Dapper Recovers; Thumper Gets Sick

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Dapper

A few days ago I posted about our cat Dapper getting spayed.  I mentioned at the end of the post that she came back with a cough.  I was planning on taking her to the vet, but my trip got put off.  Then, somehow, her cough started to clear up on its own overnight.  Perhaps the whole thing was related to her surgery.

So, I’m glad to report that Dapper is feeling much better now.  It’s been about a week and a half since she was spayed and she seems to be back to her old self.  In fact, she seems even more active and happy than before.  I think going into heat over and over was driving her crazy.  My wife and I were talking about it earlier tonight, and Dapper seems a lot more affectionate.  It’s as if she’s a kitten again.

She has also started meowing again, which is nice.  She was a very vocal cat and I missed it.  Her meow does seem a bit huskier now, but that’s fine.  I’m just glad to see she’s recovering.  All that’s left for her, it seems, is to grow back the hair on her belly where it was shaved for the surgery.  It looks a little funny.

Thumper

So, what now!?  It seems like it’s one thing after another with our cats.  Now that Dapper is well again, Thumper seems to have taken ill.  He’s been listless, sleepy, and he’s running a fever.  I wonder if he caught something from Dapper?  It’s possible that Dapper picked up a virus from the cats she came in contact with at the vet and brought it home with her, and that Thumper picked it up from her.

The fever isn’t too high, so we’re keeping him home.  I’ve been making sure he drinks water and eats… even if he doesn’t want to.  I think he’s pissed at me now, but thanks to my efforts he’s more active and aware and seems to be getting better.  We also bought some wet food to tempt him into eating, and he gobbled down quite a bit of it, complemented with more dry food, before going back to sleep.

Hopefully he’ll feel better in the morning!  Oh, and it’s quite an interesting experience to stick a thermometer in a cat’s butt.

The Not So Fragrant Fragrance Hotel

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Last year when I first came to Singapore to visit, we had to find a place to stay short-term.  My first thought was hotels.  So, I got online and started searching around for where we could stay.  I didn’t mind spending a little money, but I figured we would be outside most of the time, so I didn’t want to spend so much on the hotel room.  I’d rather spend the money at the destination.  Looking through the internet for deals I came across a package for a flight and a few nights at a place called The Fragrance Hotel.  I asked my then fiance about it and she cracked up!

She told me right away that it would be a bad idea to stay at one of those hotels.  According to her, the Fragrance hotels aren’t very fragrant (cheesy right?).  She said someone she knew stayed in one for a few nights and it wasn’t very comfortable, clean, or hospitable.  On top of that, they have the reputation of being a hotel for one night stands and for hook-ups with prostitutes.  I was surprised, because the image I had of Singapore in my mind was a pristine one.  Singapore’s only reputation in the US is that it’s a place with hard laws and upright citizens, so the idea of a sleazy hotel where you take prostitutes didn’t occur to me.  Regardless, I quickly crossed it off my list.

Monday night I got to see one of the Fragrance hotels firsthand.  My wife and I went to the Geylang area to look at a place for rent.  I had never been there and we arrived just as it was getting dark.  Geylang is everything it’s rumored to be!  Geylang is the gritty underbelly of an otherwise polished Singapore.  The buildings are a montage of new and old, decrepit structures, some worse than shanties I’d seen in the Philippines.  Even so, there were people living in them.  There were newer structures here and there, but the further we got from the Aljunied area and the deeper we went into the Geylang area, the worse it got.

To clarify, when you travel to Geylang on public transit, the quickest way is to get off the train at the Aljunied station and then take a bus or a cab.  We were running late so we took a cab and as we entered Geylang proper I could see quite a few of what the area is most famous for: the Chinese hookers!  They were easy enough to pick out of the crowd and most were wearing cheap, slutty looking outfits and had hair dyed in unnaturally bright colors (for an Asian anyways). 

