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During my last trip back to Singapore, I bought a HP Pavilion DV2 laptop because it had a HDMI port and a dedicated graphics processor card. This laptop was then transported back to my apartment in China, where I have linked it up to my 46 inch flatscreen HDTV (It’s a AllView China brand which [...]
Remember those awesome Pirelli Run-Flat tyres, I bought in Sept 2008? Well, I forgot as well. I thought since they cost so much and could continue running despite a puncture, they would probably last forever.
I even ignored the fap-fap-ftsskkk-fap-fap sounds coming from the tyres for a couple of months.
The photo above shows what happens, when [...]
For a long time now, I’ve been unable to sleep throughout the night. Most nights, I find myself sitting in an upright position in my bed staring at the spot on the wall. Sometimes, I find myself in parts of my house like the kitchen. And I also wake up like 4 times every night [...]
Last night was perhaps one of the most confusingly horrific nights during my tour of duty in China. I had been invited for the wedding dinner of a female colleague and went along to see what a China wedding was like.
Something I discovered included that the China Chinese are even worse than the Singaporean Chinese [...]
I would like to give you an update of my life.
Strangely, I barely have the urge to blog much these days. My mind is filled with strange and wondrous creatures that I suspect are not of my making. The tendency is for me to shy away from the intarwebs after work because I now [...]
Here were my resolutions for 2009.
Be Selfish
The main reason why I am so unhappy is because I run around doing all kinds of things for other people, but wind up having no time for myself. In 2009, I am going to be selfish and spend a lot more time doing things that make me happy.
What [...]
The most depressing thing I’ve read in the past couple of weeks would be this post on “What are your 30s like?”. Man, I seem to be having some kind of mid-life crisis at 31 years of age, accelerated by a sudden posting to a foreign country where I can’t read or write the [...]
Last night, I popped into a Gramaphone store to grab a Yo-Yo Ma album (which ever one would do) because the wife wanted to get a hi-fi for the bedroom to listen to classical music straining through the night. It was then that I was pleasantly reminded that several Beatles albums had been remastered so [...]
I will be returning to Singapore, later this week.
Things I wish to purchase to bring back to China, I made a list:
Chai Poh (to cook Chai Poh omelettes so I can make authentic teowchew porridge in China)
An android based phone (probably a HTC) so I can make calls over 3G using Gmail Chat. Fuck you [...]
The last 3 days of my life has been anything less than normal.
The security guards at my company staged a strike and walk-off. I won’t go into details on what they did, but I temporarily became their new boss that morning and began negotiations. It’s not a pleasant thing to do, standing in front of [...]
Fedup of tethering my iPhone to my Laptop so that I could share the 3G connection, I decided to purchase a wireless 3G router instead.
So I sent a message to Jaywalk to ask him what on earth a router was called in Chinese. For those of you who don’t know it’s San Ji Wu Xian [...]
I made a list
cooking my own dinner, strangely the least complex thing I have to do in my life these days.
my iPhone 3GS, because strangely it’s really fun to play games like ‘Gangstar’.
SMS’s from friends. If you know me, SMS me please.
Reading the Night Watch Tetralogy. Russian sci-fi/horror is so interesting.
Re-watching The Damn United [...]
My birthday this year began when I was surprised by my GM who walked unannounced into my office at 11.30am and told me to leave for lunch immediately with him. He then whisked me to an extremely high-end Japanese teppanyaki restaurant where we were served grilled bits of expensive animals by a chef. After the [...]
Next month, I’m moving my family into a new house. We’ve finally managed to afford a semi-d house in an exclusive gated neighbourhood next to a river. I can say that my parents are overjoyed.
My 20 year brother is moving in with me and I’m happy about that. There is no doubt that I’d rather [...]
21 July – Update:
Microsoft says they’ll send me a replacement. Problem solved.
Hi Caleb
Read your blog post about the problem you are having for your Arc mouse and I’m sorry to hear it was defective.
