The Whateverlah Blog

Still looking for my blogging mojo.

In the meantime here’s Stephanie March and Mariska Hargitay at the Gracie’s. Crappy interview. But man, Stephanie should get an NRA membership for those guns she’s sporting. Like whoah!

It was past midnight, closer to one in the morning, when the brother and I were driving home from another food mcguyverism adventure to McDonalds (another post for another day).

As we sat at a light I stared at a giant billboard across the street.

“Bungalow,” I said outloud as I read the plain advertisement for real estate. “Bungalow…” I repeated the word to myself over and over again. “You know,” I turned to the brother, “that doesn’t sound like a very English word.”

“It’s definitely not American. It’s British what.”

“That’s what I mean,” I said. “It’s British but the origins sound colonial.”

“They got no bungalows in UK meh?”

“I’m just saying that I don’t remember the word being used in like.. Sherlock Holmes.” Or in any Jane Austen stories that I remember. “I mean, it’s colonial.. you say the word and you picture an English bungalow in some tropical place no?”

“Yea..” the bro said non-committedly.

“Bungalow… bung-guh-loh… sounds Indian, right? Like, Bangla?” I tried to posit.

“Go home and look it up in Wikipedia lah.”

“I will. I will. Just trying to figure it out on my own first mah.” Thinking about how often I use the word I said, “You never hear it in US though hor?”

“Got lah. Very rare but I’ve heard it used,” the brother said.

“Where? In the south?”

“Got lah…”

“Mmm.. I never.”

“Technically, most American houses are bungalows what,” he pointed out.

“Ehh. I never saw it that way. But you’re right.” (dammit, +1 for him in the ‘always right unofficial contest’)

When we got home I was too lazy to mess with the computer. This morning I remembered so I wiki’ed the term bungalow:

A bungalow is a type of single-story house that originated in India. The word derives from the Hindi ba?gl? (or perhaps the Gujarati variant ba?glo), meaning “Bengali”, used elliptically for a “house in the Bengal style”. Such houses were traditionally small, only one story, thatched and had a wide veranda.

Okay. I’m satisfied now.

The point of this story is that my little puzzle would have been solved very instantly and easily if I own an iPhone. But then I wouldn’t have had half the fun working it out and having conversations like that with the brother. I like my little Nokia 1110.

Yasmin Ahmad talking to the media(?) during the filming of The Funeral.

In this other one, Yasmin talks to some bloggers a year ago. There’s some great anecdotes from the Tan Hong Ming ad. She also touched on several things that I really relate to when talking about filmmaking. One is the idea of control, or the lack of it as the director; and secondly – art as collaboration. I really could listen to her talk all day about film making, love, and on being Malaysian.

STEPHANIE MARCH IS GOING TO STAY WITH SVU

Ausiello just broke the news that apparently Miss March has signed on to appear for at least 10 episodes next season! (In the other episodes, she’ll be stuck in traffic)

At least? C’MON. Gimme Cabot 24/7/365. You know we like it!

Yes. Yesyesyesyesyes. YES!

*girlie scream*

*happy snoopy dance*

(This means Operation Keep Alex Cabot has met its objective. I could cry.)

Blablabla.. the teaching of English (not Math and Science in English) is being kicked around in the spotlight again.

Our Education Minister was shocked (shocked! I tell you!) that you don’t need to pass English to get an SPM cert. So what does he do? He says he wants to “gather gather feedback if this situation was good for the country”.

Does he– What is– Can– ARGH…. WHAT THE FUCK?

Does nobody even question this continual lowering of standards and how it means that the SPM certificate is worth about as much as the toilet paper I wipe my ass with these days?

And I’m not saying that we should overnight make English a compulsory pass subject – it should actually be a credit subject but that’s like asking for the sky.

I’m sayin’ that this continual lowering of expectations means the quality of English being taught in schools suffers because if you don’t need to pass it, who gives a damn? 

Ok, so we set aside the whole English thing. Here’s something else I just learned about the SPM exams that made me want to kill little puppies:

“A pass in English has never been compulsory for SPM. Since 2000, a pass in Bahasa Malaysia was sufficient to get the SPM certificate. Previously, a credit was a must.”

So, not only you can fail English spectacularly — because let’s admit it, the SPM English paper is a joke — but now (ok, since 2000) you can also nearly fail our national language and still get your SPM cert. Again, I say, WHAT THE FUCK YO?!

Literacy fail = unity fail = you and me fail.

Stephanie March pic spam! After the jump because I’m considerate like that.

