Boxing Day, ir.re.gard.less

ir·re·gard·less/ˌɪrɪˈgɑrdlɪs/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[ir-i-gahrd-lis] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation
–adverb Nonstandard.
regardless.
[Origin: 1910–15; ir-2 (prob. after irrespective) + regardless]
—Usage note Irregardless is considered nonstandard because of the two negative elements ir- and -less. It was probably formed on the analogy of such words as irrespective, irrelevant, and irreparable. Those who use it, including on occasion educated speakers, may do so from a desire to add emphasis. Irregardless first appeared in the early 20th century and was perhaps popularized by its use in a comic radio program of the 1930s.

The origin of irregardless is not known for certain, but the consensus among references is that it is a portmanteau of irrespective and regardless, both of which are commonly accepted standard English words. By blending these words, an illogical word is created. "Since the prefix ir- means 'not' (as it does with irrespective), and the suffix -less means 'without,' irregardless is a double negative."[1]. (Cf. inflammable, flammable.)
Irregardless is primarily found in North America, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and was first acknowledged in 1912 by the Wentworth American Dialect Dictionary as originating from western Indiana. Barely a decade later, the usage dispute over irregardless was such that, in 1923, Literary Digest published an article entitled "Is There Such a Word as Irregardless in the English Language?"[2]

One way to follow the progress of and sentiments toward irregardless is by studying how it is described in references throughout the twentieth century. Webster’s New International Dictionary (2nd. Ed. Unabridged) described the word as an erroneous or humorous form of regardless, and attributing it to the United States. Although irregardless was beginning to make its way into the American lexicon, it still was not universally recognized and was missing completely from Fowler's Modern English Usage,[3] published in 1965, nor is irregardless mentioned under the entry for regardless therein. In the last twenty-five years, irregardless has become a common entry in dictionaries and usage reference books. It appears in a wide range of dictionaries including: Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged (1981),[4] The Barnhart Dictionary of Etymology (1988), The American Heritage Dictionary (Second College Edition, 1991),[5] Microsoft Encarta College Dictionary (2001), and Webster’s New World College Dictionary (Fourth Edition, 2004).[6]
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Boxing day origins

There are disparate theories as to the origins of the term. The more common stories include:

In feudal times, Christmas was a reason for a gathering of extended families. All the serfs would gather their families in the manor of their lord, which made it easier for the lord of the estate to hand out annual stipends to the serfs. After all the Christmas parties on 26 December, the lord of the estate would give practical goods such as cloth, grains, and tools to the serfs who lived on his land. Each family would get a box full of such goods the day after Christmas. Under this explanation, there was nothing voluntary about this transaction; the lord of the manor was obliged to supply these goods. Because of the boxes being given out, the day was called Boxing Day.

In Britain many years ago, it was common practice for the servants to carry boxes to their employers when they arrived for their day's work on the day after Christmas. Their employers would then put coins in the boxes as special end-of-year gifts. This can be compared with the modern day concept of Christmas bonuses. The servants carried boxes for the coins, hence the name Boxing Day.

In churches, it was traditional to open the church's donation box on Christmas Day, and the money in the donation box was to be distributed to the poorer or lower class citizens on the next day. In this case, the "box" in "Boxing Day" comes from that one gigantic lockbox in which the donations were left.
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-----> all excerpts from Wikipedia.org (its so easy to find stuff there!)

Merry Christmas 2006!

Just before the day ends, here's a very merry Christmas to one and all! May everyone who reads this have a blessed and fulfilling new year too!

Yesterday night we had a Christmas party at Bock Lian's place. Its the biggest turnout of Hall 8 block 44 alumni yet thats NOT a wedding dinner.

Here's a namelist of attendees:

Me
Chun
Leon
Robin
Weiming
Bock Lian
Roy
Zhiqi
Xiuwen
John
Guoxing
Jianfan + GF
Mingxi
Janet
Kelvin
Fiona



And it was great fun! We had a cookout (thanks to all the ladies) and enjoyed ourselves into the night with crappy games ranging from the killer zhong ji mi ma (to finish Roy's ham) to some light-hearted Blackjack, to some heart stopping In-between.

All in all a really good gathering. Probably the best Christmas gathering for quite a couple of years for me in fact. At least it brought back the Christmas spirit that was found wanting a few days ago.

Oh, and I just bought myself a new Microsoft keyboard from the new Courts @ Tampines! Its like right beside the new Ikea so its really convenient to buy whatever you need for your car/house/room. Crowded on weekends though.

Merry X'mas everyone!!!!!!

Pain In My Neck

I've got a pain in my neck that wouldn't go away. I don't know how it got there, but its been around for the past few days.

Maybe something is bothering me.