We weren’t too sure of where we were going and we wound up getting out of the cab a block short.  We didn’t mind though.  It gave us a chance to stretch our legs and get a feel for the neighborhood.  We called up the agent, got our bearings, and started walking towards the apartment building.  As we walked down Lorang 14 we soaked up the sleazy atmosphere, and, unfortunately, quite a few lungfuls of what smelled like stale sweat, rotting garbage and raw sewage.  It definitely wasn’t a very attractive place.  This is also where I got my first view of a Fragrance hotel, and where I took the photo above.

Once we reached the gate to the apartment complex we had to stand and wait a while, as the agent hadn’t arrived yet.  As we stood there waiting, more Chinese hookers passed in and out of the complex.  I don’t know what it is about hookers exactly, but they’re just so damn easy to pick out.  Maybe it’s because I’m so used to seeing decent folk around Singapore that they give off a negative vibe.  They have that cheap way about them.  They look cheap, smell cheap, and, even though I couldn’t understand what they were saying, even sounded cheap.

Regardless, it gave my wife and I one more thing to talk about while we waited to view the apartment.  We chatted about how much like the Philippines Geylang is, and about how it feels a bit dangerous there, like you’d have to watch your wallet and watch your back while you were out.  We talked about how the place seems more lively than Tampines, though not necessarily in a good way.  Geylang definitely has an exciting atmosphere to it, and it might be quite an adventure to live in a place like that after having lived in Tampines for a year.  Tampines is much quieter, and very upscale, especially for a “provincial” area.  I say provincial, but nearly all of Singapore is becoming built up into more of a city-type area.

The oddest and most out of place thing I saw while standing there waiting was a young girl, maybe 12, in a school uniform come through the gate at about 7:30pm.  She was alone and it seemed wrong given the surroundings.  If I had a kid I don’t think I would live in Geylang in the first place, and I definitely wouldn’t let him or her walk around alone after dark.  Not in that area.  It just doesn’t feel safe.

I suppose you could call it a bonus experience, but one other thing of note is that as we were walking to and from the apartment we were viewing we got to see a man sleeping on the floor of the hallway.  He was around 40 to 45, shirtless, shoeless, and probably passed-out drunk, sleeping first face down and then on his side on the hallway floor.  That, more than anything else, was our quality of life indicator for that part of Geylang.

I suppose it’s not what’s outside your door that counts though, so even with all of that ‘excitement’ just a few steps beyond the elevator, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing to live in Geylang.  If you maintain your home, it can still be comfortable, and given the area, the rent is a bit lower than usual as well.  Besides, there is one other thing Geylang is well known for, and that’s the food.  My wife and I both love to eat, and we’re tired of the choices available to us in Tampines, so the lure of fresh feeding grounds is a big one!

Don’t Pee in the Lift

Bradley Farless2 Comments
Don't Pee in the Lift

From country to country you find a lot of laws and rules that don’t seem to make much sense to you at the time, but they’re usually laws like women having to cover themselves in public (Saudi Arabia), or it being illegal to step on the local currency (Thailand).  They even make sense, given the cultural background of the area, or in the sense that stepping on the currency could be construed as a gesture of stepping on (disrespecting) the leader whose image is on that currency note.

Don't Pee in the Lift
Don’t Pee in the Lift sign in an elevator in Singapore

I found a law in Singapore that kinda just blew my mind though.  It is unlawful to urinate or smoke in the lifts (elevators), and there are signs posted by most lifts to remind you of the fact, as seen above.  Reminding people to not smoke in an elevator is something I can understand.  It’s a matter of common courtesy to non-smokers who have to share those same elevators, possibly with children, to get home.  On the other hand, urinating in an elevator is just something that never crossed my mind.  It’s just not something I’d ever even thought of.  Are people’s mentalities really that different from country to country, that something as basic as only urinating in a toilet (or maybe in the bushes) is something a person has to be reminded of?

When I first saw these signs I was more amused than anything, but I recently stumbled across a forum where an instance of a person urinating in a lift was actually recorded on camera.  And, to top it off, it was a woman.

Saw this in Xin Ming Ri Bao (17th Nov 2008).

A Gril was caught urinating in a HDB lift and it’s caught by the hidden camera.

The girl is believe to be in her 30s.

It happen in Sembawang GRC, but not sure where. Because the offender is facing away from the camera, they can’t identify her. The newspaper report that the town council is going to put up notice with her picture beside lift of HDB (Most likely Sembawang GRC) to warn others not to do it….

