: “Bad armpit odor not allowed!”  Thankfully, I haven’t been in a situation where someone’s body odor was a problem in an FX.  It’s about the size of a van, so it would be horrendous if someone stinky got onboard.

I do think they should put up signs like this in Singapore though.  There’s a campaign for everything else, so why not a ‘No Foul Body Odor’ campaign?

My Fish Tanks Are Empty and my Pet Is Abandoned

Bradley Farless9 Comments

Like many people, I managed to get hooked into some games on Facebook.  You know the kind.  Cheesy flash games that mostly have no point, purpose, or conclusion.  Their goal is to get you to play as many hours as possible, and eventually to get you to spend real money on the game.  Or in other words, they’re a time-sink and a money waster.

The games that I took to are Zynga games.  They’re pretty polished.  When I first started playing them they really weren’t that bad.  Lately, though, they’re chock full of pop-ups demanding that you ‘share! share! share!’ everything you do.  Not to mention the ‘Become a Fan!’ and ‘Add More Friends!’ pop-ups.  There are so many of these pop-ups that the slight entertainment value is rapidly disappearing.  If you open one of their games and then let it sit for a few minutes, you might come back to a stack of half a dozen pop-ups wanting you to publish things to your Newsfeed or add friends.

Now, in addition to their demands to share nearly every action you perform in the game and they’re incessant demand that you ruthlessly hound your friends into jumping on the bandwagon, they’re trying to get my e-mail address.  Facebook is going to make some change to the way application notifications are handled sometime in the near future.  That’s fine with me.  What’s not fine with me is giving my e-mail address to Zynga.  I still consider my e-mail address to be a pretty private thing.  I have a personal e-mail address, an e-mail address that I tend to use for comment forms, and an e-mail address I use as a contact e-mail for my blog.  They all serve their purposes and have varying degrees of exposure.  The e-mail address I use for Facebook is my personal e-mail address, because these are my personal connections.  I’m not going to allow some Facebook flash game developer to have access to it.  Especially when they have a track record of spamming.

Zynga’s applications, and other players, generate quite a bit of ‘noise’ already in notifications, requests, and my newsfeed.  Why would I want even more ‘noise’ in my e-mail inbox?  As a cheap incentive, most of Zynga’s games are offering special items or bonuses for giving up your e-mail address.  I think my time and privacy is worth more than a special fish or a few extra game coins.  I’ll be keeping my e-mail address to myself Zynga.  Thanks, but no thanks.

In addition to all the noise Zynga games create, they’re big time-sinks.  I realized that I have to give up some of these games if I want to be able to do other things I enjoy, like reading the news, studying, exercising, eating, etc.

So, to that end, I’m putting FishVille and PetVille on the chopping block.  I’ll also be cutting back on the amount of space I use to ‘grow’ crops in FarmVille and the amount of time I invest into it as well.  There are more important things in life than fake fish, a fake pet (I already have two real ones that are a handful), and fake crops.

Hey FishVille! So long, and thanks for all the fish!  In memory of my fish tanks, some screenshots:

The only one that really has me hooked is Cafe World.  I’ve always been a sucker for cooking in games. I even had maxed cooking skill in Final Fantasy XI.  What I like about Cafe World is that it’s possible to get by without having to spend real cash.  What I don’t like about it is the number of pop-ups.  ‘Become a Fan’ it says, when I already am.  ‘Add More Friends’ it demands, when all the friends that want to play the damn thing already are.  It’s going to wear out its welcome soon too, if that keeps up.

Keep pushing the limit Zynga.  If I can quit playing World of Warcraft, don’t think I can’t give you up.

Kuala Lumpur Trip: Manga Exposition at Sungai Wang

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On our second day in Kuala Lumpur we stopped by Bukit Bintang.  While exploring the area we looked around in a mall called Sungai Wang.  I was excited to see that there was a manga exposition set up in the events area.  I’ve had an interest in manga and anime for quite a few years, but I’ve never been to an expo so this was an interesting experience for me.  These sorts of things just aren’t that common in the US, where manga and anime are still considered strange by most people.   I didn’t recognize the name of the publishing company but I got the impression that the event was highlighting and rewarding local talent.  It was nothing major and was set up in a small area but it was packed with people and very exciting.

I took the time to walk around and examine the different storyboards that had been set on display and browsed the racks of manga for sale.  Unfortunately, most of them had been written in Chinese and Bahasa Melayu, so I didn’t see anything in my language that suited my interests.  I’d really been hoping to leave with a keepsake.  The items being sold were limited to two per customer so I assume they’re limited run prints.

If you can read Chinese and / or Bahasa Melayu and want to find out more about the event, it was called Gempak Starz 2009 and you can get to the website by clicking through on that name.  Their site is graphics heavy so it’ll load slow.

Here are the photos I took:

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This is the main stage area.  I think each cardboard cut-out was done by one of the manga artists whose work was represented at the event.

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These black boards were set up with manga storyboard panels on them.  Some of them were more complete than others, but none seemed to have any text.  A few had empty speech bubbles but most didn’t even have that.  I was impressed by how detailed some of the drawings are.  Two board sections had color images with ribbons marking them as finalists or winners in a competition.

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This board was set up in another part of the event area.  Each character drawn here has a signature next to it.  I’m thinking that these were done by each of the artists represented at the event.  Maybe it’s their representation of themselves or maybe it’s their main characters in their mangas.  I don’t have a clue since we walked in on the event late and had missed the opening day.