To make up for the unpleasant experience, and since you’ve been a big supporter of our products, I’d like to replace your [...]
This weekend, I returned home for a short break.
However, it was a mad dash to catch up with my life away from work. The day would begin at 8am with me rushing to have breakfast with my immediate family, followed by driving in a hurry to meet up with contractors to check the status of [...]
I’m sitting in the SQ lounge waiting to board the 830am to Hong Kong.
My soul, it recoils from my touch these days.
Today, I hung out with my old pal Duckhawk who has his own bachelor pad filled with boy toys in the West of Singapore. To my great amazement, we found ourselves playing Xbox360 games.
Amazing. Two successful thirtysomething alpha males and all we did was hunch over the television congratulating each other on our individual styles [...]
According to Lillian Too, anybody born in the year of the horse is going to suffer from bad luck for the next 2 months.
2 days ago, I got caught in a flood after work.
Yesterday, I was trapped in my hotel lift which broke down suddenly in the evening.
Today, one of my workers put the kettle [...]
I had to attend a meeting at an offsite location, so I called my driver and told him to pick me up from there at 5pm instead.
At 5pm, he calls me and says he’s sorry because he went to my office instead, and was now on the way to my current location. Ok fine no [...]
Hi, I’m going with the wife to spend the next 2 days in Kuala Lumpur for some rest. I had earlier suggested Penang Island but later realized it was a bit too far to drive to.
Most of today was spent on the phone talking to my team in China, while I was at the [...]
Today I read about the Harvard disadvantage which discusses how akward poor kids felt when they got accepted into Harvard where rich brats totter about.
Man talk about deja vu (no, I didn’t go to Harvard).
In 1996, I arrived to study in Singapore. The moment I set foot on the campus, I knew I didn’t fit [...]
Sitting on the ferry from HKIA to China, I tried to absorb my entire concentration into my latest book ‘Drood’ by Dan Simmons. My mind however kept drifting back to the fact that they had bloody lost my suitcase.
So there I was, forlorn with the knowledge that I was marooned in China with only the [...]
Every bleeding weekend, I make plans to visit Hong Kong to mooch around or Macau to gamble. After all, it’s a simple 1.5 hour journey if you throw in the immigration clearance from China to those places.
So far, I’ve only succeeded twice. On both trips, I had company.
The issue I have really, is the crippling [...]
So I just hooked up with quite a bunch of old friends, whom I grew up with.
Imagine my shock when I discovered from their facebook profiles:
The athlete dude, was gay all along. He’s now out of the closet.
The class fairy, was a fairy after all. I always thought he would ‘grow’ out of it.
The smart [...]
I made a list
The following hold no fear for me anymore
Going bald
Not being rich and famous
The dark
Giving speeches in front of large crowds
The end of the world
These however, still scare the shite out of me
Heaven or hell
Dentists
Peter Straub books (f87k you, Stephen King)
Disappointing my parents (it’s an Asian thing)
Africa
I made a list:
I signed forms to approve time-off for young girls to get abortions.
Females from Sichuan & Yunnan (look but cannot touch)
Retrenching elderly managers
Hunanese cuisine (spicier than Thai food)
Pollution in the cities
Insane chinese driving and traffic
Moutai liquor
It’s become a sort of routine that my wife and I go shopping each time I get back. I pick out dresses and accessories for her, and she gets me stuff. What’s happening is that we tend to go into hibernation mode while I’m away, and not spend any money. And then suddenly I come [...]
Hi, I’m actually back in Singapore right now but I haven’t told anybody. My throat is ravaged with diesese and the drugs in China don’t work. So no alcohol, no smoke-filled pubs and no fried pub food. I’m going home to convalescence.
Last week, I saw the full extent of the global ratfuck recession. I hired [...]
The best thing about being brought up a Roman Catholic, is that you’re hardwired for a bucket load of guilt trips even as you progress into adult life. I could go on and on about the tinge of guilt I feel each time I gaze upon a perfectly formed pearl-shaped breast or a wrinkled saggy [...]
