Benevolence

Arrgghhh, i wrote a long post and blogger did not register it. Re-writing it miserably again now in the wee hours of Christmas.

Christmas season. I don't give a hoot. A season to be joyful, a season filled with glee. My response. Bah humbug!

All I can say is that Christmas is a great marketing ploy conjured up by some 1960s salesmen in America who were thinking of a reason on how to increase better sales in their snow plower and candy canes. What they didnt realize that 40 years down the road, they gave reason for people to buy junk for other people they loved, on the road at ridiculous prices.

In Christmas there are essentially 2 type of people, the giver and the receiver.

The giver is the person who is very deluded. They believe that they can wash away their sins of what they did to people by amending their relationships with bar soaps, awful dark chocolate and useless ornaments in exchange for forgivenance. They are suckers to advertisements and have loads of experience lining up at gift wrapping service counters so they scringe from spending more effort by asking strangers to have the honour of wrapping gifts on their behalf. The giver is also a loyal member of their credit card company as they love accumulating interest so that they can lie in a pile of debt every chrisstmas.

The receiever aka me, is the person who is a realist. They believe that Christmas is bullshit. That is why they don't have many friends or have much of a religion. They have this ideology of the action of giving presents can be done any single period of the year and must not wait until the end of the year to suddenly splurge on gifts at jacked up prices. They put more sincerity when they give out presents (any time of the year) as they put much thought in the gift. They would choose the gift carefully instead of charging to the departmental store special section of festive gifts.

Of course there are many type of genres, but im only describing two here. The giver is like a sheep among packs of a million sheeps. If people start giving gifts, they would also have to start giving gifts or they will have irrepressable guilt that they have live through the next 364 days. Hence, everyone is sucked into the vortex of the season to give. Sigh, its a horrid consumer world out there.

On a side note, I went to watch Mona Lisa's Smile. A great chick movie. Not that i enjoy the fact it is a great chick flick but the very fact that it had a strong cast of Julia Roberts, Julia Stilles, Kirsten Dunst to name a few who were E-X-C-E-L-L-E-N-T. Furthermore, a believable movie plot which was not predictable with few twists and turns that made the whole movie enjoyable. I'm more of a SNAG than a typical caveman so i really enjoyed the movie. The other 4 pals of me who were the typical "You Jane, Me Tarzan, I go fetch banana, you clean banana" chauvanists blamed me for recommending such a show to them. Hell to them, I love Julia Roberts. She is just FANTASTIC !!!

After the movie, it was like 11 pm. Decemeber 25th will hit a bumper in about an hour. As we parked our car at Borders and the movie was at Cathay Cineleisure, there was quite a distance to cover and a humongous crowd to conquer. Yup, you heard me right. The pavement was congested with families, more families, and families who brought along other families. Amongst them, there was the fake snow party can sprayers (FSPCS). They were the irritants of the crowd.

Theses FSPCS were just party people who were high on fake snow. They just kept spraying it to people. To hit on some hot chick or just to make someone blind, they love twitching that button to spray loads of fake snow onto innocent pedestrains (me) making their way back safely. The foam created from these FSPCS made the whole entire Orchard Road dirty with litter spraycans and the gooey stuff that dried up after the fake snow cringe after usage. It was havoc out there. I'm glad to have lived to tell the story. At least i know where to NOT go next year.

After the great Mona Lisa and the horrendous Crowda Shita, we visited Pros Vista. Yup, the holy grail of prostitutes, Geylang. Yup, it was just some cheap thrill of young teenagers just to watch prostitues up close in person on Christmas Day. Yes, it is THAT cheap. We practically circled or the streets (Lorongs) and sad to say, I only saw like 2 or 3 peddling for business. It seems that either prostitutes are in the festive mood and are part of the FSPCS contingent or that business was so good that we see so many queues outside those red-lantered houses. Anyway, all I say was bunch of lechers that were old men or Bangla workers checking the scene like us, having their own cheap thrill.

All said and done, it has been a great Christams Eve, I wish for the spirit of sharing and giving to be spread throughout the year and not only until the end of this week.

Bless you all with good wishes,
Benjamin