 
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The episode Zebras in a nutshell, on AIM earlier:

Me: I’m going to teach that bitch to ride the subway
she thinks her blue blooded ass is too good for a subway seat

D: lol

Me: i’ll show her
ALEX FUCKING CABOT
YOU RIDE A SUBWAY WHEN THEY NEED YOUR KICK ASS BUTT

D: I think I fell in love with Liz

Me: oh welcome to teh family

D: you didnt hear that

Me: actually, we’re grieving the loss of Ryan

So. Amanda Green? What do I have to do to get you to write most if not all of season 11? Because… I realise the show is unsalvageable but it’d be great if the series didn’t implode in itself. You know I think you rock – I even concurred on Twitter with Mick Betancourt when he said you are the shit! 

I’m sorry you had to write with Dan Truly, but for the most part Zebras was a good story. You (and Truly) even made me feel sorry for Bing Bang Bong Boy. But only juuust a little since he killed Ryan O. Where am I going to get my tech luvin now?

And Alex Cabot was stuck in traffic and couldn’t make it to arraignment court to duke it out with Liz Donnelly? Much sadness there, let me tell you. I’m still waiting on my Liz/Alex showdown.

Next season, people. It’s a small chance… because silly Dick will probably want a new ADA. FAIL. But here’s a scenario that could happen – the DA will promote Cabot to Sex Crimes Bureau Chief and I can enjoy the moments where she schools the new ADA. Yea. I could totally live with that. Leave me to my delusions.

(so what the hell, y’all – go sign the Keep Stephanie March / Alex Cabot on SVU Petition. Sheesh.)

Would be too much to make a montage to this song. So just… enjoy it as is.

Mick Betancourt, a writer on SVU, is on twitter answering questions. Someone asked him if he wrote ‘Zebras’ the SVU season finale and he replied:

@bubbleguru this episode was written by Amanda Green and Dan Truly. Two really great writers – and I’m not just saying that

Well, first of all.. Mr. Betancourt wrote episodes like ‘Fight’ aka ChesterLakeFail back in season 9. His credits this season includes ‘Wildlife’ and ‘Snatched’ and the measles episode, ‘Selfish’. So of course he’d say Amanda Green is a great writer.

But did you shriek in terror like I did when you realized Daniel Truly is going to be partly responsible for the finale? Oh god. Ohgodohgodohgod. Daniel Teen Pregnancy Asshat Astronaut Crazy Birdie Truly.

Help us, Obiwan Kenobi! You’re our only hope!

This happened awhile ago so I hope I’m attributing it to the right person. (Can’t imagine it would be anyone else though)

Me: Hungry lah…

Bro: Me too.

Me: What to eat ah? I don’t feel like having rice tonight.

Bro: Don’t feel like eating rice? Are you asian or not?!

Obviously, he wasn’t serious. There are many times, tonight for instance when it was burgers, when rice is not served.

Still, thought it was hilarious when he said it.

I have no words for you. You make me sad. I’m going to go cry in New York’s arms. But first I’m going to sleep on it. Maybe I won’t hate you so much tomorrow. I doubt it. It feels like the morning of November 5th again. Except that day it was happy and sad. Today it was just sad. I feel like puking. 

California, you need to come to your senses. I have no words.

UPDATE:

OK, California. We can talk, some, now that I’ve read you Supreme Court’s ruling… and even agree with it. I’m a little disturbed that I concur with their reasonings but hey, what do I know about the law.

So, like I already said last November: Channel your anger and frustrations in grassroots movements to repeal this amendment in 2010.

That is all.

This is the drinks series..

In this series: ABC from Ipoh Stadium, 100 Plus, sirap bandung, tembikai susu and tea. Plain ol’ tea.

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see more Lolcats and funny pictures

Friday’s xkcd had Mathnet reference!

It was only this past Monday that I was telling someone how much I loved Mathnet and Square One TV. The Mathnet series was a spoof of, duh, Dragnet and each episode was about 5-7 minutes, if I recall. In place of cops, you get two mathmeticians. One of them is obviously George there and his partner is Kate Monday. They solved crime using maths (no, not like they do in that silly Numb3rs show). The partners dressed in jacket and tie, and wore shoulder holsters that held a calculator. Oh, that killed me. I was a crime show junkie before I knew what “procedurals” meant.

Whatever happened to good educational programs eh?

On 30th April, I said:

- there’s something really fishy about bingbangbongboy’s role
- I have a theory: he’s the killer in the finale.

And now, watch the trailer to SVU’s 10th season finale…

The voice that says “I didn’t want to have to hurt you too,” has GOT to be BingBangBongBoy.

Granted, it doesn’t take alot to figure that a random insertion of a semi-recurring character this late in the season always seems fishy.

Hah. As I said in an email earlier: “How sick is it that I’m excited to see the ep? Damn the trailers. I know it lies and yet I want to believe the lies.”