The truth is that I’m a 20 year old girl, studying law in NUS. I created Cowboy Caleb because my boyfriend thought it would be sexay to screw a schizo female lawyer.
I’ve since switched teams and am now a happy Lesbian. Their plumbing is just much better.
So sorry, I wish I was a 30something angsty [...]
Rebecca Zeng, a self-proclaimed long time reader of my blog wrote in to ask me if I could share some of my favourite things with all the readers of my blog.
Why not?
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Where is your favourite food in Singapore?
I really like the chicken rice sold at this stall located in a shop directly across the street [...]
Remember that crazy ghost story I blogged about a couple of weeks ago?
There was another ‘incident’ last week. Only this time, it happened in the room next door.
This may sound crazy, but I’m seeing a ‘ghostbuster’ this afternoon to engage his services.
What choice do I have? If I don’t put a stop to this, more [...]
Somebody gave me a Jasper Xbox 360 console. This makes it my second Xbox 360. I’m probably going to give it to my brother, so we can game together in the same house, just on separate televisions.
I’m wondering why Microsoft won’t make an MMORPG on their damned platform. There really isn’t much compelling reason why [...]
Lying in a bathtub full of steaming scalding soapy hot water, I cannot help but wiggle my toes and wonder how it be like if I just slit my wrists and dozed off to the Land of Nod, borne by bubbles and bathwater.
The path of least resistance mandates that one takes the easy way out, [...]
Before I started travelling to China, I was told that all the expats we sent there eventually transformed into monsters by the end of their tour of duty. After spending 2+ years here, I realize this is true to a certain extent because
You have more money than the average local. Lots more money. Bucket loads.
The [...]
My mom has been complaining lately about her vision getting from bad to worse.
What she does, is watch 2-3 hours of television every weekday night (and more on weekends) on her 32 inch LCD television.
Of course, my absent-son-guilt-complex kicked in immediately and when we walked past an electrical store, I ended buying a new [...]
On my flight back to Singapore on Saturday, a guy 2 seats in front of me suffered a heartattack. At first I thought he was moving about because we were both watching a rather exciting scene from “Quantum of Solace” but then the air stewardess started crowding around him.
Today, I ran over a cat that [...]
If you are a regular reader of “Cowboy Caleb”, you may have noticed that my posting frequency has dropped.
It has now come to the point where I’m afraid to blog. My traffic seems to have increased mysteriously (I’m not one of those people who enjoy analyzing their server logs) and my blog melts down every [...]
For the past 8 days, I have been living in hotel rooms across China. When one is in a hotel room, one usually switches on the television and leaves CNN/MSNBC/BBC running in the background while one works or reads.
A constant stream of negativity surrounding the current economic crisis affecting EVERYBODY across the globe has driven [...]
Today, my 1 year old nephew collapsed on the floor with a loud thud, eyes rolling back into his head and totally inresponsive to our calls. The entire family panicked. We carried him out of the house, and then realized that he had been eating an apple before he fell down.
An Indian neighbour told us [...]
I’m always looking for new ways to bond with my 19 year old brother. The 11 year gap between is making it difficult for us to find things in common. After passing my Megadeth and Metallica stuff to him, I’ve just about run out of stuff to talk about.
Enter Guitar Hero & Rock Band [...]
Today, we went back to my maternal grandmother’s place for a Chinese New Year reunion dinner.
Since I am her favourite grandchild (eldest, male, you get the idea) she made my favourite dishes, much to the chagrin of everybody else.
I realized how old she had gotten. Her back was bent – making her seem smaller [...]
Today, we woke up at late at 11am because my wife and family had to go to the temple at midnight on the eve of Chinese New Year. Upon waking up, we sped over to my parents place to pick them up and then scooted down to my eldest aunt’s place where lunch was waiting [...]
Mandrake has managed to restore the database, and all my blogs comments have now reappeared! Hooray!!!! 3 cheers for my favourite asshat!