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I thought only boys or some dogs will do such thing in HDB lift… didn’t know girls also so daring….

I’m actually at a loss for words on this one.  Is this just a cultural thing, or is it an individual fault?  I would typically lean towards the latter, but the fact that there are signs up means that this must happen, or must have happened before, quite often.

Poor Dapper, I Took Her Horny

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Dapper’s Coming of Age

Shortly after returning from a trip to the Philippines at the beginning of last March, our eldest cat, Dapper, went into heat for the first time.  For anyone unfamiliar with the term, it means her hormones kicked into overdrive, turned her into a little hornball and caused her to be non-stop noisy.  In the picture above, you can see her showing off her cat cooter, a typical symptom for cats in heat.  For a week at a time she would be going nuts, and in the process she would keep us up all hours of the night.  It was starting to make us go nuts as well.  No amount of verbal reprimand or slipper throwing would quiet her.  So, after the second time she went into heat I decided something had to be done, and that something was spaying.

Spaying would prevent her from going into heat again, which meant that she wouldn’t be meowing all night and we could get a decent nights’ rest again.  Dapper was one of those unusual cases, in that she would go through a heat cycle, be normal for 3 days, and then start up again.  From what I read, cats typically only go into heat once every 2 to 3 weeks.  Dapper’s hormones must have been working overtime.

Other benefits to getting her spayed would be that she would be in compliance with the Singapore standard.  Cats here are supposed to be spayed at six months, and Dapper was already close to her 1st birthday.  In addition, spaying supposedly lengthens a cat’s lifespan.  Dapper has been with us for a year, and I’d like to keep her around as long as possible.

So, in the spirit of keeping her safe, and keeping us sleeping at night, I looked into getting the operation performed.

Penny To The Rescue!

My wife and I have a friend named Penny that lives in Yishun.  She’s something of a fanatic when it comes to taking care of cats, but in a good way.  She lives a quiet life and dedicates the vast majority of her time and funds to caring for, as well as spaying/neutering the local feline population.  I’m not quite sure where she gets her funding from, but she seems to have made it her mission to spay or neuter the entire feline population of Yishun, and she’s well on her way to accomplishing that goal.  I imagine she gets donations from individuals who have money, but no time, whereas Penny has time, but lacks funds.  So, that works out pretty good.

On average, she manages to spay or neuter an average of 8 cats per week.  Typically, having a cat spayed or neutered can run you between 80 to as high as 179 SGD, depending on where you go.  Shocking, right?  Due to the volume of cats she brings in, she has a special deal worked out with Mount Pleasant Animal Clinic to have the operations performed for 50 SGD per cat, or 70 SGD if they’re brought in pregnant. 

We took advantage of this fact and talked to Penny about having Dapper brought in for spaying.  Doesn’t hurt to use a discount if you have one available right? She was happy to help out and we agreed to meet the following week in Yishun.

Horny Remover

With the problem more or less resolved I was relieved, and started teasing Dapper that I was going to “take her horny.”  This is sort of a personal joke based on an “Engrish” picture I found posted on the internet, which showed the window of a spa or beauty parlor that offered “horny removal” as a service.  I imagine they were talking about callouses, but from a native English speaker’s perspective, “horny removal” on the window of a spa that also advertises full body massages is seriously funny!

Dapper Fights Back

Well, Dapper had one last trick up her sleeve for me, and it wasn’t good.  The day after I made arrangements to have her spayed she went into heat again.  I had read that having a cat spayed while they were in heat could cause complications, and could be more expensive, so I was worried that it would cause problems with the arrangements I had made. 

My wife was urging me to put off the operation, but I decided to wait it out and see what happened.  With Dapper going into heat so frequently, lining up a time when she was ‘normal’ and when Penny was available seemed like a tricky business.  Thankfully, the night before her operation, her heat cycle ended.

