a confession, a tragedy + my first video post

My dirty secret for today is that I have a big soft spot for songs with falsetto. This explains my love of Muse and their gossamer wailing over rumbling bass, and my passion with The Rubettes' "Sugar Baby Love," which slaps you in the face with a full-on falsetto after a mere 15 seconds' diatonic warm-up. And now my obsession has turned to Mika and his "Relax, Take It Easy."

The problem is that, though I love this song and hear it in my head on repeat during most waking hours, it is not possible - in the name of human decency - to sing it aloud. I sound like a trampled cat. And if I sing it in the shower, I sound like a wet trampled cat. And if I sing it in the privacy of my car, zooming through the traffic of SZ Road, I sound like a gay ambulance siren.

And so I am sad. This is my tragedy -- to love a song, and yet to be unable to sing it...

Dubai, the BESTEST city - part 5

Because they've cracked the secret of linguistic alchemy.

Paracelsus couldn't do it.
Isaac Newton couldn't do it.
Tycho Brahe couldn't do it.
But here in Dubai, they've turned our leaden tongues into... you guessed it... GOLD!

A day in the life of Eva: bathroom surprises

I've been meaning for quite a long time to start a "day in the life" series. I think now is the time, considering I've featured a dent on my car without ever having shown the car itself which I've had for almost a year without yet posting any pictures of the gleaming white beauty (the car that is, not my pale albino self... though I will do my best to arrange a picture of me dressed in white lounging on the hood of the white car... it will be like one of those posters that you stare at for 5 minutes before some 3D images lunges for your jugular with a dizzying leap).

Anyway. I will never have the patience to document one real day in its entirety so you'll have to tolerate this "day in the life" series being out of order.

Let's start with my morning bathroom break at work...
One of the great benefits of my job is the incredibly diverse team I work with. We have over 30 nationalities in the headquarter office of my company and, despite the unusual odors from the microwave at lunchtime, this is overwhelmingly a positive thing. However sometimes it does sneak up and confuse me.

For instance, I was recently minding my own business in the toilet when I noticed a Listerine bottle out of the corner of my eye.
Fine, fine, until I looked a little closer and spent the next 30 seconds convinced I had been stricken with dyslexia:

Yes, the bottle reads:
Melawan kuman-kuman penyebab bau mulut, plak & radang gusi gingivitis

Dubai, the BESTEST city - part 4

Where better to experience the wild, wild middle-east?

Let me introduce you to another of Dubai's most excellentest visionarinesses:








From it's website: "Western City was designed using state-of-the-art technology combined with historical elements to create a country environment for tourists by including farms, cowboy shows, and sound and light shows. ...Shows take place the whole day until night giving the public enough time to enjoy each respective show. The public may even choose which show they wish to see at their own convenience, and these shows take place everyday so they may even see them again. The shows involve cowboys driving cattle, Indians chasing buffaloes, wagons of settlers, etc……."

Now, I am thoroughly convinced of the subtlety, class, and cultural tact of this future development, but I would like to clarify a few things about these state-of-the-art shows. For one, are the Indians chasing buffaloes AND wagons of settlers? And secondly, will they import real live American Injuns? I'm sure it would be cheaper if these Indians (like all the other minimum-wage workers in Dubai) were played Phillipinos. Or India-Indians. In leather chaps.

Actually, I'm quite sure I've already seen some of that in an evening entertainment venue in Deira...

Yeeeehaw!