I’m currently in the first class lounge at the Shenzhen airport. Surprisingly, my domestic airline ticket is part of the Star Alliance, so my gold Krisflyer card managed to get me VIP privileges.
My [...]
Hi,
If you’ve been trying to access my blog for the past couple of hours and kept getting a white screen with a funky error message, I apologize.
What happened is that the database table that stores all comments posted by readers, has crashed and burned. And in its demise, it pulled the entire blog down with [...]
Today at 5pm, I took part in the retrenchment of a 55 year old manager. The poor man’s eyes grew red towards the end, and he said with a quivering voice “How will I explain to my wife?”. I shook his hand and thanked him for his years of service and then showed him out [...]
When I was a bachelor living out in the mean streets of Singapore on my own, it was a constant puzzlement why my health did not degrade. After all, I ate out most of the time and at the most irregular hours.
Today, the NYT has published an article entitled “The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t [...]
ViableAxis.
I’d like to say a big thank you to the Singapore Xbox Xpert Sheylara and the Microsoft PR Manager for Xbox, Ian Tan.
There was a pretty messy issue that I was facing with my Xbox Live, but they stepped in and took care of it for me, after I emailed them.
I’m really grateful. Thanks so [...]
Needless to say, most of you out there have facebook accounts.
From time to time, we all receive ‘pokes’ from our friends or strangers. I’m not sure what function this serves. So I’ve formulated this idea that whenever somebody pokes you on facebook, what they’re really trying to say is “Hey asshole, are you still alive?” [...]
This weekend, my brother finally made up his mind on what he wants to study. I’m a bit surprised at his choice, but I’m supportive. So we all drove out with him to his new institute and paid the bill while he signed on the dotted line.
After that, we went over to Funan to shop [...]
Here were my resolutions for 2008. Let’s review them. Those crossed out were successfully achieved.
Pay attention to the details
Something I didn’t do in 2007 that resulted in quite a few challenging migraines arising. I have to stop this high-level hoighty-toighty manager bullshit and focus on the little stuff. The devil is quite literally in the [...]
I made a list:
I am down with food poisoning.
Too much hassle to park my car close to the party venue
I’m not sure 2009 is going to be a good year, so why bother ushering it in?
Just imagining the traffic jams and the human swarms I’ll have to brave trying to get home after the countdown [...]
Yesterday, I lied to the entire cohort of kiddies that Santa Claus had called me to say that Christmas has been postponed due to freak weather in the North Pole (global warming) thus triggering an avalanche of adolescent enquiries regarding the truth surrounding my statement.
Safe to say, today I warmly informed the kiddies at 10am [...]
Merry Christmas to all my readers.
I’ve spent close to SGD2k on gifts for my family this year, despite the recession. Don’t ask me why, I just feel that I don’t spend much time with them, and it’s during Christmas that I get to show make up for it them how much I love them .
People [...]
For reasons quite puzzling to me, the air in China is extremely dry today in addition to being cold.
One of my staff told me that her eyes hurt when she woke up, because it was too dry. Another said that she could barely croak in the morning because her throat was too dry.
For me, I’m [...]
My dad has been asking for me to bring the family up to the Cameron Highlands for a holiday. Finally I relented partially because I need a holiday too, and managed to rent an apartment for the weekend after making something like 30 phone calls.
So I’m going to be away until Monday, 8 Dec.
Internet connection [...]
I worked from home yesterday, and after having my lunch, I surfed over to youtube where I try to watch a few episodes of The Twilight Zone. Having no luck finding copies of the old Twilight Zone episodes which are black and white, I have now resorted to watching them online. My favourite happens to [...]
This is a conversation that took place between me and my 9 year old niece.
Niece: I’m hungry
Cowboy: Would you like a ham and cheese sandwich?
Niece: Ok. Where does ham come from, uncle Caleb?
Cowboy: Hamsters.
*silence for about 10 seconds*
Niece: …hamsters?
Cowboy: Where do you think ham comes from then?
As a result, my niece refuses to eat ham [...]
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