Curiosity Spayed the Cat

The morning of Dapper’s operation I got up early to make sure everything was ready.  I’m sort of a night owl, so I didn’t get much sleep, but I was anxious to get the whole thing over with.  After getting ready, I brought down the cat carrier from on top of the wardrobe.  Being the busybody she is, Dapper immediately came to investigate.  I decided to try to take advantage of the situation and opened the carrier door and took a step back.  Sure enough, she went ahead and poked her head into the carrier, giving me a hassle-free opportunity to push her the rest of the way in and get the door closed.

Surprisingly, she didn’t seem too upset about being locked in the carrier and was quiet as I took her out of the house.  I expected her to have a fit and start meowing, since the last time I took her out of the house in the carrier it was to drop her off at a cat-sitter while my wife and I were on vacation.

Taking Dapper’s Horny

So, Dapper and I made our way to Yishun and met up with Penny, who was waiting for me at the McDonald’s at Northpoint Mall.  She had three other cats with her, each in their own carriers.  We hopped onto a bus which would take us to the clinic.  We were an interesting sight, carrying two cat carriers each, and with my being a caucasian foreigner on top of it.  Despite it not being necessarily illegal, it’s still an uncommon sight to see cats on the bus, much less four at a time.  Most of the passengers were amused and some even made “meow meow” sounds to try excite the cats.  Dapper took it all well, and laid down quietly in her carrier.  I think she enjoys the vibrations from the bus.  Penny’s lot, on the other hand, were noisy and terrified.

We reached the clinic after a short ride and I stroked Dapper for a while before passing her into the hands of the vet.  Hey, you never know.  What if something goes wrong, right?  Dapper is a very sweet cat, even if her horniness was driving me crazy.  I left the clinic hoping for the best and went around the corner with Penny to sit down for a while.

Thursdays With Penny

There is a hawker area right next to the clinic and Penny offered to buy coffee.  I’m an avid coffee drinker, so I couldn’t turn her down.  It turned out to be a great way to spend an hour. 

We got to talking, and Penny’s a very interesting woman.  We’d spoken briefly before, but never at any length or about anything other than cats.  She’s very outspoken and she has a lot to say, not just about cats, but about Singapore, and life in general.  The most amusing point of our conversation was that she hopes to travel to Australia and snag herself an eligible bachelor that she can settle down with.  Coming from Penny, with her blue-highlighted hair and no-nonsense attitude, it seemed so out of place that I still smile when I think about it.

As we finished our coffee and it got close to lunchtime, we decided to get going and agreed to meet up again at 3:30 to pick up the cats.  I took the opportunity to go back to Tampines and meet up with my wife during her lunch break to check out the new mall, Tampines 1.

Dapper Comes Home

When we went back to pick up the cats, Dapper was awake in her carrier, if you want to call it that.  She was in an anesthetized daze, watery eyes and all.  Of course, that’s to be expected right after a surgery.

When I got her home later, she seemed unsure of where she was, and she couldn’t seem to stand up, so I put her in her cat bed and put the food and water bowls right next to her.  She tried to walk a bit later but kept falling over.  Eventually she made it to her litter box and after about 20 minutes managed to … well you know.  Then she went back to her bed and slept for about 8 hours.  Every so often she would wake up and try to walk around.  Then she would go back to the cat bed and go back to sleep.

I stayed up, keeping an eye on her and eventually tried to spark her appetite by giving her wet food.  She sniffed at it a bit, but didn’t seem to be too interested.  I think our kitten, Thumper, wound up eating it all.

Who Are You?!

One interesting thing to note about this whole trip to the vet is that when I brought Dapper home, Thumper initially had no idea who she was.  Dapper was only out of the house for about 10 hours or so, but Thumper initially reacted as though we’d brought home an entirely new cat.  It was strange and a bit upsetting.  Thumper made that strange mewling sound that cats make when they’re pissed or trying to look tough around strange animals.  Dapper seemed a bit perplexed by Thumper’s reaction but wasn’t very interested in anything other than sleeping at the time, so she ignored her. 

Eventually, Thumper started trailing after Dapper, watching her whenever she would visit the food bowl or the litter box.  I think Dapper came back carrying the scent of other cats and Thumper viewed her as an outsider, a crazy one, that was helping herself to her and  the real Dapper’s territory.  Eventually those other scents must have faded, because the following day I woke up to find the two of them curled up next to each other.

