Ah, February 15, anniversary of the British discovery that they were even worse at stopping a blitzkrieg attack than the Polish and French were. But Singapore comes to mind, partly because I suspect every time I ever see snow again it's going to come to mind, and also because I've got some little sprinkles of e-mail and physical mail from there. One is from Singapore Post, with this month's special offers. If I had something to send by Speedpost Worldwide -- sending twenty kilograms anywhere in the world in about a week -- I could get 20 percent off. I could have really, really used this back in December, but all they had then were little S$5.00 discounts. Also with the Speedpost shipment comes a free pack of SingPost hong bao envelopes and the chance to win a digital camera, an Acer laptop computer, or, of course, an iPod nano. The iPod they show is in pink.
And from the Singapore Zoo I get mail that I'm missing the chance to usher in the Year of the Hog, with the ZooDiac Trail, the Pig Topiary (``be greeted by our twelve very hogspicious piggy-shaped shrub creations. Snap a picture with them and put in your charity bid to bring home a pair!'') and the Happy Hogs Show (``Be enthralled by the cheekiness of the Zoo's stars -- the very intelligent hogs!''). I can't tell if that's showing the cleverness of actual hogs, or of it's meant to be a comic thing with the guy in the hog suit pictured to the right.
Otherwise life seems to be going on just fine without me: the Singapore government thinks there's no particular short- or long-term threat to the country's development from Indonesia's recently declared ban on sand exports. Indonesia's government said it was stopping the export of sand for environmental concerns, which might well be true. After the last couple of years they've had of earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and accidental creation of mud-whirlpools I imagine I'd want to leave everything in the ground very well alone. And a group hoping to help Singapore's bid to have as many Guinness Book of World Records records as possible gathered over 91,000 soda cans to create what they believe is the world's longest display of drink cans. At least everything looks like it's in order.
Trivia: After the fall of Singapore Japan seized about 50,000 reels of British and American films. Source: Forgotten Armies, Christopher Bayly, Tim Harper.
Currently Reading: Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, Gregory Maguire. (See, I do too read fiction.) Gah! I know with a project like this you need to make sure the readers aren't thinking too much of the MGM musical, and better to get them out of that thought sooner rather than later, but I wasn't ready to hear the Tin Man talking about castration and hermaphroditism on the first page. What next, Mary Jane Watson getting cancer from Amazing Spider-Sperm? Thankfully it doesn't keep that tone.