I hate it when I don't know what's the matter with me.

I was lying in my baby at the carpark listening to my favourite music with the windows slightly down. It took me back to the days of USA where we spent our nights sleeping in our rented car. I listened and listened, till I dozed off for half an hour or so. I fell into slumber listening to Mansions Of The Lord from the We Were Soldiers soundtrack.

Maybe it helps sooth. Maybe it makes me feel good all over again. Maybe its therapeutical. Maybe it reminds me that I think too much.

Just maybe, baby?
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It's Christmas eve already, so here's a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year everyone!

Why don't I feel any Christmas cheer? Will someone spare me some?
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Man U just beat Aston Villa 3-0. But Chelsea is leading Wigan 2-0 and its still the first half. Xianz. And I'm winning alot of money just plonking my money on a Chelsea win. Hmph.

My New Car

If you haven't known by now, I've gotten a new car recently.

Its a Toyota Corolla Altis. Its simply awesome! Even the licese plate number is also a really lucky 8802. I've bought 4D three draws in a row and still haven't strike yet, but I guess with such a good number you really don't have to strike 4D to know its lucky.

Been driving it all over town as and when I can. Its a weekend car, so I only drive when I'm off work, which totally suits me since I get home around 7 these days. Right now I've gotta clock the first 1000km mileage so that I can get the lubricants and oils changed and the first servicing. Meanwhile I'm restricted to 80km/h and 3000rev/min on the road, which is quite a bummer cuz I really wanna see what my baby can do.

So I'm always on the expressways getting overtaken by little Picantos and speeding vans.

Bummer man.
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Life has been good so far. Getting busier at work, but with Christmas coming, all management can think of is the cheapest flight back to Europe to celebrate with their families. Don't you just love it when the already relaxed working culture is further relaxed by a premium western holiday like X'mas?

Don't really feel the X'mas spirit this year. Maybe because I've been busy with work and the car. Maybe because I haven't heard any carolling performances as yet. Maybe because I don't watch TV anymore. Maybe because I haven't walked down Orchard Road in eons. Maybe because there's no snow here where I live.

*sigh*

Nope. No Christmas-sy feeling whatsoever.

I have to worry about getting Christmas pressies though. Hehe.

Gosh, am I getting older?

Wedding Bells Galore

Just cleared 2 weddings out of 6 for the month of December. Its crazy man. Every single weekend got someone's wedding to attend.

So last Saturday we attended Bang's wedding. It was unusual because it was my first ever Church wedding, and it was an afternoon luncheon. No traditional Chinese dinner. Cute babes, ok-ish food, meaningful wedding would sum up the afternoon. Happy for him.

Yesterday was Esther's wedding. Esther from secondary school. I think its quite commendable considering that our sec 1/2 classes still can fill at least 1 table. And we totally enjoyed ourselves more because we were having fun amongst ourselves than because it was, erm, her wedding.

Haha. Jinde + wine + girlie giggles = lotsa fun. Jiajie didn't help with his influence on the table that got all of us playing punk by leaving the last yum seng so late that the WHOLE ballroom was looking at us. You can only imagine...

Shite. Sibeh paiseh.

That's about it. Next week, Yonghan from primary school and Guotai & Yifan from hall.

Fierce.

Today I went to cut hair after work and got into a coughing fit because of my flu. The hairdresser was so nice! Pre-empted that I was about to go into fits and got me hot water! Twice! So good of her. Maybe she just wanted to get it over and done with and not have me make a scene at Mode. Hmph. Still she was nice lah.

SITEX 2006

No hot models...

No XBox 360 playground...

No Osim massage for exhibitors...

Xianz.

Google Thy Name

I was so bored just now with no programs on a happening saturday night that I went to google my name. Yeah man, and you people should try it too, you'd be surprised by what you find.

I must have a damn common name cuz there was 30,800 results. But most of them yielded results of people with similar names or names which contain a part of my name. Sheesh.

Anyway I found 3 relevant pages after searching the first 10 pages of searches (yeah I was THAT bored!)!

Not bad by my standards. Though its more because of my Scrabble past than anything. So it goes to show that playing Scrabble in official tournements yields positive Google results. Hehe.

1) http://www.toucanet.com/ytsoc06c.html

Wow. Didn't know that I'm part of the cut-off and I can only play Intermediate category. Dammit, cannot go there fake fake that I can't play liaoz. Xianz.

2) http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rjackman/results2003.html#2CSCO

This is even more remarkable. My playing record during my only overseas Scrabble stint! In Johor at the Causeway Challengeback in 2003. I still have the campy t-shirt they gave for free. As you can see, I didn't fare too well there, but 8 wins wasn't all too bad, especially if Hubert is once of the top rated players in Singapore right now(isn't he Beth?). Anyway this tournement was perhaps the height of the fun we had with scrabble back with the Hall 8 Scrabble team.