Get Well Soon!

It’s been almost 6 days now since her spaying.  She still seems a bit odd, compared to usual, but every day she seems to get a bit more active.  Today, she started to playing with Thumper again, which is nice.  Thumper was starting to get annoyed because he would try to get Dapper to play with him and she would smack him in the head and lay back down.

One thing I definitely miss about her is her friendly meow when she wants you to pet her, or when she greets you at the door when you come home.  Since her spaying she’s only meowed once, and that was tonight.  Hopefully, she’ll be back to her old self before long.

I can’t help but wonder what the longterm effects of the spaying will be on her personality, but for now she seems to be coming back to herself, much to my wife’s relief.  According to her, spaying isn’t a common practice in the Philippines, so I think she was more worried about the whole thing than I was.

What Now?

It seems like every time we get one thing taken care of with our two cats, another problem crops up, resulting in another visit to the vet.  Dapper came back from her spaying with a dry, hacking cough.  I think she might have picked it up from one of the other cats at the clinic, and fromw hat I’ve seen on the internet it’s probably an upper respiratory infection.  Coupled with the fact that she’s recovering from surgery, it’s starting to get bad.  So, tomorrow she has to take another trip to the vet with me.  I wonder if she’ll be as willing to get into the carrier on her own this time?

Taking on pets is definitely a big responsibility, both in time and care as well as financially.  Still, she’s part of the family and I can’t stand to see her coughing and hacking like that, and I’m anxious to get her checked out.  At first I thought it was a side effect of the surgery, but now I’m almost positive it’s not, and I don’t want to take any chances.

Hopefully this will be the end of their vet visits for quite a while though!

New Business Flower Arrangements

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Yesterday, the new mall, Tampines 1, was packed with these flower arrangements to the point that they had to be shifted around constantly to make room for customers.

In fact, the store that seemed to be drawing the largest crowd, UNI QLO, actually moved their arrangements to a column in the center of the walkway in front of their store to make way for a line of people waiting to get in. I’m not too sure what the deal is with UNI QLO, except that it’s supposed to be a premier fashion line in Japan and people seemed particularly excited to get in. I’ll have to take a look around there soon, but I’ll wait until it’s not so crowded.

Apparently these flower arrangements are significant enough to keep on display even though it impedes customer traffic. Most are marked with cards from other business, or perhaps financial backers, offering “best wishes” and “luck.” Maybe that’s all it really boils down to? The concept that having these arrangements in front of your business on opening day is good luck? Sort of like how most Singaporeans and Filipinos I’ve met have a fear of black cats?

The last US business I went to on opening day was quite a few years ago. It was a Johnny Carrino’s in Columbus, Georgia.  I don’t recall seeing anything like this there, so I’m wondering if it’s particular to Singapore, to Chinese culture, to Asia, or if I’ve been living under a rock and just never noticed them in the US before.

Cosplayers at Tampines 1

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I’m not entirely sure what they were advertising, but their outfits were really great, so I took some photos.

Toy Soldier and Toy Maid
Toy Soldier and Toy Maid
Toy Soldier and Toy Maid Routine
Toy Soldier and Toy Maid Routine
Toy Soldier and Toy Maids
Toy Soldier and Toy Maids

They were even acting the part!  They would only move when someone “wound up” the key on their backs and then after a while they would stop again.  It was very fun to watch for a while!

By the way, in that third photo, the guy is totally checking out that girl’s “buttons”!  Ha ha ha!

Tampines 1 Open For Business

Bradley Farless5 Comments

Singapore has a heavy shopping culture. Imagine your high school days when you had to wear the right clothes to be part of the “in” crowd. Now imagine that experience on crack. You’ll sort of get the picture. Most of the younger Singaporeans pride themselves on their handbags, mobile phones, shoes or having the newest Mango apparel. They crave the latest and greatest items and pursue the hottest fashion trends. I suppose there’s nothing inherently wrong with the Singaporean love for shopping, but it definitely takes some getting used to. Keeping that in mind, imagine the chaos that surrounds the opening of a new mall, especially one in a prime location.

