kokkai

I Remember
Monday, August 25

While boarding a bus a few days back, I pulled out an EZ Link card, expecting to tap somewhere. Then I remembered that I was on a chartered bus and there was no need to pay and hurriedly stuffed the card back into my pocket.

While trying to enter a room the other day, I rummaged for my SPH pass and was almost ready to tap it. Then I remembered to enter I had to punch in the numeric code instead. And I was not at SPH.

While I was trudging wearily back to my house today, I took out an EZ Link card instead of the house keys and tapped the lock. Then after 5 seconds, when the door didn't open and the dull clang of the metal registered...I remembered.

A Sign Of The Times
Saturday, August 23

I recently played this Japanese anime dating game. Hey, I know these games are dumb but I got it free so I tried it out to see it was about. To use another lousy excuse, Singapore's Prime Minister is putting in place more initiatives to encourage dating and more babies ultimately...

Anyway, there are 5 different girls, and you're the male lead in the story. You're a student at a college, you live life and interact with the 5 different girls, and hope to enter into relationship with one of them. Questions appear throughout the story, and who you eventually end up with depends on your answers to these questions.

As I was saying, there are 5 girls that you can aim to eventually date. You have:

  • the class belle, who's a klutz (shown in picture)
  • the class belle's best friend, who has lesbian tendencies
  • your loud boisterous cousin (!), who you live with
  • the young history teacher, sister of the class belle
  • a senior who wears glasses at your school
Naturally, being a Japanese anime game, all the girls look fantastic, with elaborate hair, big eyes, perfect curves all that. Each girl has their own storyline. The storylines, or more specifically the girls, are all so sugary sweet that I'm not surprised if someone ends up with diabetes after playing the game.

So I went through the game. Click, click, click. And on and on. Going through daily life and answering questions. I generally tried to steer towards the class belle because she was the most...politically correct one? (Teacher? Lesbian? A relationship with your cousin eh? Isn't that akin to incest?)

Guess which girl I got into a relationship with at the end of the game?

None.

Yeah, NONE!

My game ended abruptly, saying the year passed without getting to know anyone better. My character ended up spending time with a guy friend at the end.

A sign of the times maybe?

***

Irritated at being such a failure, I Googled for some cheats. Going through the cheats, which were essentially the answers you were supposed to pick to end up with each girl, I can't believe how the guy is supposed to answer in the game. You mean you're supposed to wait for the girl to buy you chocolates on Valentine's Day? You're expected to be some lazy turd and wait for the girl to take initiative and do everything? What?!

Stupid Japanese game. Probably written by some lonely geek. Probably explains why they have one of the lowest birth rates in the world.

It still makes you wonder though, especially when you're not in a relationship - should you actually NOT be buying chocolates on Valentine's Day? Is that what they're teaching single desperate men at the SDU?

I still can't believe I ended up with none of the girls. Even in a stupid game!

How Not To Irritate Men During A Football Match
Monday, August 18

A new season of the drama, intrigue, theatrics and excitement that is the English Premier League dawns on the male race yet again. Behold, as Premier League matches are one of the few things on television besides the Victoria's Secret show that can hold so many grown men transfixed for 90 minutes. They have made Saturday nights holy, and no man likes to be interrupted during that holy period.

Here's a couple of things girls can do not to irritate the zombie like guy watching football. There are probably some super detailed lists out there on the Internet on proper female etiquette during football matches, but I think these few will do.


1. Quiet Please

When a guy is glued to a football match on television, keep quiet!

We, useless blocks of wood passing ourselves off as men, will happily (or moodily depending on the result of the match) listen to your day, explain what's going on, decide what to eat for supper, hear your gripes, go shopping with you and generally resume normal service when its half time or after the match.

Keep quiet DURING the match!


2. We Are Straight Men

We don't care if you find Fernando Torres cute, or Ronaldo hot, or David Beckham sexy, or Raul handsome, or...

Also, say for example your boyfriend supports Manchester United. Man Utd are playing a match against arch rivals Liverpool. Liverpool has Fernando Torres, who he will grudgingly admit is a good player. What he doesn't need to hear is some noisy girl gushing "TORRES SO CUTE!!!" beside him just after Torres scores against Man Utd.


3. Temporary Maid

"Could you help me grab a drink from the fridge?"

We can't miss this free kick. Help us out just this time? You're still our princess, and we'll still carry your shopping bags. And maybe agree to watch those Sex and the City DVDs with you.




4. We Still Love You

We might turn into Easter Island statues during a match, but we still love you. And we'd love for you to actually go out and enjoy yourself during what is for you a torturous 90 minutes. Have a night out with the girls! We'll try to remember to pick you up after the match.