3) http://members.ozemail.com.au/~rjackman/RBFN.html

I have no idea what this ozemail thingy is all about, but I'm actually rated! And I didn't even have to pay Singapore Scrabble for this! Haha. Well it's nice to be in the company of big name players, but if they've got my record down under, does it mean I can't play as a beginner there too?

Haha.

Happy googling.

Army Boo Boo

Guys, if you have a reservist recall, please call up your unit or check with your friends a couple of days before you report to your camp/unit.

KNN.

Angry.

I just reported to Maju camp this afternoon for a supposed half-day detachment IC briefing, then got there and there was a crowd of other NSmen only to find out that the location was changed to Jurong camp! Grrr...

Then after spending another 20mins getting to Jurong camp, they realised they made ANOTHER mistake. People like myself were the advanced party, not detachment IC! Like what the !@$#S&^*%A@#%$^(#F$@^%& is going on man!

Cannot even have the courtesy to cancel our online call up meh! SMS me so many times and email me so many times for flying fuck!?! Argh. Angry.

So now I'm back home after an hour's MRT ride from Boon Lay ranting away.
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The only good thing to come out of all this is that during reservist callup, you never fail to make more new friends. In our distress, a few of us who got to Maju camp early only to realise the army's mistake actually hitched a ride with one nice guy from a different unit. I think his name was Amin. A teacher at Yew Tee Pri Sch, really nice guy, offered us a ride. So there was nothing much 4 grown-up strangers could do in a tiny Hyundai Matrix other than to get to know each other.

This other guy works at IT, and another guy(I totally can't remember names) works as a shipping analyst. At least it makes you feel like an all-Singaporean macho soldier all over again when the only thing we have in common was the complaints about the lousy army call-up system. We bitched about the army, then bitched about the 2.2months bonus civil servants would get, and then bitched about working in the private sector, and then bitched about how expensive cars were in Singapore.

And now you know why there's racial harmony in Singapore. There's always something that we all have in common to bitch about!

Ha.

Singapore Motorshow 2006

It sucked.

If you had intended to waste $10 to go there and look at chio cars, and tons of chio babes, you hardly missed shite(see my top 3 below enough liao!), so you're lucky you didn't get off your lazy ass for nought.

And for me to be there almost 6 days in a row made it even worse. Luckily I had good company and good eye-candy.

Our booth was so out of place. A financial institution(that didn't offer loans nor credit cards) in the middle of a motorshow. Sheesh.

Anyway luckily I had the good company of fellow car model buaya colleagues haha.

I know the girlfriend ain't gonna like this but below are my top 3 car models(and I took all the photos off my Olympus)!!!

Guys, don't nosebleed to death hor!

#3 - Lexus model

She looks abit fat, no, poofy in this picture and her bye-bye arms being so terribly obvious, are waving bye-bye to the #1 spot, but in person she's really saucy and kei. I didn't see a bigger crowd of ogly men happily snapping pictures of her on the first day of my manning the booth...

...until Nissan got jealous of the attention and brought in model #2 on day 3...

#2 - Nissan model

Before we saw her at the Nissan booth we were wondering what the fuss was all about, then we saw her, from far away, blocked out by 10,000 other hot-blooded pervs. I mean, there were guys queuing up just to take pictures with her(what car?)! Edmund refused to let me take pictures with her because he likes her and wants only his picture with her in my camera.

*roll eyes*

Oh by the way, she's only 18.

I know, there IS a paedophile in each and every one of us.

But the ultimately prize went to my personal favourite...

#1 - Subaru model

This was my all-motorshow fav(and not just because she took photo with me).

*blush*

She wasn't as popular among the photo-happy drooling perverts but she definitely was the sweetest of the lot IMHO!

OK, so thats it for the motorshow, it was fun lah actually, not as bad as I first made it sound.

Pru-ned

Suddenly, the agent said,

"You look really familiar, have I seen you somewhere before?"

I was taken aback.

In front of the rest of them.

All the light chatter immediately went silent.

Immediately everyone focused on our conversation.

"Were you from Dunman High?"

Stunned.

"Erm, how'd you guess?", I said.

"Oh! I remember liao! You were in scouts! Right?"

Stunned. Again.

Like, what the f...?!

"And you were in 1B and 2B right?"

... ... ...

"You are Zhiyang right?!"

Shocked.

Triple stunner.

"I played basketball with you guys before! And I was in the class beside you!"

Blank face.

*blink*

And I didn't know who the fuck she was.

Seriously.

*shudder*