The mall was packed tight with people and everyone was excited to explore the mall and see all of the new shops. While walking through the mall I saw people of all ages, as if elderly mothers and fathers had been dressed and dragged out of the house for the big event. I also saw quite a few foreigners wandering around, which is highly unusual for an area so far from downtown Singapore. In fact, the people were almost as fascinating and entertaining as the mall itself.

Unfortunately, it seems that there was such a rush to cash in on the excitement and newness factor that the mall was opened before it was completely finished. With the interior of the mall not quite polished, the “Wow” effect wasn’t as great as it could’ve been. For example, the tile flooring was still a bit dusty and the fountain on the bottom floor seemed more like it was leaking than running. While I was walking around the mall I sneezed frequently and I was happy to be able to blow my nose when I got home later.

Besides the incompleteness of the mall itself, not all of the stores were open. In fact, some were still under construction, including the HSBC bank pictured below, which is on the lower level. Hope you brought cash with you, because these ATMs are still down for the count!

Handling all of these minor (and in some cases major) issues, work crews were scattered throughout the mall, hurriedly trying to apply their finishing touches. Still, they did a great job getting the place ready before opening the doors today. Just a week ago I would have said that the mall couldn’t have been opened any earlier than the end of the month, judging by the exterior and what I could see through the windows. They must have been pulling all-nighters to make sure they met their opening deadline, or at least partially met it.

Still, those minor eye sores didn’t detract from the overall appearance of the mall. Have a look at the shot below, which was taken from the top floor near the Petstation store.

The overall effect of the mall and the quality of the decor in the shops is reminiscent of the malls you find along Orchard. When the interior of this mall is actually completed, it should be fantastic!

Also, as a side note, if you take a close look in photo above (click it for a larger image) you’ll see an information panel on the ground floor near the round railing that lists the stores in the mall. Going a step beyond the average poster board, this little marvel is completely touch screen and interactive. Despite its lonely appearance in this photo, every time I tried to get near it there was a mob of people trying to play with it, so I couldn’t really dig into it to see if it went further than just listing locations. It does feature a nifty “You Are Here” arrow though!

One of the special things about Tampines 1 is that the building designers seemed to have recognized peoples’ desire to just hang out at the mall and incorporated it into their building plans. Tampines 1 has multiple outdoor viewing decks that you can relax on. The lower viewing deck offers a very nice, mostly unobstructed view of the Tampines Central area as well. As with the rest of the mall, these areas seemed a bit unfinished, especially in the lack of benches, but there’s definitely potential in these areas for cart vendors and perhaps an outdoor coffee shop.

Also, here’s a shot I took of the Tampines MRT station from the lower viewing deck:

One of the great things about this mall is the variety of stores. I was somewhat concerned that this mall would be just a rehash of what was already available in the two existing malls: Tampines Mall and Century Square. Thankfully, this didn’t turn out to be the case. There are a few stores that seem to have migrated over, Times being the one that sticks out most in my mind. It was a good choice for them to make the move. One of the problems with Century Square and Tampines Mall is that the store spaces were just too small. Tampines 1 is generous with its floor space and Times took advantage of that to bring in a wider variety of books, which will be better for their business in the long run. Like I said, though, there are plenty of new stores, or new to Tampines anyways, and I’m glad that I have one less reason to have to venture all the way down to Orchard just for shopping.

Something my wife and I love to do is eat out at good restaurants. The few that were previously available in the malls in Tampines were starting to get old, so I’m glad to see that there are some new options. Here are some I’m very excited to try in the near future:

This first one is called Manpuku, and is a Japanese food restaurant. In the second photo you can see some of the menu items. The wall to the right of the restaurant entrance is a glass display area that showcases their offerings. It’s really a great way to encourage people to try the food and keep coming back for more.

This second restaurant is called Sushi Tei. Looking into the restaurant, the first thing you’ll notice is the conveyor belt of sushi dishes sliding past the bar. It’s a very entertaining and engaging setup and reminded me of the sushi restaurant located near the gym and pool just a short distance from Century Square. I took a look at the menu and the prices are reasonable for most of the items, though the food at the sushi place by the gym looked better and is better priced. I wish I could remember the name of the place.