21st Century Knight
Saturday, August 16

I think there's an unwritten rule somewhere in society decreeing that guys cannot refuse cries of help from girls. Cries of help to unclog toilets, carry all their shopping bags, change light bulbs...and to fix printers. We have to call upon that inborn knight-in-shining-armor mentality and help damsels in distress fix their printers!

(And get lambasted later by wife/girlfriend for being overtly macho, or a useless mummy's boy, miserable failure etc etc etc.)

A female friend, Shelly, recently mentioned that she couldn't turn on her inkjet printer. Acting on that unwritten rule, I gallantly went down to her house one evening to try and fix that misbehaving printer.

After 'fixing', which involved checking that the power was turned on and the cable was plugged in properly, we still couldn't get the printer to work. I declared the printer to be spoilt and told her to call the repair company. This amounted to a grand total of 5 minutes.

I'm not very good at fixing printers eh?

Ask Uncle Kok
Thursday, August 7



Ah, today I had the bright idea of trawling through some of the questions that were sent in...some from a few years back...

We have the chiding ones...

Why are there people with different characteristic? Why are there lame people like u? - too lazy to type
Can you stop being so lame?!! Haha... - too lazy to type
kok, why u so cock? - joreen =)
fuck u la kok - bern
STUPID KOK - KOK!!

the slightly creepy ones...

u look kinda handsome, has anyone told u this b4? - u never wanna noe
hello. are you gay? - monster
How to grow pubic hair longer - Alan
im a submissive puppy. spank me. - too eager to type

a few from delusional people...

change this will you? - jeanette aw
change this will you? - michelle chia
change this will you? - jade seah

and then we have:

I'm bored at work. what to do? - bored-at-work

Ok, this was an actual game my colleagues and I played:

1. Find some objects and balance them on the cubicle divider
2. Steal stress balls from someones desk
3. Stand a cubicle away and hit those objects! Whoever hits the most objects wins...and doesn't have to go around looking for the balls!
4. Apologise to the guy sitting at the desk behind the divider
5. Carry on until you can't find any of the balls
78. Act dumb when someone goes around the office asking, "Have you seen my stress balls?"

Demonstration


(If for some reason YouTube doesn't show it, its also here on Facebook)

One last one for now...

egg first or chicken? very important question - kill the kok

Archaeologists at the University of Nowhere have recently made an amazing discovery into their research on this eternal question.

While speaking to an old man living in the mountains in Kazakhstan, they discovered he was actually a dinosaur. Trying to stay awake, the brave archaeologists listened to him tell long stories about how dinosaurs roamed Earth millions of years ago.



One of the archaeologists managed to stay awake and documented that there was a T-Rex which went by the name of DJ Rexy. Tons of female T-Rexes went gaga over him, but he only had his eyes and heart set on the one on the sky.



One day, when DJ Rexy was walking around looking for a triceratops to eat, he looked up and saw this beautiful pterodactyl flying above him. The pterodactyl's name was Miranda and had the most amazing hair, eyes and mouth. Ok, technically, what he was more interested in were the pink Body by Victoria Ultrasmooth Bikini undies from Victoria's Secret she was wearing.



Against the law of nature, they fornicated. Shock! Horror! Out came a little baby! They named their baby Chicken.

DJ Rexy had asked his mother what he should name his daughter and the first thing his mother said was "Get out of my KITCHEN!". Rexy was a little deaf - they didn't have headphones for DJs in those days - and had heard only the last word, which he thought was Chicken.



Chicken made her way to Japan somehow and found her true love - another dinosaur guy who was a mix between a T-Rex and pterodactyl. He was rather small and short though, being Asian. They fornicated and over the millions of years the offspring gradually became smaller till the size that they are today.

The End.

Obituary
Friday, August 1

I work part time at a newspaper, and I go into this department called Prepress every week to collect the next day's newspaper to cross-check articles. Essentially, they do mock-up printing, but they type out some of the obituaries there also I think. I've seen some aunties staring very hard at obituaries over there!

At the entrance of Prepress is a fish tank with goldfish inside.



Look closely. Notice there are fish upside down in the centre? They just stay like that, gasping. The goldfish at the right corners hardly move. Every week I go in and the fish in the tank are like that. Dying and lifeless. Nobody does anything about these fish!

I've been told that goldfish might have some temporal condition that makes them like that. But still, what an eyesore!

Sometimes I wonder if the fish are like that because they do the obituaries there.

[Update - 13th August]
I noticed the fish tank was gone when I went in today! In its place are 2 phones and a sign that says that nobody is to use those phones.