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Later in the evening, after having dinner and looking around a bit, we walked back through the event area and saw that they were doing a giveaway.  There was a glass display case with anime-style swords in it off to the left of the stage.  Those swords might have been one of the grand prizes.  We stopped to watch for a while.  We didn’t understand everything being said but there was a lot of cheering and laughing and everyone seemed to be having a good time, especially the kids that were there.

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We also saw these two girls in kick ass maid cosplay. They worked there as part of the event crew. As they walked around the room I think they were handing out fliers.  Oh, and they had candy in their baskets.

A Tale of Fear and Panic in Singapore

Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

Ok, just to get it out of the way, this isn’t my story.  This is the maid’s story.  I thought it was worth sharing because it highlights a problem that’s unique to Asia.  For the sake of the story and her privacy we’ll call her Cookie.  Ok, here we go:

Cookie was at the mall with one of the boys she looks after.  They’d been having a good time at the arcade, but it was time to head home.  It was starting to get dark out and it was close to dinner time.  So, they walked down to the bus interchange and got in line.

While they were waiting in line, Cookie noticed that there was an old white guy in the line behind her.  He looked to be in his mid-50s, was bald with scraggly white hairs around the sides of his head and a he had a rough, unshaved look.  He also looked like he was smuggling a small pig in his shirt, the way his gut overhung his shorts.  In other words the guy was pretty gross looking all around.  Cookie didn’t pay him much attention, but every now and then she’d catch a glimpse of him out of the corner of her eye.  He was watching her.

When the bus showed up, Cookie hurried herself and the boy onto it and they made their way to the center area, close to the exit door.  The old white guy got on the bus with her and sat down where he could see her.  During the short trip to her bus stop, Cookie noticed that the guy kept glancing over at her.  She was starting to get uncomfortable with it so she was glad when they were able to get off the bus.

As she started walking down the sidewalk she looked over her shoulder and saw that the old white guy had also exited the bus at that stop.  She started walking faster.  She looked over her shoulder again and saw that the old man had matched her pace.  She started walking even faster, but whenever she increased her pace so did the old man.

When she reached the bottom of the building where she lives she grabbed the boy’s hand and ran to the stairwell.  She took the stairs quickly and then dashed down the hallway to her door.  She could hear the old man running behind her, chasing her.  For an old fat guy he was pretty quick on his feet.

When she got to her door she started fumbling for the key and finally got it out of her bag but she was so nervous she couldn’t get it into the lock.  She heard steps approaching and knew the old man was right there, coming around the corner.  She finally got the key in the lock and looked over her shoulder and…

The old man was right there behind her.  She backed up against the door gate and asked him what he wanted.  He reached in his pocket and quickly pulled out…

A piece of paper.  With his phone number on it.  He handed it to her and left.

WTF?

WANTED! A Home For Little Jimmy. Great Advertising Ploy!

Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

I saw this posted and it was so funny that I had to laugh. This is great advertising and is sure to catch the eye. I thought it was a missing child report when I first saw it.

I left the number visible because the person who posted this deserves the added exposure for being so creative!

Seriously Funny Singaporean Comedy From YouTube

Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

This is some seriously funny stuff. I wasn’t sure about it at first, and you really have to pay attention to understand what’s being said, but you’ll be laughing by the end. You’ll have to understand something about Singapore culture and language to fully appreciate it, I think, but watch it anyhow.

(If you’re looking at this in Facebook, click the “View Original Post” just above the comments section to view the videos at the original blog.)

(Found the videos on Singapore Agnes Tan)

Cream Cheese and Monkeys

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This is just a funny conversation I had this morning that I thought I’d share.

I went downstairs to make a small breakfast and the house maid was washing some dishes.

I dug around in the fridge a bit, looking for the Philadelphia Cream Cheese.  I held up a cup and said, what’s this?  “Bangus juice”, she replied.  I paused.  I knew I had misheard her, because bangus is a fish and whatever was in the cup smelled slightly tangy.  I set it on the counter.  I’d put it away when I packed the cream choose cheese back into its corner.

So, we started talking about Philadelphia Cream Cheese.  She’d never had any before I let her try some a few weeks ago.  The stuff is delicious!  I need to go search around for some bagels.  It’s great on bread, but it’s not really complete with the bagels!

As I put things back in the fridge I asked her again what was in the cup and this time it sounded like she said ‘burt juice‘.

“Butt juice?”  I asked.  She started laughing and went out on the balcony and came back with a can.  Finally I understood.  The can had a depiction of birds on it.  What she had been trying to tell me was ‘bird juice‘.

So, she said “You know of the bird spit?”

“Uh, what?”

“Yes, the spit from the mouth of the bird.  Chinese think is very delicacy, and it is very expensive and rare.”

I started imagining how many birds would have to be milked for saliva to fill a can that size and then I realized how disgusting the whole thing was.

“I think I’d rather eat chilled monkey brains than drink bird spit.”

“Oh!  You’ve tasted of the monkey!?” she asked.

I pretended I wasn’t surprised at all.

She went to the fridge and came back with a tupperware which she opened.  I peered in and there were four little cakes inside.

“This is the monkey?” I asked.

“No… this is mooncake.” she replied.  So, I pretended I was only kidding, because I seriously thought it was monkey cake or some other weird thing.  When you’ve got a cup full of bird spit in the fridge, why not?

She insisted I try one, and it’s sitting here on a plate next to me.  I hope it’s good!