There were a few other restaurants I noticed but most of them were generic.

The last place I want to mention is called “teadot”. My wife and I enjoy having tea in the evening sometimes, so I’m excited to try this place out. Coffee Bean and Starbucks serve tea, but more as just an option than with any real focus. “teadot” should be a nice treat, and besides that, look at the furnishings. It would be cool just to sit there.

Overall, Tampines 1 is a fantastic addition to the shopping scene in the Tampines area and I’m sure my wife and I will be spending a lot of time there in the future, window shopping and actually shopping too!

I hope you enjoyed my review of Tampines 1 and I hope you enjoy your first trip there!

Beer & Cigarettes in Singapore

Bradley Farless2 Comments

Differences in prices between locations is nothing new to me, but I was shocked to see the price of alcohol and tobacco products in Singapore.

I spent most of the years I lived in the US in the southern states, where prices are more reasonable, due to lower taxes. I won’t go into the “when I was younger” stuff, but when I left the US in 2008 you could get a pack of cigarettes for about 3 dollars in Texas. It was about the same in Georgia. When I would visit my mother in New York City I would typically bring cigarettes with me, because they’re about 7 dollars a pack there, which I thought was ridiculously expensive. Beer is about 5 to 6 bucks a pack regardless of where you are in the States.

So, like I said, I was used to seeing different prices for these items. Still, I was shocked when I saw that in Singapore the average price for a pack of cigarettes is 11 Singapore dollars and the average price for a six pack is about 15 to 18 Singapore dollars. I had to wonder why the prices were so high, and after having spent some time here, I think I’ve found the reason. Singapore is a country that prides itself on cleanliness and that carries over into a push by the government to promote healthy living.

That’s not all bad, of course. I’ve never seen a place with so many parks, free work-out areas, and playgrounds, all of which are kept in near pristine condition. On top of that, each regional area has a gym and pool, which have very low entrance fees. If you’re a swimmer or you like to work out in a gym then you’ll definitely appreciate the Singapore government’s health initiatives.

On the other hand, the Singapore government has also put steep taxes on the alcohol and tobacco, to influence people to use them less, if not quit entirely. Again, that’s not exactly a bad thing. However, for foreigners who come to Singapore to live, it requires a slight lifestyle modification.

I never really drank much anyways, so cutting alcohol almost completely out of my life didn’t phase me. The cost of the cigarettes, though, makes my wallet cry. It’s hard to go from carefree smoking to counting your cigarettes and counting your puffs. I remember tossing half smoked cigarettes into butt cans on my way into buildings, but now I stop to finish the cigarette before continuing.

So, if you move to Singapore and like to drink and smoke, expect the amount of time you spend partying to get cut down. On the bright side, you can take advantage of the convenience of the gyms and pools to get back into shape, so you can look good when you take vacations to the numerous, gorgeous beaches in the Southeast Asia area.

Funcom’s Age of Conan Going Down The Drain

Bradley FarlessLeave a comment

I was taking a look through my Google Reader subscriptions and found a great article at Online Massively Multiplayer.com about Funcom’s Age of Conan. I decided to leave a comment and really got going, so I decided to re-post my comment there as a blog entry here.

I was one of those initial AoC subscribers. I was looking for a way to break free of the WoW grind. AoC was fun… at first.

The starter island is a masterpiece and is everything an RPG MMO should be. I especially loved listening to the voice-overs. That’s partly where Funcom failed I think. They set their own bar during the first 20 levels of game-play, and then fell short afterward. I remember being shocked when I left the starter island and found out that there was no more voice-over dialogue. I remember seeing it mentioned that they intended to complete more voice-overs for the quests, but I didn’t stick around to find out. They should have had it all done to start with, or not done it at all. That was just the first disappointment.

On top of that, AoC didn’t really introduce anything innovative or new. In fact, it felt like a step left, instead of a step forward. There was nothing wrong with the classes, per se, just the game-play itself. Most of the interfaces felt awkward and just not that intuitive.

