While Singapore may be known for being well connected in terms of technology, the effect is diminished when some 300 hotel guests are trying to use the same internet connection each night. In my latest hotel room, the internet essentially becomes unusable from 8pm until I go to bed. Even working on my blog requires planning as just the WordPress admin screen takes minutes (!) to load. It takes me back to when I was in year 6 (1996 for those playing along at home) and seeing a tech’d up student teacher bring along his 7200 baud modem, dial into the internet and download the Disney home page which consisted of one small image advertising James and the Giant Peach. It took 6 minutes to get the whole image. It wasn’t an issue because the Internet in 1996 consisted 70% of X-Files fan pages. If I had access I would have had one**.
One thing I’ll gladly pay for each month is a good, strong, fast internet connection. It needs to be there, on any number of my devices straight away, and it needs to do anything I want it to do. It’s increasingly becoming where I get TV from (with the exception of bargain priced older shows that are massive downloads but low DVD cost), and I don’t like to wait for it. If I want to watch a movie and I’ve lent out the DVD, I need to be able to download it while I finish dinner and do the dishes. Or faster if I’m leaving the dishes for tomorrow*.
Hurry me back to my castle of endless and penetrating wifi, and let me know that when I hear the satisfying treble click of the ethernet cable into my Mac, that there shall be no waiting.
* Almost always.
** Instead I was the sysop of a Bulletin Board System (BBS). That’s a whole pile of nerd for another day***.
*** Sorry for the recursive footnotes, but did anyone use Geocities back when you had to choose a neighbourhood and a sub-neighbourhood for your site? I actually think I did have an X-Files blog on Geocities.
Like the rest of the world, I have so much random stuff floating around on my hard drive. I just stumbled across a text file of “Themed Movie Nights” I had listed around this time last year. Obviously an idea had struck me at that moment, and quickly disappeared. Here it is, unedited. Any more ideas?
Mother’s To Blame! (or How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Smacked The Kid)
Mommie Dearest
Psycho
Sir, I think there’s a bug in my robot! (Bots Gone Wild)
2001 – A Space Odyssey
Blade Runner
I, Robot
Wargames
Don’t Drop The Soap (Prison Films)
The Rock
Cool Hand Luke
Kiss of the Spider Woman
Escape from Alcatraz
Show Us Those Pearly Whites (Teeth Films)
Moonraker
Jaws
On The Road Again (Road Trips)
Duel
Thelma & Louise
Little Miss Sunshine
TransAmerica
Who, Me? (Mistaken Identity films)
North By Northwest
The Wrong Man
… And No One Will Ever Know (Perfect Murder films)
Dial M for Murder
A Perfect Murder
Rope
I miss the Australian accent, in all variations. Even the Julia Gillard edition.
When I talk in a meeting or order a meal at a restaurant in Singapore, I feel like a girl from the deep south who just moved to a California school. There’s no doubt our accent is at times broad, harsh and unrefined, but it’s also relaxed and friendly (my own associations, I’m sure). I’ve found that Singapore houses a lot of accents. Aside from several prominent Asian accents, you’re more likely to hear a British accent than an American, and an American more than Australian.
One of the curious things I’ve noticed is that if I order a “Coke” in a restaurant, I’m rarely understood. I think it’s because the Australian “o” sound is quite rounded, and the mouth changes the shape of the sound as it progresses, almost like a truncated “oa” sound. Here, everyone corrects me with an abrupt “oh” sound. If I was to try to estimate the sound, it would be “kok”. Regardless, I’ve now taken to pointing to each menu item as I order it, and when I think it’s going to take some time, I say “soft drink” as well.
It will be nice to not feel like the southern belle in a room of Russian dictators.