Also, I remember being particularly disgusted with the amount of quests that required you to go from one end of the zone to the other (or one end of the game world to the other), especially considering they weren’t very interesting to start with. Granted, there are only so many scenarios you can come up with as far as quests go in a game where you grind XP or grind quests to level up, but instead of making them as hard as possible to take up time, why not make them easier and focus on other aspects of the game that will appeal to your player base? I think most players now take partial enjoyment from the leveling up, are amused slightly by some of the quests, but all in all just want to get to the “end-game” content.

Speaking of running from one end of the zone to the other, what was with their idea of putting the crafting NPCs in a separate zone on the far end of a zone packed with mobs? Why did the game even need a special zone for a crafting town? That should have been incorporated into the three major cities. On top of that, placing level restrictions on being able to craft is getting old. It doesn’t make sense, even for a fantasy world. I can’t wait for a game that will allow a person to be solely a crafter if they want to be. (And a good game with a bard class would be nice! I miss that from DAoC/FFXI!)

I suppose the general idea I’m trying to get across is that AoC wasn’t well thought out, and had a rough, unfinished feel to it. Today’s MMO players expect more from their games. On top of that, most have played multiple MMOs of high caliber and don’t want to take a step sideways. They want to take a step forward to something better. When it was released, AoC didn’t stand a chance against polished games like WoW.

The market is so competitive now that I think companies will have to try to appeal to niche markets rather than mainstream. For example, most people play WoW because there’s just nothing better available.

I’ve been rather disappointed by the MMOs coming out recently so I’ve turned to F2P games to occupy my spare time while I keep my eyes peeled for the next blockbuster MMO. Right now I’m content with Combat Arms and Runes of Magic.

Combat Arms is a fantastic online FPS that keeps the action pumping. It’s so well laid out that I just can’t believe it’s free. Every time I log in I’m impressed with the gameplay. The only thorn in Combat Arm’s side are the number of hackers that manage to get past their hack detection software. If Nexon could find a way to prevent hackers from getting in the game matches this great game would be golden.

Runes of Magic is a great game that’s free to play and incorporates elements of WoW, UO, Guild Wars, FFXI, and who knows how many others. It’s as if they plucked out the best parts of each game and rolled them into one very entertaining MMO.

Hmm… looks like I dropped a quarter instead of two cents!

[Posted by myself on Massively Multiplayer.com on Tuesday, March 31st at 12:38am SGT]

Whitening Products in the Philippines

Bradley Farless2 Comments

One of the most peculiar things I found in the Philippines is the array of whitening products available in the stores. The range of the products is impressive to the point of national obsession. There are whitening soaps, whitening creams, whitening powders, whitening deodorants, whitening pills, etc etc.

(And as a side note, you can see in these commercials that most of their actors / actresses are mixed Filipino / Caucasian, further promoting the white is better mentality.)

It took me a while to wrap my mind around the purpose of these products, because the concept of wanting to whiten your skin was entirely foreign to me. In the US, people like to have a tan, and on the extreme side may visit tanning beds occasionally. Plus, becoming more tanned due to sun exposure is natural and normal. The idea of popping pills (or using any of these other products) to try to force your skin to turn a color it’s not meant to naturally be is absurd.

First of all, how healthy can it be to use these products to change the color of your skin? Second of all, there’s nothing wrong with the color of Filipinos’ / Filipinas’ skin in the first place! That naturally tanned skin is part of a Filipina’s appeal, at least from my perspective anyways. It’s part of what makes them unique and desirable. I’m not a make-up artist or expert, but beauty products should be used to augment your natural beauty, not change it entirely.

My wife explained what she thinks is the reasoning behind this fashion trend. The Philippines has been repeatedly dominated and/or occupied by other countries, including Spain (300 years of occupation), the US and Japan. This constant domination by fair skinned peoples may have caused a “whiter is better” mentality to set in and eventually become part of the national media/pop/fashion mainstream. My wife went on to say that fair skin has an impact on social status as well. The darker your skin is, the more likely you are to be ridiculed or socially ostracized from your peers. This perception is also carried over to visiting foreigners, in that white foreigners are placed on a pedestal and black foreigners are seen simply as a curiosity and an opportunity to try to make some money.